It is an accepted thought that trash is useless garbage. "Trash," as defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is things that are no longer useful or wanted and that have been thrown away. This paper will acknowledge the facts that disprove this definition. Trash can be viewed different ways by so many people and this will lay out some of those very clearly. The reason for this paper is to explain ways to make use for garbage that no one wants, and as a result, better the environment, lifestyles, and our overall value of being on planet Earth. Trash is a huge problem in the world today. Each person produces 4.3 pounds of trash every day, and 85% of that trash is sent to the landfills. This causes so many problems for our people, country, animals, and environment in the short term, but also in the future. Every day people throw away plastic bottles, wrapping, boxes, gum, food, cans, etc. All of these things do not just disappear once they go down the garbage shaft of your apartment building. Those things all have to end up somewhere. It is a law of science that matter cannot be created or destroyed. So, any matter that exists, will exist forever. Should humans really be allowing this "waste" to exist among our landfills for ages and ages forever? Or should they do something about it? Figure out a way to reuse and recycle and give back to earth as it has given so much to them. Composting has almost seemed like a new trend over the past decade or so, but it really is one of the biggest solutions to the trash problem that humans have discovered. As God said about our bodies coming from the dust and to dust they shall return, food and other materials that have been produced by land should be returned to land so that the cycle may con... ... middle of paper ... ...en think of landfills as being not that bad, we see pictures of a bulldozer pushing trash, but what is really the issue? This photograph above really gives a literal clear picture of just how massive one landfill is. And just think about how many millions of landfills there are around the entire world. Hopefully this makes people more aware of the severity of the issue at hand. Changing the world is not an easy feat and we cannot do it alone. If only I composted and recycled, but no one else did, it would not even make a dent in the issue that our world faces. But if each person realized that they matter and were inspired to do it, we could all form an army against this issue and fight back. We would be able to make a difference. Works Cited http://warrensburg.k12.mo.us/trees/students/students/katiel/ http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/tools/localgov/benefits/
Humankind produces and consumes with little regard for waste. Susan Strasser’s Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash focuses on consumption’s byproduct; trash and what humankind has done to dispose of their waste over the past decades. Strasser catalogues an often deemed unsophisticated part of our modern society as being “central to our lives yet generally silenced or ignore” (p.36), throughout her book elucidating on the premise that one’s own view and opinion of what is deemed as trash varies greatly from person to person. Strasser explicates to the reader the rise of mass markets across the world and the impacts that production and consumption have on the creation of trash. Strasser begins to follow the story of trash in the pre-colonial
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).
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
A garbage crisis is at hand. As a nation, we have begun to worry that the growing mounds of wastes will only continue to increase as the means of disposal become further restricted. Government agencies and public officials are urgently trying to find a solution. The waste dilemma has become the centerpiece of the politics of garbage.
"Why Everyone Should Recycle." Welcome to the Professor' S House. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. .
To begin with, in the U.S., trash is most commonly sent to a landfill, unfortunately though, once it arrives there little sorting occurs. According to the EPA, “Nationally, food is the single most common material sent to landfills. When excess food, leftover food, and food scraps are disposed of in a landfill, they decompose and become a significant source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas” (“Cupertino Honored”). At a landfill, trash arriving is only screened for liquids in order to avoid the creation of leachate, or water that is contaminated from dissolved chemicals in garbage. Once screened, dumped, and covered, bacteria begin to decompose the trash and, as a result, release methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The fact is that landfills are ideally supposed to be used to bury garbage that is non-decomposable, however, with the garbage collection method that is currently in place across many states, all unsorted garbage is being sent there. In addition, “...traditional trash disposal not only wastes material that can enrich soil but accelerates climate change. Organic matter decom...
Producing exceeding amounts of trash does not bother the majority of Americans, or they are unaware of the problem, otherwise the mind-blowing statistics would not exist. A major reason people produce large quantities of trash is out of pure laziness. For example, my roommate threw out a toaster because she had received a new one, and after she was questioned why she did not donate the toaster, her response was, “That is too much work.” Donating this toaster would have required her to exert extra effort and time that she was not willing to use. Often times, it is the same dilemma for recycling which sometimes requires a person to drive and personally place the recyclable products in the bins. People are not willing to utilize a minute amount of effort in order to help conserve the earth. However, much of this could be due to the fact that people do not realize how big of a problem trash production is.
b. Another myth about landfills is that they are poisoning the soil and our water supply. Even the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, says modern landfills pose little to no risk to humans. Modern landfills are built on a thick foundation of clay and plastic liners. Also, the methane gas produced in biodegradation is often...
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?
There are a variety of ways we can reduce the amount of waste we create. We can cut the garbage that ends up in landfills by recycling more, reusing what can be reused, and properly disposing of hazardous waste and e-waste. It is on all of us to reduce the amount of litter produced so that it does not end up in the mouths or around the necks of poor oblivious animals. Slow violence is a horrid and evident fact that is going on in the world today. Waste pollution is a huge problem in our world, and if we don’t act soon, there may not be a tomorrow. We must do what we can, encourage those around us, and together we’ll make a cleaner
If everyone recycled think of how much more space there would be in landfills across the world. There is only so much room on this earth and we are using a huge portion of it for our trash. Clearlake, California alone on a busy day can bring in 80,000 pounds of trash to the local dump. I know this because I work at the local dump in Mckinleyville. I also see a lot of people that throw away their recycling for the simple reason of being too lazy to sort it. I watch bag after of bag of plastic, aluminum, and glass get thrown into the bin which we haul straight to a landfill in Anderson, California. If everyone in Mckinleyville recycled there plastic, aluminum and glass they could save thousands of pounds a day from going to the landfill. I think people are not informed that waste is a big problem in this world. But in fact conservation is an issue, and resources and energy aren't too plentiful. Someday these resources are going to run out. But the more we recycle the longer we can make these resources last.
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.
Imagine you are on vacation on a cruise having a great time. You look around and see the ocean is covered with garbage. According to Discovermagazine.com, there are patches of garbage present in the middle of the oceans. If you collect all garbage in the oceans, it would be double in height to Mount Everest. According to climatechange.com, if we do not act immediately, not recycling is going to affect our environment. Refusing to recycle the waste materials would poison the food and water we use, leading to our death. Recycling affects the earth more than we can imagine. We’ve got be more aggressive towards reducing and reusing the waste material, as there is an increase in the amount of garbage production.
While walking through the park last Sunday, I observed a shocking scene. There were two cans: one for recycling and one for trash. The recycling receptacle had only an empty Dr. Pepper can and a few used Ozarka water bottles. On the other hand, the trash can had a plethora of half eaten meals, wrappers, banana peels and disgustingly even bottles, cans, newspapers and plastics that could have been recycled. Because people do not understand or do not care to understand about conserving our resources, many reusable items are being put in landfills when recycling these items could help save the environment. People should know the negative impact of throwing away a water bottle or newspaper, purchasing meat from the grocery store or consuming gasoline has on the environment, and many do not. By informing society about how their decisions affect the environment, we can help save our planet and change our attitude toward the land we live on, the water we drink and the air we breathe” and truly show respect for the stuff that we depend on.