Solid Waste Essay

Across the world a problem has been growing for decades. The problem is garbage, especially municipal solid waste. Solid wastes are all the wastes arising from human activities that are normally solid and are discarded as useless or unwanted (Elfren Bringas Paz, 2006). Generally speaking, developing countries, which have higher productivity and high quality of living, produce more municipal solid waste per capita than low-income countries. This is also the reason why the USA and Canada are world leaders in waste production. For example, even with a plan to reduce waste production by 50%, Toronto, Canada, is running out of places to dispose its municipal solid waste. In 2007, every day each American produced 4.6 pounds of garbage on average. The amount of the municipal waste has more than doubled since 1960, and the per capita rate has increased by nearly 70% at the same time (Enger and Smith, 2002). Under this condition, the solid waste management has been one of the major concerns in urban management. This essay will compare and contrast the ways to deal with municipal solid waste in Canada and the USA. Firstly, it will compare the recycling programs supported by governments of these two countries. Following this, it will look at another two ways of waste disposal (landfill and incineration) and compare their applications in Canada and the USA. Finally, it will contrast the methods of garbage sorting in the two countries.

Recycling programs in Canada and the USA

Recycling has already had a strong impact on the way governments manage waste in both Canada and the USA, where local and regional governments have an interest in reducing waste through recycling programs. In Canada, the recycling program is known as the curbside collect...

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...nce in Canada. However, in different cities in the USA, sorting method of garbage can vary a little. For example, in Kirkland, the USA, every single family must have three waste containers and the waste materials are sorted into three categories: trash, recyclables, and yard & food waste.

Conclusion

To sum up, both as world leaders in waste production, Canada and the USA have paid much attention to their municipal waste management. This essay has compared and contrasted the similarities and differences between these two countries. Both countries have mandated recycling programs which require residents to recycle the waste materials properly. And in both Canada and the USA, the landfill is gradually displacing the traditional way, incineration, to dispose the solid waste. Despite of these two similarities, these two countries have different garbage sorting methods.