Hazardous Waste In America Essay

Ever since the dawn of industrialization, humans have caused serious, irreversible damage to the biosphere. And as the world progresses and Canadians looks on, they realized the impact of their environmental damage. Sometimes new ecofriendly technology enters the market and replaces the old environment damaging one. But that is not enough, human society as a whole must completely rethink and change themselves individually to so that their actions causes minimal environmental backlash.

Nuclear waste is a radioactive waste that is dangerous, and a fair percentage of people would agree on this topic. However, is it really dangerous or is it just harmful to an extent? In society, many debates are held over trying to prove to the world that this substance is harmful. In the essay, “Nuclear Waste,” Muller states clearly that he sides with the anti-nuke of the debate and how he pinpoints the facts of nuclear waste with great persuasion. Yet, it is uncertain whether Muller clearly has a good argument and/or answers the questions that many people linger to know.

With the seemingly unstoppable growth of the world’s population and a projected global population of nine billion by 2050, the matter of whether or not there will be enough food to support the world’s populace is brought into question (Parfitt, et al., 2010). However, amid the concern for an adequate food supply, there is an immense amount of food waste produced by the world, including the United States. In fact, “according to the Natural Resources Defense Council as much as 40 percent of all food produced in the United States never gets eaten and typically ends up in the landfills or goes unharvested in the field “(King, 2015).

Emelle, Alabama not only holds one of the biggest commercial hazardous-waste landfill in America, but African-Americans make up 90% of the population of the town. A Choctaw Native American reservation in Philadelphia, Mississippi holds a 466-acre hazardous landfill (Wright 532). These statistics have revealed the sensitive boundary between racial and social classes. Specific human factors have driven the need for change in environmental practices, such as growing human population, increased natural resource consumption, and the effluent discharges of manufacturing. This situation has resulted in a significant negative impact on world ecosystems (Dietz, Ostrom, and Stern 1907). What ties both of these critical concerns

Comedian Robert Orben joked, “There is so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.” As Homer Simpson famously said, this joke is “funny because it’s true.” The pollution of Earth has been going on for decades, but recently scientists have been pushing very hard for practices that do not harm our planet. In 2006, the first Environmental Performance Index (EPI) was published, ranking countries on how well they are protecting Earth with their policies and practices. Who doesn’t love a little competition? One would think America would love a competition, looking at their competitive market economy. But America is not faring well in this environmental competition.

Pollution of the environment is not just a problem in the United States, but also in the rest of the world, but there are ways of fixing this by starting small with the city of Roseville, California. There are many different solutions to this problem, for example, volunteers can help pick up the trash that is currently scattered across certain parks and areas, workers can set up posts, signs, and trash bins across the city for people to throw away their trash in, limiting the use of certain chemicals, setting up police officers to vigilate areas like parks and sidewalks, increase the littering fee, and finally, and most importantly, setting up advertisements and news reports of what littering is doing to our environment. All these things

Marine wildlife is being rapidly extinguished because of the exploitation of their lives and natural habitats. Oceans are in deplorable condition due to human inflicted contamination. These waters create over half of the earth’s oxygen, and if they are not preserved, there will be potential detriments to the human race. However, this crisis can be prevented with actions taken on by the ordinary individual. By boycotting those producers and corporations that exploit marine life, limiting the use of plastic, and improving recycling habits and awareness, the American people can save what their elected officials are neglecting.

Agriculture is the second most leading cause of pollution (jaiswal). With that much pollution one may wonder how it is happening. One may also wonder what america can do to fix agricultural pollution. America has put our land and farmers into some very questionable situations with questionable practices.

Nuclear and toxic waste have slowly crept its way up to the main priority of disposal agencies all over the country and the world, as the scientists have created new chemicals and, militaries have created nuclear warheads able to destroy entire cities. Anything that is categorized as Toxic waste is “poisonous” to humans, and the environment. Nuclear waste usually can be anything that has been exposed to gamma radiation from nuclear power plants or a nuclear explosion. The U.S. alone has

Hazardous waste and its proper disposal have become a major sociological problem today due to its capability of contaminating the area in which we live and its potential to be lethal to all living things. In order for the United States and the rest of the world to save itself from a potentially life threatening problem they must fix the causes which lead to the improper disposal of hazardous wastes and like materials. Some reasons that hazardous waste has become a problem in the United States today is due to the breakdown in enforcing laws for the proper disposal of such wastes, a lack of initiative on big companies behalf to spend money on proper disposal, and the ease of disposing of such wastes illegally.

In the age of commodities and consumerism, the U.S has emerged as one of the leading over-consumers in the world. Overconsumption is a catastrophe, as humans exploit more than the environment can sustainably provide. People consume water, energy and minerals on a daily basis at a rate that is depleting the earth’s life-sustaining systems. Americans make up to 4.5% of the world’s population and consume more than 20% of its energy (WPB). The lifestyle and culture exhibited by Americans are unsustainable resulting in significant problems that add to the issue of global warming, species extinction, and accumulation of toxic wastes. Part of the consumption is linked to the high population. Whereas the U.S accounts for 4.5% of the 7.1 billion population of the planet, the relative consumption of every individual account for the largest consumption rate in the world thus leading to environmental problems such as air and water pollution. An analysis of the relative consumption rate in the U.S indicates that the U.S population is associated with heavy levels of consumption that accelerate the rapid depletion of resources.

Toxic wastes are a big problem what we are still facing today around the world. Most of this toxic waste is affecting our water that people need to survive with. Drinking water is now dangerous in certain parts of the world, and water is very essential to living. If they can’t have drinking water, how do we expect them to have water to clean them as well? With the toxic wastes being a big controversy, we as a whole need to stand up and fix this problem for everyone. People only want to take control when it is hitting home, with their neighbors and family and friends. What few have failed to realize, it has been in our homes as well.

America is known for many great things, however it is also the butt of many jokes regarding our “bigger is better” lifestyle and our need for more. Now though, I realize the seriousness of these jokes come from the truth of our wasteful ways of living and our over use of nonrenewable resources. Ironically then how now we have gone so far that we are literally eating up one of earth 's most valuable renewable resources: water. We Americans use more water than another country, including China whose population is more than double our own. If we do not decrease our dependency of this life sustaining resource than not only will we be destroying the world for our future generations, but we’ll be destroying the world for all future

On daily basis we have been polluting land, air and water; since ages. Most of us don’t bother ourselves about the waste we create, but thanks to

Reduce, refuse, and recycle. The act of recycling is converting waste into reusable material that can be sold again. Our land and ocean life is becoming jeopardized. Species that dwell inside our waters and soar high above are becoming vastly endangered. Humans are no longer accepting responsibility for their actions of choking sea turtles and thousands of emancipated birds washing up on shores. Around the globe habit loss is not uncommon. Rainforests are no longer flourishing. Overfishing is no longer uncommon which is causing sea birds to starve when migrating. Coral reefs are decaying due to temperature changes in the water. Decades of manufacturing and mass consumerism has left the environment in an extremely poor shape.