The Waste Management Of America Should Be Improved

States alone, 30% of all food is thrown away each year. That's about 161 billion dollars worth of

Take a moment to imagine the realization that a young boy came to when two of his favorite movies had a large plotline that was somewhat based on the problems of trash. Wall-E, the famous Pixar movie, was based on a small robot that was left behind on Earth’s surface alone. His job was to clean the garbage that the human population left behind when they went into space to escape their problems. Toy Story 3, another Pixar movie, contained a scene with garbage that was vital to the plot, in which the characters are rescued from a trash furnace that was consuming literally tons of trash a minute. These two movies tried to make the American population aware of the ever growing trash situation, however, Americans quickly forgot about the Earth shattering situation that they are causing. The solution to the world’s trash problem is easy; people need to be educated on the problems of trash and given an easy way to fix it. People should be required to visit a landfill, educated on the severity of the trash problem, and should be rewarded for changing their habits to improve the problem.

Recycling is the process of making new products from a product that has originally served its purpose. The process of recycling starts when used products are disposed in an appropriate, environmentally friendly way. Items made from materials such as paper, tin cans, aluminum cans, plastic water bottles, and glass, which people use in everyday life, can be separated from regular trash and put in an appropriate recycling bin. The United States now realizes the importance of recycling. However, many ignorant people still think separating recyclables requires too much work. Requiring mandatory recycling would prod these individuals into action. Lack of recycling leads to dramatic consequences such as polluting the environment and raising the number of landfills. Delay is critical; time plays a significant role in waste management. The sooner American communities recycle properly the better it will be for the environment and our surroundings. People need to become conscious and take responsibility as a society to protect the earth, keep it clean and beautiful, and preserve the natural resources. The United States can achieve this goal by implementing mandatory recycling.

Americans account for only five percent of the world’s population, but create half of the globe’s solid waste. Americans toss out the equivalent of $165 billion in food each year. All of that time, energy, and freshwater- for nothing. How can the United States, being so small in number, produce so much waste? Brad Plumer from the Washington Post documented a recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council that attempts to track America’s food, from “farm to fork.” Plumer breaks the report down into seven different wasteful places along the American food production line: Farming, post-harvest and packing, processing and distribution, retail and grocery stores, food service and restaurants, households, and disposal.

“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

In an article from the New York Times titled, “From Farm to Fridge to Garbage Can” by Tara Parker-Pope, it is evident that Americans dominate in throwing away perfectly good food and answers the question: why should we care about food waste? Food waste is expensive, and many different research studies have proven that including the Garbage Project put on by the University of Arizona which tracked home food waste for three decades. It is estimated that nearly 25 percent of the food Americans bring into their homes is wasted. As economists, we figure that a family of four may spend approximately 175 dollars on groceries in a week, so they could undermine more than 40 dollars worth of food each week and 2,275 dollars a year. Putting 2,275 more dollars into every American family’s pockets could give them more of an opportunity to buy their fancy smart televisions or luxuries that everyone wants. In fact, the United States throws 48.3 billion dollars away every year along with about half of the water used to produce that same food states the UNEP website.

A mine safety team working for the Environmental Protection Agency inadvertently triggered the spill of a million gallons of mine wastewater San Juan County, when it comes to handling your recycling and waste needs, we know how important reliable curbside pickup and disposal are to

     Americans may be a wasteful people but with discipline and self-control the war against waste can be won. Keep aware about waste and you

Making America great again has never been more of a challenge. We need to make America green again. “…over the last five decades as states have implemented requirements and consumers have become more aware, the U.S. is way behind leading European countries” (Lacey). America is one of the largest producers of waste in the world. With this we should be figuring out new ways in which to recycle and reuse different compounds and materials to ensure a better future.

The United States creates an immense amount of waste every year. The United States lacks in its ability to teach its population about waste management. Consequently, the average American is remarkably wasteful. Americans are wasteful as they throw away a substantial amount of food every year, they use unnecessary amounts of fresh water, and waste electricity.

Since as far back as I can remember, my parents always taught me to properly dispose of my trash. As I grew up, I, however, realized that many others did not receive or appreciate the same lesson I was taught as a child. Trash and garbage can be nasty items, and the improper disposal of garbage in public places and our environment is a serious problem disguised as a small issue. Personally, littering angers and disgusts me. The idea that someone is careless enough to throw trash literally anywhere is concerning; additionally, when you take a deeper look, littering is accompanied by some major impacts. Littering is a momentous issue with major impacts that are typically unseen by many people.

Everyone buys things and sooner or later, we will throw it away. Or suppose we eat at Mc Donald's. After we are finished, we throw away our trash and never see or think of it ever again. In our fast passed world that we live in today, there are many people living in it and produce a lot of garbage and waste. The United States alone produces over 200 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste every year. That is equates to about 4.5 pounds of waste per person, per day. According to data from the EPA, about 35% of that is paper, 30% include yard trimmings and food scraps. Over 11% is plastic, 8% is metal, and the remainder contains wood, rubber, glass, and textiles. The main problem that we have is overflow of landfills. On top of this

There are so many ideas and ways trash could be taken care of instead of just being disposed alongside the highways, on the streets, or anywhere else it does not belong besides in a garbage can. It is very disappointing that many people do not even care at all that the mother earth is very trashy. However, there are a few good people out there who take their time to keep their community looking nice and clean. It is surprising when you do notice the few places that you travel by are clean.

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.

To attempt to solve this problem we must first define the scale of the problem. Over 95% of our nation’s overall waste is on the largescale industrial level (farming, mining, and industrial). (“Waste Management” 4638) The remaining five percent is municipal solid waste. Of that, 60% is from construction and commercial operations. (Nolan and Reaves) That is a staggering amount when one considers that our nation threw out 254 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2013. (EPA) Industrial waste, though it sounds all encompassing, is typically defined to large scale. Whereas commercial businesses can be both large and small. Since these definitions lend to a very wide and diverse range of waste, we must narrow it down for the purpose and constraints of this composition. Large scale mega-corporations tend to generate a lot of revenue and are therefore, often times, publically traded. This fact places them more in the lime-light, under the watchful eye of the EPA and the public. Smaller, privately held, commercial businesses fall out of the spectrum of industry and are able to fly more under the radar. This smaller size lends more to frugalness and therefore less concern with issues