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.
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
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
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
“We throw out about 254 million tons of solid waste per year in America alone” for comparison that is about 1.27 million average sized blue whales. That is a ton of trash! But, as Americans we do not see all this trash. We barely even touch it. It is all pretty much taken care of for us. So the trash is sort of out of sight out of mind. Let me put this into some
People are constantly throwing trash outside their window when they are driving down the street or throwing trash on the ground when they are walking. As minor as littering is, there are long term effects. Trash that ends up in the storm drains, eventually make it’s way into the ocean. Once the trash is in the ocean, it can eventually make its way into a whales blowhole, or can be consumed by an animal; which could harm them. Also, trash that makes it’s way into lakes and oceans is very difficult to remove. If you cannot remove the trash, how are you going to prevent these animals from getting
There are different ways Americans can dispose of the 200 million tons of garbage they generate each year. In the 1930’s people started to use landfills, as opposed to open dumps, which drew insects and vermin, causing disease. Landfills are made by digging holes in the in the ground and filling it with waste products and then capped. The government safeguards landfills, and each landfill is exclusive to the kind of waste it has. This method is controlled and monitored, as is the method of incineration. Incineration is the burning of solid waste products at a temperature of 850 degrees. There are pros and cons to each method.
Elder Holland said, “The journey of a thousand steps begins with one step, so watch your step.” Elder Holland is a brilliant man, along with many other people in this world. Watching what we do, will cure most anything. I understand, some people just don’t care, “ that trash is biodegradable,” meaning the earth will eat this trash up in no time. What else will take some foreign object, break it down and then use it for its benefit? It does benefit the soil, giving food both to the organisms that live around that can eat the trash, it is part of a cycle, but those organisms can get food
What action can states force upon themselves to help save the landfills from destroying the earth? Building new landfills to make additional room for “new” waste is a recipe for disaster. How so? It takes an arm and a leg to build new landfills, meaning the cost of making another one would be higher than what was expected. A founding shows how this relates to being overpriced: New York is very populated, making the state even more crowded by building landfills. Along with overflowing of the state, expenses would be too much to bear (Gelman). Is it a good idea to build these? How would taxes tie into this? Building new landfills could set the stage for an outstanding payment. What else could states do to lower the cost of items used on a daily
is a major provider of the trash that pollutes the ocean. In the year 2000 we were producing nearly 5 pounds of trash per day which is more than double the amount of trash produced in most other industrialized countries (Recycling and Conservation). Thar is way too much, we need to recycle and not throw away. One of the things that we seem to always throw but is easily recycled is plastic. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), “Americans generated 33 million tons of plastics in 2013, which is about 13% of the waste stream”. I think that that is ridiculous since nearly all plastic is recyclable. To put that into perspective the 200 million pounds of garbage americans make each year is enough to fill Busch Stadium from top to bottom twice a day (11 Facts About Recycling). We need to reduce the amount of trash we produce and recycle the trash that we do make. You can make a
On average, Americans generate about 4 pounds of trash per person per day. (3) As Americans, we produce twice the amount of garbage than other countries and three times as much as we did in the past. Over half of the amount of trash we produce gets sent to landfills. The people who create the most trash are those that live in cities and wealthy individuals. When you live in a city, you consume more packaged goods and when you become more wealthy, you consume more products overall. (2) Unless we reduce the amount of trash we produce or find other ways to get
What can we do to address this issue? Is repetition to get the students attention. Just one simple announcement and they’ll forget the next day. So discussing the issue on daily emails, rallies, and having teachers talk about the problem with trash can remind students that all trash goes in the trash cans. The change students are to commit is to walk
The human penchant for opinionated judgement can be seen in political ideologies, religious beliefs or lack thereof, to the simple choice between whether Coke or Pepsi is the better soft drink. It’s quite apparent opinions are everywhere as they transcend age groups, social classes, and geographic locations. Opinions give individuality, but, more than often, opinions give way to hypocrisy where people will say one thing and do another. One example of this seems to be in waste management. It’s easy to say that we will recycle what trash we can or, at the very least, that we won’t litter. Yet, when walking on a beach, or even the sidewalk in front of your home, you will, more than likely, see trash in the gutter, in the
American citizens throw away millions of tons of garbage each year, and this trash has to go somewhere. While there are projects underway to clean and reuse this refuse most of it gets dumped into huge landfills. These landfills are disgusting festering blisters on our country's landscape. But people continue to consume and throw away more and more in the name of convenience. As they see it, when things get old, throw it away and get a new one. They blame the government for the trash problem, but the truth blame should be placed on themselves.
Earth is the only planet of its kind. Its unique environment provides us with air and water that are vital for life. It is important that we better protect our environment to secure life for future generations. My essay first will analyze two essays, Heather Roger's, Gone Tomorrow: Hidden Life of Garbage, and Lars Eighner On Dumpster Diving. Both authors pose interesting arguments warranting solutions to our excessive waste. This essay supports Rogers’s position over Eighners position. I agree with Roger’s solution holding Corporate America and large companies accountable for the excessive waste from mass production. Although I agree with Rogers, my argument requires companies to create products and packaging that are echo-friendly and