Solving the Garbage Problem - Case Study Example

Why Do We Need to Think Beyond Recycling as a Solution to Our Garbage Problem? Since 2006 Al Gore has lectured across the country about the perils that await our world if we continue to abuse the planet. Gores documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," inspired many people to start recycling because they thought this was the right thing to do and that it would slow down global warming. Although recycling has been a good thing to do and it is a part of the larger problem, it is not enough; we need to find ways to control the creation of garbage so that we do not eliminate ourselves from the planet. People all over the world throw out more garbage that gets taken to a landfill or a recycling plant where it is buried or burned. This is not the solution to the problem and we need to do more. In an average year people are throwing away two billion tons of garbage (Medina 40). This includes everything from human waste to paper and plastics. Although the world is talking about recycling garbage the truth is that many of the things that are recycled end up in a landfill because there are no markets for it to be recycled. This action is causing major problems with the atmosphere and it helps global warming continue. We need to think beyond recycling because so much is being thrown away. WHY RECYCLING IS NOT THE SOLUTION Recycling is only one part of the puzzle according to Heather Rogers and it can actually add to the garbage problem. She states that recycling is limited for many reasons: 1. Many recycled items end up in the landfill or in the incinerators because there are no markets for the recycled products. 2. Recycling rates are very low: only 54% of aluminum, 26% of glass, 40% of paper products and 5% of plastics are being recycled. 3. Recycling stops people from seeing the bigger picture. (Rogers 158). This suggests that although there are many reasons why recycling is good, it is not enough; there are still problems that stop it from being the most effective option. Martin Medina studied trash across the world and found that China was the largest producer of garbage. He suggests that to cope with this growth China would have to build 1,400 landfills and they would have to spend eight times as much on waste management by the year 2020 (Medina 40). Although this may seem somewhat outrageous, the United States may not be in any better shape. Today Americans recycle more garbage than they did twenty years ago and about 15 million people depend on recycling to make their living. This makes no sense to me because recycling is supposed to be something "good" to do and yet it is still not effective. Marks and Howden comment that plastic is a very difficult product to deal with because not enough of it is getting recycled. Usually plastic ends up in the ocean. Once there, it is so durable and it is not biodegradable so it just floats on the water (Marks and Howden, 2). This to me shows that we are not caring enough about the environment. When garbage gets into the water it can harm fish and wildlife that drink from it which translates into humans receiving the contamination because they eat the animals. According to Rogers recycling is still a very important aspect of dealing with waste because it is a better option than burning or burying it. She says that recycling saves energy and helps to decrease pollution (Rogers as qtd. in Sarver 2). Recycling is only as good as the market that accepts it. If there is no market for the particular items they end up in a landfill or incinerator. Also, there is a threat that recycling programs would be terminated if they do not out perform waste disposal (Rogers 179). Most cities only do recycling if it pays for itself and [hopefully] turns a profit. If they do not live up to expectations some cities find that it is "not cost effective" to continue the programs. The question still remains, "If recycling isnt enough, what can be done?" My answer to this question would be to make it mandatory for people to develop low cost and effective ways to reduce the amount of garbage they use. Some of it could be composted and used for gardening. WHAT CAN BE DONE Ed Douglas points out an interesting concept called "landfill mining." The concept suggests that there is a way to dig up the things in the landfill and recycle them in some way. People across the world are talking about this idea and there was a one day global conference in London recently so that people could talk about the issue. I think this is an interesting concept and it would help reduce the problem. We need to do something to change the way we think about the planet. If we understood that we are part of a large ecosystem and what we do to the environment also affects us, we might think twice about abusing the planet with all the garbage. According to Douglas, "the average landfill is strewn with valuable -- and sometimes even precious--metals" (Douglas 35). As an example, aluminum is one that is available and it is estimated that more aluminum could be found in landfills than can be produced from ore and this is across the globe. The cost of aluminum would go down if this metal could be recycled from the landfills. Douglas says that Americans alone bury up to $1.83 billion worth of metals each year (35). Other products can come from recycling waste that include compost for lawn improvement, combustible materials and it can be a source of energy. Currently it is more expensive to get aluminum cans out of the landfills than it is but buy it from a recycling plant (Douglas 36). Landfill mining seems to me to be a practical solution. The challenge is that big business would have to buy into this process which Douglas indicates will not happen easily. Another challenge for finding ways to work with garbage is that it has become a very large business. Rogers states that it began with small private companies and has grown to recycling centers run by large corporations; in fact, in the early days some of them were run by the Mafia. This means that companies may stand to lose money if they were going into mining the landfills. I think that Young and Lumsden have a great idea. They studied the economics of garbage collection and found that financing the process from curbside to landfill was expensive but it could benefit the community if done in a different way. They suggest that a Clean Renewable Energy Bond could help bring the cost of processing garbage down and money could then be given to the communities. This would create a "positive cash flow" for the communities to do other things (Young and Lumsden 40). I think this type of program could encourage more people to recycle because they would be doing something for their community. Since communities are always looking for money this would solve the problem of too much garbage and help the community in the process. Rick Docksai reported on a program at the University of Birmingham that has developed a process that can convert wasted food into hydrogen fuel. Led by Mark Redwood, a research fellow at the university, the point of this research is to find a way to "give consumers around the world a clean and affordable energy source while reducing the flow of garbage into landfills" (Docksai 18). This process would allow people to get rid of their own waste with a simple machine while producing their own electricity. Since the world currently has an emphasis on "Going Green" in any way possible, this process would be one that would allow humans to be more responsible for their individual waste. THE FUTURE OF GREEN (Conclusion) In the beginning of the movie, "Wall-e" the viewers are thrust silently into a world of large stacks of garbage in a landfill. The earth looks like a large desert and only Wall-e, a trash compacting robot and a cockroach are the signs of life on the planet. The viewers find out later that earth has been evacuated and humans have been taken to Mars to live in a corporation controlled luxury city. For some people the movie is funny but at a deeper level it is frightening because it could be the future of our planet if something is not done to stop our waste production. Today, people who are concerned about this issue are not only recycling but they are finding ways to work more directly with nature and our natural resources to do their small part to save the planet. There is a lot of talk about reducing "carbon footprints" and such with television programs to show people how to build green, how to control their waste and how to even eat organically. Rogers states that, "people unwilling to wait for official solutions have always made meaningful contributions to imagining different ways of living" (209). The process of going green is to eliminate as much waste as possible. The challenge is that to save the planet everyone--including politicians, corporations and every citizen--must care enough about what is happening to change the way we live. Most people would rather ignore the situation until it is too late because it seems like too much bother. Corporations and politicians look at the "problem" of garbage and recycling in terms of how much money it can make. Alternative fuels are available but the public is led to believe that they are not as good as petroleum products. The bottom line is that we could be headed for a desolate place as shown in the movie "Wall-e" if we do not take care of things while we can. As stated before, recycling is only one part of the puzzle. People need to understand that waste is what is going to drive the planet into oblivion if we do not react in a proactive that reaches beyond recycling. Works Cited Docksai, Rick. "Garbage as a Renewable Resource". The Futurist. Jan/Feb 2009. 43(1): 18. 28 May 2009. Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost database. (ANL 35537372). Douglas, Ed. "Dig Up The Dump." New Scientist. 4 October 2008. 199(2776): 34-36. 28 May 2009 GreenFile EBSCOhost Database. (AN: 34759855). Marks, Kathy and Howden, Daniel. "The Worlds Rubbish Dump: A Garbage Tip that Stretches from Hawaii to Japan." The Independent On Sunday. 2008. 26 May 2009. . Medina, Martin. "Talking Trash." Foreign Policy. 168(2008): 40-41. 26 May 2009. Academic Search Premier EBSCOhost Database (AN: 34036857). Rogers, Heather. Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. 2005. NY: The New Press. Sarver, Aaron. "Talking Trash." In These Times. Interview with Rogers. 7 February 2006. 26 May 2009. . Young, Gary C. and Lumsden, Karen J. "From Curbside to Landfill." Pollution Engineering. 41.4 (Apr. 2009): 38-40. GreenFile Business Source Premier EBSCOhost. (AN: 37223199). Read More