The Environmental Benefits Of Urban Waste Management Essay

The global population is expected to reach 9 billion people by the year 2050 and scientific projections indicate that world is on a trajectory towards an environmental and global food crisis. World Leaders, environmental enthusiasts and aid agencies have cause for alarm as they support urgent policies for change, for without them mankind will face unprecedented food insecurity. In 2015 estimates were that there were “some 795 million people” [World Food Programme, 2015], experiencing food insecurity and 3.1 million children under 5 died through malnutrition, while Australians continue to waste an estimated 361 Kg’s of food per person per yr [PMSEIC, 2010, p.44] All the while the earth groans under the weight of Greenhouse Gas Emissions [GHG], deforestation, soil degradation and

Recycling and conservation are the solution to climate change and to saving energy. America sends a majority of its trash to landfills when it could be put to much better use by means of recycling or even by burning it to produce energy. Pollution is greatly reduced when recycling because the need to collect new raw materials goes down. Recycling is great because it can help people conserve this Earth for future generations who deserve to have a healthy Earth. Once the United Stated reaches recycling levels of 75%, it would be the equivalent of getting rid of fifty five million cars from the roads in the U.S. each year.

Times have changed, and so has the family, the community and our environment. And these changes have impacted our lives and earth immeasurably. This is where the factor greed comes in to play, the need for more. This need for more called for extensive measures, measures like fertilizers, pesticides and equipment to work the ground and harvest the crops became necessity. Agriculture became a booming business that did not and still does not promote the well-being of the employee nor the individual let alone the family unit and community. Since 1950 an average farm size has doubled, but the number of laborers decreased substantially and the number of small local farmers has been cut in half. Farmers have been forced to become more efficient and there 's been a reliance on greater chemicals and technology, which has become very extensive and expensive. Sadly, what has been short term expansion has become a long-term threat (Trautmann, 2012). This greed driven increase has led to subtle damaging ramifications that most people are ignorant to. Their needs are being met as quality is being forsaken. Our environment is being squandered. Selfishness abounds.

After learning about the statistics of how much agriculture consumes our planet, I was appalled to see how destructive it is. Jonathan Foley put into perspective the increase and rapid demand for food. Agriculture alone consumes 40% of our land surface, 70% of our irrigation system, and

There is no doubt that urban agriculture has many benefits people who are living in urban area especially fixing the food insecurity problem. According to the USDA Economic Research Service (2016), food insecurity can happened when a household loss access to fresh foods due the lack in social and low economic. When the population of people concentrated in an area with bad economic situation increases, it will later affects the employment opportunities and food insecurity might be a critical issue. This is supported by a

As the Earth’s population grows at breakneck pace over the next several decades, who will feed the world’s people? Agriculture has undergone an extensive expansion and transformation throughout the last few centuries, beginning with the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s. New technology allowed for better and greater methods of production. With the development of modern technology, people try to think some way can plant less, get more. Many farmers plant only one crop in the same place year after year. However, those against monocropping claim that it is very hard on the environment and actually less profitable than organic means of farming (“Monoculture Crops – Learn About The Effects Of Monocropping”). In addition, the destructive nature of agriculture has recently shown its hand. While our supermarkets, convenience stores, and restaurants are filled with abundant food options, people forget to ask themselves where all this food comes from. Globalization has opened up economies of scale and has allowed people to tap into different types of products, whether that is food or clothing. But the availability of an increased mass market comes at a cost. However, today, the modern farming techniques have grown into a headache for farmers and governments alike, because they are the consequences of overproduction, industrial waste and other problems arising from the modern methods of agriculture. Thus, modern techniques are harmful to environments, animals, and humans.

In his article, “Setting the table for Urban Agriculture,” accredited writer, Michael Pollan, expounds upon Urban Agriculture and it’s place in the twenty-first century. Pollan’s purpose is to explain to readers the legal and societal context of Urban Agriculture. He uses a serious tone and real world examples in order to solidify the idea that Urban Agriculture is an integral part of our “local, regional, national, and global” food infrastructure.

One of the most prominent issues in the American society is not an economic or social problem, but the lack of recycling in America and the effect it is having on the environment and the people. This lack of recycling can be found in businesses and schools across America who could benefit from some sort of recycling program installed. The benefits of a well placed and organized recycling program can be endless from scholarships to the benefits it can have on the environment by saving trees and reducing the space need to dispose all the trash. South Caldwell High School is one of these schools across the country that is at a loss because of its lack of a recycling program and many other schools and businesses in Caldwell county are not reaping

These days, our earth has been filled by a lot of waste. There is a lot of garbage, plastic waste, and electronic waste. We always produce it and dump it when we need the new one. Our waste are piling up and continuously accumulating. Plastic waste is one of the biggest problems for us now. And our solution in this problem is recycling. In my opinion, recycling is a way to manage used items into new products. We can reduce, reuse, and recycling (3R) waste management (Peter, 2013). We can reduce our waste clothes with reuse it. There are some reasons why peoples recycle used or unwanted items, which are, prevent wasting unusable materials that still have usage after recycled, reduce the application of raw materials, reduce energy

A simple chore: “take out the trash”. Take the trash bag full of junk, place it in the bin, and let it sit till it's taken away. Now try to picture doing this with the junk in your brain, complicated huh? Reality is, you could never fit all the trash you have ever owned into one trash bag. Our brain is just the same, one trash bag will not fix the full garage of junk we have in our brain. The problem we face as humans are how we compare taking out the literal trash and mental trash. That single trash bag isn’t all the trash we have stored in our minds. The first bag of trash is only the light layer upon layers underneath. One thing that strikes my brain while visualizing trash being taken out is, we wait until it’s taken away! We are waiting for someone else to pick up our own garbage and take it. It takes years and hard work to empty your trash on a daily basis. In my personal experience, taking out the trash is no easy task.

We don't have to be a genius to be aware of global environmental mess we created over the

The average resident produces seven and a half pounds of garbage every day that is buried down in landfills and litters lands costing a great amount of money. Nowadays, people face no more critical trouble than the need to save the weakening environment, mainly in urban areas, where solid wastes are uselessly dumped. It has been observed that cities have no controlled structure for garbage disposal. Each year, millions of dollars are spent picking up litter and more is thrown away in valuable materials that could be recycled. As humanity develops new technology and equipment, the level of waste increases every day. Due to the fact that there is a huge problem with garbage disposal, government representatives must contribute to resolving

As the world population continues to rise, there are growing concerns for maintaining agricultural farmlands, especially in developing countries with drought and famine. This has also led to many shortages of food, due to high demand because of the increasing population. Demographists worry that if this growing issue continues to hurt food consumption of povertized countries, than there will be more deaths because the population is increasing, but the food levels are staying the same, or even decreasing. Some of these demographists believe that this is occurring, because the developed countries are intaking too much food. Others believe that this is because of the overpopulated countries, and the fact that they are in higher need for food because of their population. Another problem that arises within this is deforestation. Deforestation is a part of this growing problem because when massive woodlands are cut down, the lands become dry and bodies of water in or around the land dry up, making crops unsuitable for crop growth and crop rotation, leading to the lands to turn into non-arable lands. This is also known as desertification. This correlates with population growth because if lands become non-arable, then crops won’t grow there, leading to starvation in developing countries with higher population needs and demands. Although some people are taking action for the problems that this issue has given us, we’re still nowhere near solving the problem.

As the population grows, cities are constructed along rivers and other waterways, and the sources are modified to meet urban needs rather than ecological. More and more food needs to be grown to nourish people. Now, land is degrading and sea levels are rising, making growing impossible in many former farming areas. Because of this, "... 800 million people are chronically malnourished, and 2 billion lack food security" (Dahl, 603). Because agriculture for the masses depends heavily on irrigation, it puts additional strain on the globe's water tables (Dahl, 602). Not to mention that current water sources are being polluted by sewer discharge and industrial waste. Deforestation is another issue. Forests and other natural vegetation help protect against flooding and soil erosion. In the 1990s, 563,709 square miles of land were cleared of forests (Dahl, 602). Without these forests, global warming has been accelerated as more carbon is released into the atmosphere, rather than being consumed as fuel by plants and released as oxygen. For example, in India and Sri Lanka, a tsunami, unhindered by the mangroves that used to grow there, destroyed

The topic of ecological sustainability can be complex or simple, depending on the many factors that take place. In living systems, being sustainable means to produce more than to waste. By creating something sustainable, it assures that the resources can be recycled and will be available for people in the future to meet their needs. In terms of modern cities, the sustainability depends on how much minerals and energy we bring into the city (water, energy), and how we use them effectively for our health and community, while keeping the available resources from depleting. Not only that, the sustainability also depends on the cities form and infrastructure to support an average citizen’s daily needs. With the politics and governance of modern cities, how viable are plans of creating a sustainable city now? Is it possible? Many nations have already agreed that it is an important and influential issue, with harsh consequences if not tackled. The situation of a city and its flaws also depends on if the cities are in the third world, or in a rich nation. A sustainable city needs to be environmentally worthy, have a suitable infrastructure for all and should be well run. These characteristics can only be achieved by proper governance and the collective effort of the citizens. The essay discusses the importance of environmental sustainability and some of the widely known issues of urban and rural sustainability around the globe and possible solutions and preventions.