Littering Project: A Case Study

In order for environmental change to happen society needs to see the significance of trash. To make sense of that recall a time were you forgot to take the trash out and days later were reminded by the rotten stench? Now multiply the stench of that 1 bag 2 million times. To help you further understand let’s put this in mathematical terms. Let’s say on average 1 garbage bag weighs 20Lbs. that equates to 1bag=20lbs x 2,000,000 = 40 million putrid bags. This equation has opened my eyes. Rogers’s argument that Landfills should be in public places is a good one. Society is sheltered from Landfills: so they are out of sight therefore out of mind. If we can’t see the pollution we can’t change our carbon foot print.

“Waste” is a short essay in which Wendell Berry critically analyzes the growing epidemic of trash that is polluting the nation’s land, waterways, and the air. Berry explains to the readers how the remnants of floods and litter that leave farmlands scattered with trash, makes more work for the farmers who have to rid their land of the trash before they can use it. Along with the floods, roads and highways also lead to a barrage of garbage from people who are too lazy or ignorant to take proper care of their garbage, which Berry claims leads to “. . . a constant precipitation of cans, bottles, the plastic-ware containers of fast food joints, soiled plastic diapers, and sometimes whole bags of garbage,” (Waste 1) along the edges of their fields. The garbage of the country continues to be a burden for everyone, whether it impacts them directly or not. Although it would be impossible to eliminate garbage completely from the country, the waste could be greatly reduced. Most of today’s trash is a consequence of the laziness of American society.

Have you ever thought about what your community would look like without litter? If so, it may take a while to find out. One person throwing something on the ground may not think much of it, however, when that trash finds other trash, they begin to build up and make big piles of junk. For example, I am sure people never thought that if they littered, their trash would end up in the pacific garbage patch. Believe it or not, no one thinks that until you look at the pacific garbage patch and see how disgusting it looks just because people were to lazy to throw their trash away. To make matters worse, littering has become very common, which should be stopped because in most cases, trash is not disposed of properly,

Pollution is an issue that could potentially cause damage and recycling conveys an important role. An issue we currently phase is trash segregation, students aren’t recycling or separating trash as they should. As mentioned earlier, mindset is just as important as action - they have careless, ignorant mentalities. What my project proposes, are two main part the action and the mentality transformation. The action idea is to develop as community service recicle trashcans with that from the outside look the same as what its entering in them, an example could be a trash can full that physically look like a plastic bottle, so students only troth there there plastic

Much of this trash ends up in the ocean harming not only marine life, but us too. However, this is not only happening in America it’s happening all over the world with China at 8.82 million metric tons of mismanaged waste. All this waste if caught in a gyre, can lead to one of the garbage patches. This has been happening since we started using plastic but it the garbage patches were discovered in the early 1990’s. We keep throwing trash away that keeps being misplaced, then it ends up in the oceans with the rest of the trash. I propose multiple solutions, to enforce plastic bag ban and to enforce recycling. California has banned the use of plastic bags, meaning that if you do use them a fine will be put in place. Environment California explained how before the plastic bag ban California used up to 19 billion plastic bags each year with less than five percent being recycled. However, we can change that. By using less plastic bags we harm the ocean less. Another solution is to each week collect each household’s trash, per pound of trash found in the recycling bin provided by the city should be a $11 fine. Tiffany Edmonds, Solid Waste Management Department spokeswoman, explained why they started the fine “ It is an attempt to change behavior. The fine covers the cost of sending a garbage collection truck to the house to pick up the contaminated recycling bin” this will encourage people to recycle. Since the plastic

Water pollution has become a major problem in our water sources. People think that when they litter or dump in our waters that their little contribution will not hurt anything, but everyone’s little contributions add up to some major problems. Our water ecosystems and the species that reside in them are being destroyed and we need to take the steps necessary to stop this. Why would anyone use the source of most of the world’s food as a dumping ground for garbage? People need to start realizing what it is they are doing when they do not take the proper steps to dispose of their garbage and the problems they are making for the future.

Let’s be honest here, we all litter when driving in our cars, how many of us rolls down our windows to dispose of a wrapper, cigarette, or something of that nature? We tend not to care about the effects our human footprint leaves on the earth. The tiniest things like littering eventually lead to bigger things and stuff like that needs to be brought into attention. Bob Johnson, a philosopher and artist set out to produce and promote “Artful Trash Management”. The leading proponent being his “River Cubes” are public display sculptures innovatively harvest waste, especially those in the river streams, and transform the resulting heap into vivid discussions to what we humans produce in waste and leave behind.

Living in Philadelphia, one of the largest and most known cities in America, you see many things going on around you that are just not right. One of the worst things about Philadelphia though is all of the garbage in and around the city. For my research topic I am doing littering as a major problem in my community. I chose this topic because a city that is labeled as so “important” should be taken care of and respected. As the home of the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross, William Penn, and the stomping grounds for the Founding Fathers we have failed our city as a community.

The South Saskatchewan River Basin will lose a large quantity of quality water. People flushing feminine hygiene products down the toilet is a serious issue. For this reason, we have developed a plan to better our watershed quality/quantity by educating the public as well as taking action to assist people in getting into the habit of properly disposing products. We plan to have 6 bins installed in our school by the school board, have the posters up and have sent out an email with a digital version of the posters and our video to every school. We plan to accomplish this within June 1st, 2016.

In conclusion, it all starts at home; when it comes to the importance our waterways play on the ecosystem. Once children are educated to the importance our rivers and lakes play in our everyday life they will be more informed in ways to eradicate the problem of debris and trash found in our waterways. It is important for our generation to understand once our waterways are destroyed the effect this will have on life as a whole will be detrimental to all here and now and those to come in the future. Through the opportunity this program has provided me, I encourage all my friends and acquaintance to take a more proactive role in the preservation of the place I now call home, Lake

The second service-learning experience with the DNA club was a roadside clean-up on Highway 16, near Pettibone Beach. There were 18 of us who spent 2 hours cleaning up the half-mile stretch of highway. It was amazing to see how quickly our garbage bags got full. With every piece of garbage, I picked up, I found myself becoming more and more upset. It is difficult to fathom how individuals in our society resort to throwing their garbage out of their windows, rather than recycling it or throwing it in a receptacle. Ordinarily, it doesn 't seem like a big issue, the trash can quickly accumulate on the sides of the roads. This can pose major environmental issues if wildlife such as birds, turtles, and fish eat the trash or become entangled in

As Albina Ruiz, there is a large number of problems to deal with for the goal that I have. In the particular area that was studied in this video, the health of the environment, of people, and how waste is being dealt with are all issues that I tackle as Ruiz. As trash is dumped without care, the environment suffers and resources such as soil or rivers are not able to be used. This leads to people being more exposed to illnesses and diseases, especially people who are in direct contact with the trash. As for the way that the trash is dealt with, this is the biggest issue. With a lack of landfills, treatment plants, ways to turn organic waste to fertilizer, and recycling plants, this is another goal to accomplish and deal with in order to help change the garbage issue in these communities. Along with this, trash is dumped all over the city due to a lack of ways to dispose of trash.

We recycle bottles, papers, and other things. Recourse will not always available for new things. The same thing applies in water. Barnett points out that "the more freshwater we pull into our homes and businesses, the more we send down drains and toilets and into waste pipes that leak, spill, and burst an average of 900 billion gallons of untreated sewage a year in the United States" (Barnett, Water Work). The population is growth, at the same time the waste water also increase. Where we are going to put this much of waste water other than not recycle them? If we don't recycle and reuse them it will affect to environment, such as river and ecosystem. Barnett shows what happen in Waikiki by "forcing 50 million gallons of untreated sewage into the aquamarine waters of Waikiki" and "the disaster closed some of the most famous beaches in the world for ten days and is suspected in the death of a surfer who became infected with flesh-eating bacteria. Not least, there are the carbon emissions associated with pumping, heating, and treating water, and moving it around our homes, cities, and regions" (Barnett, Water work). We don't want to suffer with sick and effect environment. Recycle is not only good for people and environment but save the federal money. Barnett proves with San Francisco Bay that "the group has secured $38 million in federal funding and another $114 million in state and local money to build eight recycling projects" (Barnett, Water Work). Jim Van Haun said, "using recycled waste water allows us to rely less on our ground-water table, which is helpful during a drought" (Robbins, Gary, RECYLING Water District Treating Sewage so it can be used on Vegetation). Barnett shows how community are recycle their waste water "communities are recycling their wastewater for uses such as cooling industrial plants and irrigating parklands and soccer fields" (Barnett, Water Work). The way to save the water is by

Throughout many decades our home has become the metaphorical trashcan of the Milky Way. Littering is the illegal dumping of waste in areas where trash should not be placed. Littering not only detracts from the beauty of our environment but it also causes serious health problems and environmental hazards for the people and wildlife that live on this earth. Littering is a problem that should not be ignored but the general public tends to overlook it and fail to see the damages that litter causes to our earth. Littering is something everyone has to come together on to help successfully reduce the amount of trash that is collect in our landscape and waters. Not only is litter hazardous, but litter is also very expensive to clean up. If people were more aware of the many issues littering causes then there is a greater chance that the people will join and create a difference.

Littering is one of the biggest environmental issues we face today. Littering affects us all, from humans to animals and our surroundings. The careless act of littering from a simple piece of plastic thrown on the ground can clog storm drains or that piece of plastic may go straight to the ocean and harm wildlife. Littering is a health hazard which causes harmful bacteria and germs. Removing litter from the environment costs everyone money. Littering is the most important environmental issue our nation is facing because it is done so easily and carelessly. People do not realize how much we spend on cleaning litter every year or how it affects us all. The practice has become second nature, we have avoided to educate ourselves on how this affects us in the long run. Littering needs to be minimized or if possible, completely stopped if we could help it because we are doing more harm to the earth.