On July 20, Romania will consume its natural resources generated this year, which means that from then on it will live “on credit” towards planet Earth, while, globally, humanity's ecological credit will be exhausted on August 1, announced the international organization Global Footprint Network, in a report published on Wednesday, on World Environment Day.
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“After this date, all the energy we will use, everything we will eat, will be bought from stores or the trips that we will do will be at the expense of future generations“, the report states.
The Global Footprint Network calculates every year “Overcoming Day” or “Earth Overshoot Day”, which represents the date from which humanity begins to live on ecological debt, so it consumes the resources of the following years. This day symbolically marks the moment when the population's demand is greater than the Earth's supply, which demonstrates the increase in the population's consumption over what the Earth can produce.
Earth Overload Day or Overcoming Day, which varies from year to year and depends on how responsible we manage to be, is a ratio between the ecological footprint of human activity and the ability of natural ecosystems to regenerate to absorb the waste produced. At the moment, it takes nature 19 months to regenerate resources that have been exhausted in 12 months, according to studies carried out by an international organization in over 180 countries.
“The well-being and freedom that the technological advance offers us comes with a huge consumption of resources. If we think that almost 80% of an electronic equipment can be recycled, we will see that we have at least one solution to save resources and to avoid the extraction of new raw materials and ores. Electronics recycling is that small gesture, which, when multiplied, can have the power to positively influence these statistics”said Roxana Puia, marketing director of the Environ Association, involved in the management of electrical and electronic equipment waste in Romania.
According to Environ representatives, by 2022, all of humanity had already produced 62 billion kilograms of electrical equipment waste, of which only 22.3% were collected and recycled correctly.
As for Romania, it will live on ecological debt starting July 20. Our country is on the 78th place in this ranking, after last year it occupied the 30th position. The most wasteful countries are Qatar (February 11), Luxembourg (February 20), the United Arab Emirates (March 4), Kuwait (March 5) , Bahrain and Estonia (March 8).
At the opposite pole, among the most attentive to natural resources are Kyrgyzstan, which only loses one day this year (December 30), the Republic of Moldova (December 28), Guinea (December 27), Morocco and French Guinea (December 22).
The Environ Association is one of the most important players in the field of electrical and electronic equipment waste management in Romania. Environ represents the obligations of approximately 1,150 manufacturers that market imported electrical and electronic equipment or products under their own brand, respectively 27% of all companies registered at ANPM. In the almost 17 years of activity, it has managed to manage over 230,000 tons of electrical and electronic equipment waste and to organize over 4,000 collection points. The organization takes responsibility for all 6 categories of electrical and electronic equipment, respectively: thermal transfer equipment, monitors and screens, lamps, large equipment, small equipment and IT&C equipment.
