Literally let’s talk trash, even in an environmental conscience society no one really wants to talk about how they dispose of their garbage and whether they recycle or not. Regardless, the next time you throw something in the trash bin, stop and consider where well your garbage end up, most likely in an over-crowded landfill. According to estimated statistic taken in 2006 “55% (percent) of our waste will be buried in landfills, 33% (percent) will get recycled, and 12% (percent) will be burned in incinerators” (Human Footprint). Our garbage, whether it is buried, burned, or dumped is something that should concern every one of us. Consequently most landfills constructed in the early 1930’s were not properly designed to prevent leakage. Therefore lechate a toxic liquid created from waste has been known to percolate into the air, contaminate the ground water and infiltrating the soil which will ultimately affect our health and environment. Unfortunately, for our own health and environment once our garbage is out of sight it is also out of mind.
I myself never thought twice about where my garbage would end up either until the City of Fresno started sending me notices about my garbage. The first notice consisted of four pages of pictures of my garbage. As I thumbed through each page, I considered how we begin to consume products and generate waste from the moment we are born. Imagine how much one person can consume in a lifetime, if my husband and I alone in one week could produce four pages of garbage. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) reported in an article that, “the average person will produce approximately 4.6 pounds of garbage per day, or about 1,600 pounds in a year” (Wise Greek). These figures only reflect the average...
... middle of paper ...
...c bottle and then recycle it. One must make a conscious effort to reduce consumption and reuse what he or she can to make the greatest impact” (Voice). Therefore we have a dilemma that will necessitate a joint effort in saving our environment. As stated earlier according to the EPA from 1960 to 2008 the amount of waste each person creates has almost doubled from 2.7 to 4.6 pounds per day per person.” The most effective way to stop this trend is by preventing waste in the first place. It is time to wake up and become environmentally conscious of our role in saving our planet.
Unfortunately, for us our future is linked with the future of waste disposal and recycling. Since were in the same predicament don’t you thinks it is time to take an objective stand and reconsider recycling today for it is the last line of defense.
The food that they throw away first goes to the dumpsters and then they end up in landfills. This is also where the dumpster divers, or “scavengers” as Eighner prefers to be called, begin their search for food (353). Where he mostly found a great deal of dumpsters was in the city. As he puts it, “the land is now covered with cities,” which means that there will be an abundance of trash that needs to be disposed of (361). This leads to more landfills needed to be made and that takes a toll on the earth. Dockterman has stated that “the buildup of decomposing organic material accounts for 16% of environmentally harmful methane emissions in the U.S.;” these emissions go into the atmosphere that we breath our oxygen from (Dockterman). Not only does this practice affect people survival-wise, but also the earth that billions of people live
Heather Roger's essay Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage offers a compelling outlook on society’s excessive and uneconomical mass-production of goods (585). Rogers explains the process in which our garbage and waste are collected, processed, and discarded (Roger 585). From your kitchen, to the curb, then into collection trucks, to the processing unit, where they separate, recycle, burn, compact, and deposit your garbage in our Earth (Roger 585). Roger quotes “… Dumps are comprised of a series of earth covered cells” (Rogers 586). Landfills have used “Cells” to burry trash for decades and today’s cells are lined with a special material preventing the trash from leaking into the ground and rainwater (Roger 586). A cell can be up to 100 acres across and up to hundred feet deep (586). It takes years to fill a cell and after the cell is full it is “capped” and covered over with several feet of dirt (586-587).
Since the industrial revolution the United States has experienced tremendous change. This change has created a consumer culture that has resulted in the creation of mass amounts of waste. According to reports, in the year 2003 Americans produced almost 500 million pounds waste. Alone the U.S consumes 30% of the world’s resources and produces 30% of all waste (Conquest, 2). These numbers attest to a consumer culture that has created an undesirable waste problem that is yet to be resolved. However, not everyone is affected proportionately by waste, as predominantly low-income communities live in close proximity to waste related sites. In this paper I will discuss how low-income communities are disproportionately subjected to the detrimental health effects caused by waste, and I will argue that low-income communities have historically and are currently responding to counter the effects of waste to protect their communities.
More than half of the contributors to this survey know that there are at least 100 million plastic bottle disposed of a day. This is a frightening statistic but it is a hopeful prospect that people know about this because they could be trying to lessen that number by refilling water bottles more and recycling. Two people thought 500 million plastic bottles were disposed of and another two people thought 10 million were disposed.
To implement a recycling program requires a collection process that includes the containers to gather the materials, the trucks to transport them to the processing site, and the manpower to manage the program. Unfortunately, recycling is more of a business than an attempt to save the environment. The value of the material being recycled overshadows the negative impact of dumping items into the landfill. At a point in time, the demand for recycled paper declined, so recyclers stored the material in hopes that values would increase. “The hope is that eventually the markets turn around and that the materials is sold, but I have heard of instances where it gets landfilled, because a community doesn’t have the demand or the space or the company to deal with it, “ says Gene Jones, the executive director of Southern Waste Information Exchange (Westervelt,
Reduce, recycle and recycle could be a construct that individuals area unit beginning to perceive and to use to each life round the world (GOV.UK, 2013). This knowledge base essay can explore info concerning use by totally different resources that are provided to use such as the web, books, journals and alternative resources that needs to offer American state info on use. This essay can discover use as business, environmental and policy perspective. Use is that the methodology by that we tend to recover valuable resources to be re-used once more and once more. However just one a part of healing the atmosphere, it's a sensible action that people altogether businesses participate in daily routines on recycling (Reclaim, 2013). While recycling is only one part to healing the environment it is a practical action that individuals in all businesses and people take part in every day.
An important part of recycling is conservation. Conservation helps keep unneeded waste out of landfills in the United States (Conserve Energy Future 2). As Americans, an average person throws away 4.8 pounds of waste daily. This adds up to over 1750 pounds in a year alone, for one person. In 2006, Americans generated 251 tons of waste (Riedel 11). Of this waste over 50 percent could be recycled into new materials to be used again. In doing this, recycling will tremendously
McKenzie, A. D. “Recycling: It’s Rubbish to Waste Like This.” Global Information Netwrok 18 Nov. 2013: n. pag. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
Attention Getter: Most of the people present here today probably recycle; some more than others. And probably, most people assume that they are saving natural resources and helping the environment. However, this is not always true.
In conclusion to this investigation one thing is clear and that is that recycling reeks benefits to the environment, Recycling material when compared to making material from raw material is a more efficient energy saving and more environmentally friendly way to reuse material that is usually consider as trash such as empty glass, and plastic bottles, or old newspapers. Recycling helps reduce the possible carbon emissions greatly and does reduce the human carbon footprint. But Recycling doesn’t resolve the pollution that is around the world today. Leading to new questions, questions like what about the landfills are they sustainable, and if so for how long. How long until the air becomes unbreathable? How long until Earth becomes its own furnace?
The scary reality is that, according to the book American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), “landfilling of food is on the rise – the rate doubled from 1980 to 2007” (Bloom 15). This reality leads to a number of negative consequences such as an increase in methane production and pollution. “Most food waste, approximately 33 million tons, is disposed in landfills, costing $750 million and accounting for 25% of U.S methane emissions” (Uga.edu).
In today’s world, “the U.S. manages to produce a quarter of the world’s waste despite the fact that its population of 300 million is less than 5% of the world’s population, according to 2005 estimates (Malone).” In other words, countries like China and India, which represent 37 percent of the world’s population combined, produce less waste than the United States alone. Many people believe that just by throwing away trash in each correct bin will help the recycling process. Almost every city in Los Angeles County has a different trash bin for different usage i.e. greenery, plastic, and cardboard. These trash bins are extremely effective when it comes to recycling plastic, however what happens after the bin has been collected is more important.
Many people believe that we should not recycle anymore, but this is not the case. We, the people of the world, need to continue to recycle because we do not want our children to grow up in a world where there are no certain species of animals due to recycling failures. We also do not want our children to grow up thinking that it is okay that they throw their garbage on the ground, and not have to pick it up. We need to teach our children that they need to take care of the earth that they are living on, because they only get one. Recycling is one of the most beneficial environmental issues that we have here on this earth. Recycling saves energy, limits pollution and supports several environmental factors of the economy. “In 2003, the savings from recycling 54 billion aluminum cans exceeded the energy equivalent of 15 million barrels of crude oil- or the amount of gas the U.S. uses in one day,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA estimates that 200 million gallons of used oil are not disposed of properly, and if we were to dispose the oil properly then we could keep the oil from polluting the ground and the fresh water source. According to E. Takatori, “… While on-going societal regulation treats material recycling as the dominant cycle, the properties of recycled plastic remain the most port
Our world is getting to the point to where we will be surrounded by trash. There are hazards happening because of the excess trash, which could have been recycled. Although the government is not doing their best to make these hazards stop, surprisingly it is the non-governed organizations that are trying to make the difference. Proven studies and facts have been made about these issues, so people should take this into consideration and start recycling more. Recycling is a beneficial process that is not required globally like it should be because citizens are uneducated on the process and what it can do. People who are not recycling do not know the hazards they are causing everywhere.
Therefore, recycling can protect natural resources, preserve energy and lessen pollution. If people want to save planet Earth for generations to come, then recycling is necessary. On Debate.org, the question “Should there be mandatory recycling?” was asked and 84 percent said yes, while only 16 percent said no (“Should There Be Mandatory Recycling”). Recycling is very important to the planet and can make a huge difference in so many ways. Recycling is a way of life and once a person has made the choice to follow through with the steps, recycling can become second nature. Every small contribution adds up to how the society shapes the Earth’s future. How will someone make a difference?