Reflection About Landfills

Waste land is a very powerful documentary, where Vik Muniz takes us to a different world, but during the time he’s presenting this place one can relate with the humans living there. They live from others trash, some are ashamed of what they do, others are proud of what they do, but most of them if not all believe that is a dignifying job, their way of leaving.

Heather Roger claims our current garbage disposal methods are short term and etiquette. Rogers’s position is clear that we need to minimize the use of landfills and create better means to discard trash. In supporting Rogers’s environment views I think that we need to create a more economic and environmental friendly garbage disposal system. Heather Rogers and Lars Eighner both acknowledge the issue with society’s throwaway mentality. Eighner proves that we throw away perfectly working stuff, having survived off others discarded materials. Eighner argues against excessive waste we create but does not have any prospected solutions. Whereas Rogers acknowledges the obvious need to minimize our consumption of waste but argues the need

“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.

II. Listener Relevance- The world we live in is slowly being torn down by water pollution, air pollution, land pollution. Surprisingly, a very simple thing such as recycling helps reduce all of these.

There are many programs but too little enthusiasm. ”Recycling programs abound, but people are often lackadaisical about putting plastic,paper, glass and metal into those bins”(“How Do You Encourage Recycling”). The world has enough programs but it need more people. People need to think about how recycling helps everything and everyone around them. ”They asked people to think more abstractly about why recycling contributed to the community, air, land, and water resources “(“How Do You Encourage Recycling”). When people recycle they need to remember why they are doing this and what it helps. The world needs to look at what it can gain or lose when recycling and not recycling. ”Marketing professor Kate White of University of British Columbia shared studies that looked at two kinds of messages:those that highlight the negative consequences of not recycling,loss framed message, versus those that emphasize the positive consequences of recycling,gain framed message.”(“How Do You Encourage Recycling”). These messages will address what people can gain and lose. Motivating people to recycle could make a huge change in land pollution even solve the problem with

A teacher once told me, “One mans trash is another mans treasure, what he doesn’t appreciate the next man will.” Until recently analyzing this statement I always pondered about it as a metaphor using the thoughts, and ideas of people, but after reading Garbology I have come up with a literal process of reusing trash. On average Americans wastes 220 million tons of waste generated each year in the United States which ends up in one of the over 3,500 landfills. According to Edward Humes, the author of Garbology, “Garbage has become one the most accurate measures of prosperity in the twenty-first-century America and the world,” which proves that trash is a means to improving the success rate of Americans. This reminds me of the words of Confucius who stated, “When a goal cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goal, adjust the action step” because with the knowledge from garbology we can

In Mantua Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey, privately owned land once stood as one of the most hazardous waste sites in the United States. This site known as the Helen Kramer Landfill included 66-acres of waste, 11 acres of unfavorably conditioned vegetation, and no onsite residents. Prior to the early 1960’s, Helen Keller landfill was a sand and gravel excavation operation, but soon began to incorporate the disposal of waste material for about a decade. After the landfill received numerous inspections and notices between 1971 and 1977, the owner Helen Kramer was informed to cease operation of the landfill. As New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection reports indicated and area residents stated, “sporadic chemical

Recycling is presently one of the most controversial topics, considering that while most individuals put across their support regarding the act the number of individuals who actually do something in order to recycle is much smaller. Many people are currently unable or unwilling to recycle properly because the process often requires a series of changes in one's life. It is thus essential for the authorities to provide educational programs meant to assist individuals in understanding why recycling is important and in learning how to recycle effectively. People need to accept the fact that the benefits of recycling will reflect on the future and that conditions are currently critical as a result of the fact that the masses are generally unacquainted with the importance of this process.

Lars Eighner “On Dumpster Diving” originally published in The Threepenny review in fall 1990. Eighner’s arranges his essay into 3 main ideas to all tie into his overall theme. He ties it all into the idea that our society is wasteful by nature. Eighner uses his own experiences to show how wasteful people really are. Although he has not always been homeless, it has taught him a way of life he had never dreamed imaginable. If he doesn’t discover the hidden treasure of the dumpster’s then who will.

Many individuals are accustomed to waste at least a portion of what they buy, whether it is food, clothes, furniture, supplies, or materials worldwide. According to the article: “On Dumpster Diving” many valuable items were found by the homeless who searched the dumpster for food. Surprisingly, they found useful items that helped them survive throughout each day. In fact, the products were worth for the exchange of money. At certain times, I myself may be considered to be a wasteful person during certain times such as, not finishing my drink and throwing more than half of it away. While rushing at work during break, this is a usual situation for many people Although, it isn't necessarily on purpose it is considered wasteful, valuable and influence advertising.

1．In Lars Eighner’s essay “On dumpster diving”, the author shows his unique personal experiences on the street and the interesting stories with dumpsters. After reading the article, I can describe the author’s attitude toward material possessions as: The prosperity of material and money is not the standard of his moral value. He cares more about the spiritual fulfillment, which is do some meaningful things he felt. And the difference of his attitude from other members of society is he really enjoyed his life, while other people, put into his situation, would rather die or fight for anything to get a better life. He used his knowledge and confidence to successfully survive in the hard environment and enjoy it a lot.

“A new scavenger is filled with disgust and self-loathing.” (382) He goes on to say that this stage passes with experience and brings on a new one in which the scavenger begins to realize that people throw away perfectly good stuff making their shyness disappear. Then the scavenger becomes lost because they begin to collect things that they can never use. “Pack-rat.” Thats what Eighner calls the scavengers that begin to collect everything that is interesting nut of no value or purpose. “Every bit of glass may be a diamond, they think, and all that glistens, gold.” (383) “Can scroungers.” These are the scavengers that Eighner hates. These are the ones that scrounge for cans because they had little to no cash and have to find a way to feed their drug and alcohol addiction. They become blinded by these symbols of money that they begin to look past anything else that may be of value and make a big mess for the next scavenger that may look in

1. Eighner organizes his essay by breaking down how and why scavengers do what they do to survive. He begins his essay with how he became a scavenger and follows that with how to scavenge the best, safest way possible. He communicates how to choose the right dumpsters to dive into, how to determine if food is edible, and whether items are worth holding onto. I believe Eighner chose this type of organization throughout his essay to ease readers into the idea of scavenging through dumpsters. I feel like Eighner is almost trying to convince reader that’s scavenging through dumpster is not that bad, so if he shed the activities in a positive

Eighner considers yogurt as one of his favorite finds because yogurt will keep for several days, even in warm weather, however, he avoids ethnic foods that he is unfamiliar with as he would not be able to tell if it is bad. The article also talks about how hard it is for a beginner to start dumpster diving as he/she is ashamed of doing it at first and does not want to be seen by others, but, later on he begins to understand that people do throw away perfectly good stuff. According to Eighner, people who scrounge cans do it because they just want to have a little cash to buy drugs and liquor, but, Eighner does not like these people as they mess up the whole dumpster in search of cans. According to Eighner, a true scavenger is a person who hates to see good stuff go to waste and leaves the stuff that he cannot use in good condition on side. However, can scroungers will even go through individual garbage cans whereas scavengers does

In a world full of different people that come from various backgrounds, there are different perspectives on what is found as important. Something that is seen as trash or useless by one may have once meant the world to another person. Each piece of trash carries a memory from its past life, ready to take on its new life to help the next person in one way or another. Howard Nemerov’s poem “The Town Dump”, Lars Eighner’s essay “On Dumpster Diving”, and “The Town Dump” by Wallace Stegner each tell a story about how trash has impacted them. Even though these pieces are written with different messages, each piece of writing uses tone to establish the importance of local trash, as well as establishing the history behind its significance.