Urban Garbage Dumps...

Japan’s urban mines, aka landfills, are estimated to have in them 6,800 tons of gold compared to 765 tons in Japan's official reserves. This is more even than the official reserves of Germany and the IMF combined. Japan’s garbage dumps also contain 60% of the world’s reserves of indium and 22% of silver. In value terms there is $833 million worth of indium and $15 billion, $30 billion, $178 billion, $283 billion worth of lead, silver, gold and copper respectively in Japanese rubbish dumps. The amount of aluminum thrown away by Americans every three months is enough to rebuild every plane in every airline in America. Each year newspapers equivalent of 30 million trees are trashed in the US.

Growth and Garbage

Growth promotes making goods which don’t last long or which pass from style and are just as well thrown away. When people lose interest in a product, it paves the way for new purchases.Everything manufactured becomes garbage. Increased production results in more garbage. Some such waste can be recycled, but even if we are able to recycle 50 percent of the present waste we would be back to the same level in about 20 years.  One of the most serious environmental consequences of the process of urbanization is the ever-growing amount of solid and liquid wastes generated by cities.

Industrialization and Urbanization

Garbage problem, particularly in the urban areas, started after World War II when expanding economic activities reached religious proportions. The exponential growth of production during the last half of the century created a whole new order of problems. The magnitude of economic activity grew to such proportions that it threatened natural resource supplies and created dangerous quantities of polluting waste.Then mass media made it possible to persuade people to purchase things they would never have wanted. This added extra waste, filling up all the landfills.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, many of the country's landfills have been closed for one or both of these two reasons:

• They were full.
• They were contaminating groundwater. Underground water is our drinking water and once it is contaminated, it is extremely expensive and difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to clean it up.

Too Much Waste for Nature to keep Up

Humans by their various actions create enormous impact on their surroundings. We create too much waste for nature to keep up. By leaving the garbage on the ground we destroy the atmosphere and by burning them we destroy it even further. Burning emits extremely poisonous gases into the atmosphere which can hurt human lungs and, if untreated, can result in death. Incineration may release toxins into the air and create ash that requires disposal in hazardous-waste landfills, and that takes us back to our starting point: Cities are running out of places to put their trash. The garbage doesn’t go away by burying too.  It pollutes the ground and can seep into our farming soil and even into our ground water.

What We Can Do

For this it is important to recognize the differences between sustainable and unsustainable practices. The former provides ongoing economic and social benefits without degrading the environment, whereas the latter are attempts to fill an immediate need for resources. Over time these practices damage the environment to such an extent that future generations cannot enjoy them.

Our activities become sustainable when ·      

Materials are used in a continuous cycle·      

We use reliable sources of energy continuously

Our activities are unsustainable when·       

We continuously require non-renewable resources. ·      

Use renewable resources faster than they renew themselves ·       

Our actions bring about degradation of the environment. ·       

 Our actions lead to extinction of other lives

Stop Litter From Our Yard

The origin of litter in the neighborhood is our own yard. One of the primary sources of litter in the community is mishandling of household garbage.

Here are some basic steps which can help reduce garbage creation to a great extent:·       

Always dump your garbage in a can or bag and never in cardboard boxes which tend to get damp from the ground or because of rain water.·       

Don’t overfill your trash cans and always put a lid on top securely fastened. ··       

The containers and/or trashbags must be leak proof, waterproof and kept closed at all times while being stored.·       

Avoid placing solid waste and waste containers in or on any curb, gutter, drainage area, sidewalk or paved portion of the street at any time for any purpose.·       

Keep a worm bin to compost our food scraps into nourishment that can be returned to the earth instead of toxins that seep from the landfills. ·       

Avoid paper or plastic bags.

Take your own reusable bags when grocery shopping.·       

Cancel magazine and newspaper subscriptions and read online.

See Poster Highlighting Hygienic Garbage Disposal   

Garbage Disposer

A garbage disposal is a must for kitchens as it helps make food preparation and cleanup easy and fast.

There are two types available:· 

Continuous-feed style – this is activated by a switch as you run the water

Batch-feed type - activated by turning a stopper after loading the disposal with garbage.For effective garbage disposal consider the following tips:·   

During grinding of food use cold water as hot water can melt fats and clog the mechanism and the pipes·       

Avoid overfilling·       

Keep the unit free from bleach, drain cleaners, or other chemicals ·       

Avoid grinding fibrous materials, bones, or coffee grounds. Never grind materials like glass, metal, or rubber·       

Run water before and after use

Energy From Garbage   

 In North America there are several approaches to creating energy from garbage    using its garbage to generate energy, or to produce other usable goods from garbage. Currently, there are several approaches to creating energy from garbage in North America.

A US company Waste Management  is increasingly turning garbage into energy -- enough to power over one million homes -- the equivalent of 14 million barrels of oil per year or 3.6 million tons of coal.Methane coming out of buried trash is burnt to run generators. Solar Hydrogen Energy Corporation (SHEC Labs ) uses solar energy to convert this methane into hydrogen. They hope to compete with the cheapest sources of Hydrogen that within 5 years.A large-garbage incineration power plant in the port city of Ningbao in east China's Zhejiang Province can incinerate over 1,000 tons of domestic waste per day.

Garbage power, therefore, like solar and wind power, is an environmentally friendly means of power generation. Ningbo is the third Chinese city to have a garbage power plant, following Shenzhen and Zhuhai, two booming towns in the southern Guangdong Province.

Did you know?

600,000 tons of waste is thrown out in Mexico City every month – enough to fill the vast Aztec football stadium FOUR TIMES!

How Garbage Collection Began

Visit The Beginning of Garbage Collection and History of refuse collection (or the garbage truck) for interesting details on garbage collection history.

Article Source:
CopperWiki