2.6 trillion Pounds of garbage. That’s the amount of trash the world will produce just this year. How much garbage does an average American go through yearly compared to other countries? How does this affect people’s lives and our future? If we could only reuse, reduce, and recycle; just these three simple things and we can start our journey to a cleaner, healthier, and happier planet.
The average American tends to go through 4.6 pounds of trash a day, 1,675 a year. That’s 600 times their body weight. Every day Americans throw away enough garbage to fill 63,000 garbage trucks. From all that garbage, half can be recycled. That is enough to fill a football stadium from top to bottom every day. Europeans produce 16 metric tons (35,274 pounds)
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With it being 200 feet deep and 300 acres wide it contains around 50 million tons of waste. The trash that Sin City produces ends up here. All 9,000 tons of it. There are many landfills across the world, but the earth’s biggest are located mostly in the United States, or near it. Puente Hills Landfill in Los Angeles, California is so big that it is being brought down because of security hazards to workers. It is 700 acres wide and 500 feet high. There are more than 15,000 tons of garbage brought in each day and it holds more than 3.7 million tons. Bord Poniento …show more content…
That is the case in Lagos State, Nigeria. The Lagos Dumpsite is 1,000 acres as of today, with 10,000 tons of solid waste per day. The Sudokwon Landfill in South Korea contains roughly 88 million tons of waste. That averages 20,000 tons per day or 6.3 million tons per year. Another large landfill is in the North Pacific Ocean. The Great Pacific garbage Patch is the world’s largest landfill. It is also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex. It extends from the west coast of North America all the way to Japan. Of all the waste that accumulates here, 80% of it is trash that comes from the land. 20% of the waste comes from boats, oil rigs, and enormous cargo ships that dump or lose rubble into the
The North Pacific Gyre, home to the north pacific Garbage Patch, occupies the zone of the subtropical High between Haeaii and California. It is the largest and best studied of the gyress, though still fraught with unknowns. It is thought to be the trashiest, though this question is still being studied. Covering more than 20 million square miles, it is the largest on earth and therefor the planet’s largest garbage dumps. (Humes, 2012, p.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “The average American trashes 10 times as much food as a consumer in South east Asia” (Hsu). That is about equivalent to eating 10 meals to a consumer in South East Asia’s one meal. We throw away our left over food just because we are done ea... ... middle of paper ... ... ff every month you have to pay interest, which is a waste of money because you paying extra for that money you spent.
Writers have always drawn inspiration from real events for their stories. Joyce Carol Oates is now being criticized as unethical for just that. The critics claim that it was not ethical for Oates to use the events that befell John Fiocco Jr. in her story "Landfill", and also for including many similarities between Fiocco and her main character Hector Campos Jr.. Though there are some similarities between the two, the differences were great enough that only some who knew of the Fiocco case. Because of this, Joyce Carol Oates' decision to use Fioccos' death as a fictional basis was ethical.
Landfills have been around for a long time. They have been used to get rid of our garbage so we don’t have to figure out how. Some think landfills are still a good idea. However there are many people that think landfills are harmful to us. There are other things that we in the United States can do to help with removal of our garbage or waste besides send it to the landfills. So closing down landfills would be a good idea or we could close down as many as we can. To be able to get rid of the landfills Americans need to learn more about composting, recycling and incineration as other forms of waste removal.
Landfills in America have taken many square miles of what used to be fertile land, forests and communities and that trend does not seem to have an end. The waste, we as Americans, dispose of each year is in the tons and that number rises annually. One of the reasons why this occurs is actually quite simple; population. Population in modern day America has soared to well above three hundred million, in 1915 that number was hundred million. Urbanization and industry has given way to deforestation and landfill creation. The need for more landfills has caused many health concerns, issues, and problems to not only those living near and
She suggests that Americans should reduce their overconsumption of such commodities since they are overburdening the non-biodegradable waste load in the garbage collection facilities. It is surprising to note that every Americans disposes more than four pounds of trash on a daily basis (Royte, 2005).
Silverman, Jacob. “Why is the world’s biggest landfill in the Pacific Ocean?” How Stuff Works. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.
Everybody throws away trash with little or no thought about where it’s going. What you might not know is that a lot of trash goes into our ocean. You may think it is not a big deal and that it’s just a little bit of trash in a really big ocean, but it’s not just a little bit of trash. In fact, it’s a whole lot. There is a place between California and Hawaii called the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, but is better known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. This area is the largest landfill in the world and is completely in the ocean. What are the effects of the landfill on the environment and how can it be prevented and rehabilitated to its original state?
a. Firstly, we are not in danger of running out of landfill space. According to Jay Lehr PhD, in the April issue of public policy magazine, Intellectual Ammunition, ?all the garbage we will generate in the next 10 centuries will require less than 35 square miles to a height of only 300 feet.? Also, according to Daniel Benjamin of PERC Reports, ?the United States has more landfill space then ever before.?
Generally people do not think about how much they waste as a human. As they go through their daily routine, they rarely stop to think about the things that they waste on a daily. Recently, the amount of waste humans create on a daily basis has been unbearably overwhelming. The United states is running out of ways to dispose of all the waste humans create. Waste is an issue that causes many problematic issues in the world, that has longing effects. Many individuals must realize that waste is a huge issue and one must be conservative to manage waste.
Have you ever wonder what can you do about the bottles and cans you find around you? People that doesn?t care about the world being clean is littering the place. It makes things very difficult to put up for. Recycling cans and bottles can help save the earth form waste and trash buildup and can make new things. I think that recycling should be mandatory and there should be recycling cans in various locations at school and everywhere else.
America and Europe are at the top of the list for most waste generated according to Waste (4). This is very visible because there’s litter on every street in the towns and cities, as well in lakes, beaches, and rivers. The book Waste by Rob Bowden states that the amount of waste produced is increasing at a rate faster than population growth. About 1.5 million computers, in the U.K, are thrown away each year and most end up in landfills. There are 3 types of waste which are Municipal Solid Waste, Industrial Waste, and Hazardous waste. MSW includes waste from public garbage cans and local dumpsters. Industrial Waste includes massive amounts of waste water that is contaminated with chemicals. Hazardous waste is the most dangerous as it presents a danger to human health and the environment. Solutions for waste disposal take time because people need to consider their lifestyle and limit the amount of waste they generate. A good start is to recycle items such as paper, cans, plastic, and clothes. This way they don’t end up in landfills, beaches, or streets. Another solution is to join organizations that go around places to recycle, or organizations that demand the reduction in the amount of products that are being
Traditional methods of waste disposal have proven to be ineffective and have caused harmful effects on the environment. The most popular and inexpensive way to get rid of garbage is burial, but burying your problems does not necessarily mean getting rid of them. Landfill sites pose as severe ecological threats as these mass garbage dump yards overflow with trash and frequently contaminate our air, soil and water with hazardous wastes. About 400 million tons of hazardous wastes are generated each year1. A large-scale release of these materials can cause thousands of deaths and may poison the environment for many years. For example many industrial companies around the world cannot afford to enforce the strict pollution regulations set by many developed countries. This usually forces these types of companies to move to developing countries where pollution regulations are very lenient. These developing countries knowingly accept environmentally hazardous companies usually because they are in desperate need of employment. The harmful effects of these companies were clearly illustrated in the 1960s and 1970s when residents living near Minamata Bay, Japan, developed nervous disorders, tremors, and paralysis in a mysterious epidemic. The root was later found to be a local industry that had released mercury, a highly toxic element, into Minamata Bay. The disaster had claimed the lives of 400 people1. Since 1970 you can bet that a lot more than 400 people have died as a result of waste disposal. If the type of waste disposal were cheaper and effective we wouldn’t have to deal with waste problems, which still plague mankind today.
The United States produces “about 8.25 billion tons of solid wastes each year” (Russell 1). People do not realize the impact they have on our planet and environment. When people throw anything in the trashcan, they are contributing to the destruction of our planet. The number landfills in the United States are decreasing, but the amount and volume of waste being thrown into the new landfills is increasing (Russell 4). Because of this escalating amount of garbage, Methane which contributes to global warming is an outcome of these landfills (Russell 7). As a result, our planet is suffering because of this epidemic. The garbage being put in the landfills could be recycled, but not enough businesses, ...
The average resident produces seven and a half pounds of garbage every day that is buried down in landfills and litter lands, costing a great amount of money. Nowadays, people face no more critical problem than the need to save the weakening environment, mainly in urban areas, where solid wastes are uselessly dumped. It has been observed that cities have no controlled structure for garbage disposal. Each year, millions of dollars are spent picking up litter and more is thrown away in valuable materials that could be recycled. As humanity develops new technology and equipment, the level of waste increases every day.