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Too Much Garbage

by Teh Su Lee (8th grade, Malaysia)
DRINK cam. sweet wr appers. leftover food, paper bottles and other unused materials This is what people all over the world throw away everyday. What happens to all thia garbage after it leaves the ^rbage can? The real problem now Is how to get rid of it People come up with Ideas and solutions but somehow. sometime, somewhere, there is a problem with It
Garbage can be a threat to the environment and even peoples health. People don t really understand these prob fems but if they do. do they really care?
Earth Is like a large garbage can. The contents tn It are endless They range from crushed cans, bottles, fish bones, to household items and some can be toxic or danger ous Most of the contents ol a dustbin is packaging. As shown tn the picture some parts of the packaging are really unnecessary. The ribbon and the plastic cover are only to make it attractive, the bubble pack is used for protecting the contents. which really doesn't need to be protected. What s worse, all these — and other things — are thrown away In fact, forty per cent of our trash comes from packaging Itself. An average amount of waste produced by one person in one year is about ninety drink cans: two trees worth of paper, seventy food cans, fortyfive kilo grams of plastic and one hundred and seven bottles and jam
The real problem now, Is where the garbage goes. Ninety per cent of the garbage gener ated tn the United States Is disposed of In landfills, six per cent is burnt, and four per cent is recycled About three quarters of what we throw away is bum able. The energy released by burning wastes could be con verted to electricity or steam Some cities are utilizing their garbage as fuel to make elec trtcity The Environmental Protecting Agency is allocating money to other places for this
kind of "waste utilization’ This would make about ISO million barrels of oil a year. This is only one example. Many other companies also have "bought trash to make electricity or oil.
In landfills, the waste is packed firmly by tractors and covered with earth each day. Thia prevents insects and other animals from getting near them. In time, when the landfills fill up. operators ex-per t the refuse tn them to de cay. However, many materials decompose slowly because of lack of oxygen
Recycling is the beet method so far Use it again As mentioned, only four per cent of the world s garbage is recy cled. which is not enough Fortunately. , in the next
decade, recycled waste may rise because of the decrease in natural resources, such as iron and coal. Recycling is away to convert garbage and trash into usable materials.
If garbage is not properly disposed of, it can get dangerous. For example tn landfills, decaying garbage in them gives off an explosive gas called methane. Many workers have died from explosions in land fills Also, another toxic liquid from landfills called lea (hate can ooee out from the bottom of landfills and through the ground and mix with drinking water supplies
In one case al Niagara Falls, a company dumped Its waste into an unused trench called love canal for thirteen years The company warned people not to build their houses near the canal, but soon houses and
schools were built A few years later, a strange black liquid seeped into basements of homes. The air smelled foul, children received burns and people were sick with many diseases. Many of the chemi cals caused cancer and other illness or damage to unborn children.
The main culprits of all this dangerous waste are the
United States. Europe. Japan and other progressing coun tries which throw more garbage away Maybe, this is because they tend to take for granted the things they have
For example, plastic or glass bottles can be kept to store or keep things instead of just throwing them away Poorer people will do this but richer people will just buy a better looking bottle to store things tn
The Americans throw away the most waste worldwide, followed by Australians and Canadians
Fortunately, the government Is trying to do something about it now Some countries and states require a small deposit for soft drink and beer bottle cans. Children can also earn extra money picking up cans and bottles
Environmentalists would like to see groceries and other goods in less wrapping Scientists took this idea to the extreme and developed food packaging that can be eaten
Nowadays, recycling has be come more familiar to the world. Some "things which we use now are probably made of recycled materials For exam pie. the gray lining Inside a cr real box was probably a news paper, and even newspapers are made from recycled pa per! Now. there are lots of re cycling companies recycling garbage, such as aluminum cans, paper, glass and other tings, in the future, there will be lots more of these compa nies because of the lack of run ural resources
Although we cannot do a whole lot overnight, we can still do our bit at home We should always try to throw away only what is necessary to dispose of and recycle as much as possible