Have you ever asked yourself, "Where does all our trash go?" I can say for myself that I didn't think of this question until I took the class AP Environmental, in which we learned about the issue of storing our waste. We don't really think about what happens to our trash; we just toss it in the trash can and forget about it. However, trash just doesn't disappear as it seems to when the massive trash truck hauls it away. Granted, some trash is burned in incinerators, but most is just left to sit in landfills. Landfills are vast, cleared-out areas of land where all of our garbage is dumped and piled into. The problem is that most items in the landfills are not biodegradable, so they just sit and collect there in the open dirt pit. Also, landfills can only hold so much trash, so as we keep throwing away everything we use, pretty soon we are going to be living in our rubbish as we run out of places to store our waste.
This is a major concern because where are we going to store our trash when there is no more room in the landfills?
Underground? - we have already begun to store trash underground; however, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website, "if not properly maintained and managed, underground storage tanks (USTs) can cause harm to human health and the environment by leaking or allowing spills or overflows of the products contained to enter the soils or groundwater."
In the Ocean? - we have already begun to store waste out in the ocean, as well, on barges.
Outer space? - an option that we don't know what the consequences of it would be.
However, the key to solving the dilemma of waste disposal is not in finding other sites or ways to dispose of our trash (these are just temporary solutions). Instead, what we need to do is find ways to reduce the amount of waste we produce. We are a very wasteful society; almost everything we buy are packaged and/or disposable. As Jack Johnson mentions in his song, we need to learn how to Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle.
This is a major concern because where are we going to store our trash when there is no more room in the landfills?
Underground? - we have already begun to store trash underground; however, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website, "if not properly maintained and managed, underground storage tanks (USTs) can cause harm to human health and the environment by leaking or allowing spills or overflows of the products contained to enter the soils or groundwater."
In the Ocean? - we have already begun to store waste out in the ocean, as well, on barges.
Outer space? - an option that we don't know what the consequences of it would be.
However, the key to solving the dilemma of waste disposal is not in finding other sites or ways to dispose of our trash (these are just temporary solutions). Instead, what we need to do is find ways to reduce the amount of waste we produce. We are a very wasteful society; almost everything we buy are packaged and/or disposable. As Jack Johnson mentions in his song, we need to learn how to Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle.
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