Americans are doing whatever they can to go green, and not the color. The “green” movement is about people making small lifestyle changes that could help the environment. Recently the economy has been bad enough that the housing market in a state of crisis; therefore, home owners with a need of change are resorting to remodeling and construction in their existing homes instead of moving. In order to save money on products for their home and be compliant with a green lifestyle, people are making decisions and buying products that are more resourceful and less wasteful. The green movement has people educating themselves about how they can better their environment. People with a greener conscious are buying the more eco-friendly products, choosing products that are or will be recycled. This green home movement is coming to consumers from news sources or word of mouth instead of being pressed by the media, such as home media networks that are viewed as the authorities on this matter, to create an effective attitude about environmentalism. In fact, most viewers are immediately hooked by the showing of demolition of furniture and cabinets that could easily be donated to a family in need instead of being hauled away to the dump. Home media networks, such as Home and Garden Television (HGTV) and Do It Yourself (DIY) Network, have the responsibility to portray and educate their viewers about recycling options for household goods that are not easily disposable.
People concerned about their home should also worry about the environment; a short walk and neighbors can see the rising depths of nearby landfills. The problem lays in our landfills that poison the soil, water, and air. While this is no surprise to ecological news, the statistics a...
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The Lowry Landfill Superfund Site is located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, approximately 2 miles east of Aurora. It consists of approximately 507 acres of waste disposal area and is operated by Waste Management of Colorado, Inc. The land surrounding the site consists of native prairie grass and a wetland located along a local creek. Sections around the site are zoned for agricultural use including cattle grazing and non-irrigated wheat farms. 1 The area is home to numerous endangered species including the bald eagle and peregrine falcon. Due to the large amounts of wastes disposed on the site between 1965 and 1980, it became extremely contaminated with a variety of inorganic and organic contaminants. From 1984 to 1993, the EPA oversaw remedial investigation and feasibility studies that were performed by all responsible parties. Since its listing as a superfund site in 1984, multiple remedial actions have been performed in order to rehabilitate the site. These include clay barrier walls around the site, a groundwater collection system, a soil cover for the main landfill, as well as a landfill gas collection system. Groundwater that is collected on the site is treated at an onsite water treatment facility. In 2007, construction began on an onsite gas to energy plant that utilizes the methane produced by the landfill site. The electricity produced by the plant is enough to power 3000 households. 1 Today, use of land and groundwater on and near the site is still restricted by the state of Colorado.1
The Stewarts moved into a neighborhood near the previously established Los Lobos Landfill (“Landfill”). However, the Stewarts noticed an increasingly offensive odor from Landfill supported by the filing of over a thousand odor complaints in 1992. These complaints resulted in City ordering a halt to Landfill’s composting activities in March 1993. This order resulted in Landfill’s composting permits to be withheld until the California Waste Board resolved the issue. Citizens United for Responsible Environmentalism (CURE), begun by the Stewarts, conducted a study that correlated health issues, composting, and Aspergillus fumigatus (fungus) concentration increases. City convened an Advisory Panel (Panel) that determined that Landfill’s composting
The rhetorical questions are also an attempt to show readers a potential future in which, “people no longer consider the physical world worth watching.” The question of, “Why do so many Americans say they want their children to watch less TV, yet continue to expand the opportunities for them to watch it?”, is a literal depiction of the flawed logic of the American consumer culture. By contrasting the popular belief that too much TV entails serious cognitive drawbacks against the mass purchase of TV’s and other electronics Louv is able to slow walk his readers to the conclusion that most Americans yearn for the distractions of TV and other electronics, rather than reject them. This rhetorical strategy allows Louv to assert that Americans are constantly contradicting themselves without directly accusing any specific group of people of hypocrisy. The additional question, “Why do so many people no longer consider the physical world worth watching?”, underlines Louv’s main point that people are far more concerned with man made distractions rather than environmental
Eigner, Lars “ On Dumpster Diving” 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology Ed. Samuel Cohen. Fourth Edition Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014. Page 139-151. Print.
Harmful emissions from the landfills escape into the air we breathe. The soil and water are also contaminated from our
Yet, despite a lack of access to multicultural environmental education in formal settings, adults are also changing the way the environment is conceptualized, and the way problems are identified and solved from their cultural subjectivity. For Hill (2003), environmental adult education encompasses activist projects, community building, solidarity, resistance and marshalling networks of knowledge. Environmental adult education positively contributes to environmental justice communication through citizen mobilization, popular activism, and direct actions that are essential for democracy, healthy people, and ecological systems. This education helps minority communities address the confluence greed, white privilege and class advantage as apparatuses that can be measured in environmental
A personal ecological footprint, also known as an eco-footprint, is the demand that an individual person puts on the Earth’s natural resources; such as land, ocean, and the waste that the individual produces. A person’s consumption of the Earth’s resources and how that individual impacts the earth help to create a personal eco-footprint calculation. At http://myfootprint.org/, I calculated my personal ecological footprint and discovered my impact on the Earth’s resources and its ecosystem. The ecological footprint quiz results were that if everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle we would need 3.86 Earth’s to sustain the world’s population.
Throughout the book, McKibben compares the two experiences, contrasting the amount of useful information he received from nature, as opposed to the amount of useless, hollow information the television provided. He goes on in the book to make several very important observations about how the television has fundamentally changed our culture and lifestyle, from the local to the global level. Locally, McKibben argues, television has a detrimental effect on communities.
Not all trash finds its way to a landfill. I have acquired amazing treasures: perfectly good furniture and toys from curbsides and Dumpsters. My Grandfather always said “one man’s trash is another man’s treasu...
Landfills are a place to dispose of waste material by burying it and covering it over with soil, especially as a method of filling in or taking up usable land. Landfills are a bigger issue in this world than people realize. Everyday people are harming the environment more and more just by their waste. By producing enormous amounts of waste the environment is being harmed and all living things are being damaged including humans. Landfills impact the world drastically. There are many causes for the use of landfills as well as many environmental effects from them. Even though there is a significant amount of damage done to the world from landfills it is never too late to fix this issue with any of the many solutions.
In old batteries, there is a toxic lead that is causing health problems for the Taiwan people who are disposing these batteries (Gay, 12). Space is becoming a landfill from the excess of space flights and the radioactive supplies from nuclear reactors, which could come to our atmosphere and explode (Gay, 13). When businesses run out of space to dump their toxic trash they go to poor nations because they do not have strict safety regulations (Gay, 31). The landfills on Earth are not the only place trash is getting put. The ocean is being trashed with plastic bags, soda can holders, and large fishnets, which are harming dolphins, turtles, sea lions, and others (Gay, 69). Military bases in the U.S have more hazardous waste and are responsible for contamination in soil and waters (Gay, 83). There are other hazards happening because we are throwing away so much stuff that companies have to remake all of those products. Incinerators are places where waste is burned to ashes and if we recycle these can go away. Incinerators cause sulfur dioxide, carbon m...
“Going Green” means to pursue knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally friendly and ecologically responsible decisions and lifestyle. It is a movement that many participate in to help improve the environment. Technology improves the “Going Green” movement since machines can help one save money, energy, and resources from being wasted (i.e. using hand dryers in replacement of having paper towels exchange periodically). There are many ways the society pursues “Going Green” such as going paperless, carpooling, and using solar panels. “Going Green” affects human behavior because it involves technological advancement, sometimes resulting in job loss.
Policy is needed to regulate which course of action should be taken and how it should be implemented. Because of this, many plans and policies revolving around the management of solid waste have been put in place. Sometimes however, a particular policy can have its shortfalls, potentially resulting in its negative aspects outweighing the positive ones. According to the Conference Board of Canada Report, “Canadians dispose of more municipal solid waste per capita than any other country” (2013). Solid waste management in particular, involves many aspects, ranging from packaging waste, food waste, etc. (White & Franke 1999), hence, the following analysis revolves around household and commercial waste – referred to as Municipal Solid Waste (White & Franke. 1999) – in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Municipal waste is a major health and environmental concern as it contributes to numerous problems like habitat destruction, surface groundwater pollution, and other forms of air, soil, and water contamination. Waste disposal methods like incineration create toxic substances, and landfills emit methane, which contributes to global warming. According to the Zero Waste Objective Report, “The impact of climate change and the increasing awareness of the role of “waste” and “wasting” in the production of greenhouse gas emissions is a constant environmental pressure… (2009). This leads to an increasing limitation of government to prevent and control the volume and toxicity of products in the waste stream and a growing need to shift responsibility to the product manufacturer.
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.
One fairly simple way that people can immediately contribute to the green movement is by recycling. “Recycling is the process of turning one products useful part or parts into a new product; this is done to conserve on the consumption of resources, energy and space used in landfills.” (Recycling Facts and Benefits) Most household paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, and cardboard products are recyclable. Many towns in the United States offer recycling services that will pick up your recyclables and transport them to a recycling facility. These facilities reuse the materials that the recyclables are made from and make new products.