|
How many times have you thrown away an orange peel or a candy wrapper without thinking twice about it? You use it, you throw it away, and you don’t give it a second thought. But all that trash does not just magically disappear from your trash cans. It has to go somewhere. That somewhere is a landfill near you, and they are quickly running out of space...
Â
Tracking Down The Trash
Our trash can either go into trashcans or litter our streets. If the trash is not picked up, many times it is flushed into gutters where it goes straight to our oceans. But what about the trash that we place in waste bins? Where does it go?
Trash collection is performed both by cities and by private companies. Companies that are contracted receive money for each truck load they bring into the landfill. There are, however, strict regulations that are placed on loads: the loads must contain no electronic waste, hazardous material, or other industrial waste. Spot checks are done and if these rules are violated, then the companies can be banned.
What’s In A Landfill
Landfills, a place where trash is accumulated, require a lot of attention as they have to be carefully monitored for methane gas, leachate, and loose waste. Methane gas is produced by the decomposing garbage and can be harmful for the atmosphere if it is not properly collected. Leachate is a thin liquid formed when garbage decomposes. If this leachate gets into the groundwater, it can cause major contamination to the water of surrounding areas. Finally, loose waste is a concern because it can often form the breeding grounds for disease-carrying insects, rats, and other carriers. Â
When landfills are full and properly contain all trash, they are closed until they can be stabilized and used for new development, often times of parks and playgrounds, such as New York's Fresh Kills landfill, still in the process of conversion. Â
A Few Numbers
The average American consumes 4.39 pounds of trash per day and up to 56 tons of trash per year which adds up to a lot of waste, most of which is food waste that can be composted. Currently, 70% of U.S. municipal solid waste gets buried in landfills. But the capacities of these landfills are quickly running low and on average, one landfill is closing per day. This leaves us to wonder what we will do with our trash when we completely run out of landfill space. Â
Life Without Landfills
Our need for landfills can be drastically reduced, however, if not eliminated. How? Simply by recycling, and composting. Those are the only two zero-waste alternatives, and they can be further supported by reducing the amount of packaging we bring home from a shopping trip. According to the Clean Air Council, almost 1/3 of the waste generated the U.S. is packaging. Although other methods of waste disposal exist, such as incineration and pyrolysis, they all present some kind of environmental and health issues, such as pollution by dioxin (a cancer-causing, hormone altering chemical), use of electricity (which requires fossil fuel), and more. As such, they should not be looked as viable alternatives to landfills.
If all the recyclable and compostable waste actually was recycled or composted, the need for more landfills, incinerators and others would slowly disappear, along with health and environmental issues.
So next time you throw away that orange peel, or that aluminum can, think twice about what and how much you are throwing away and where it will eventually end up.
Â
|
