“When
the Earth is ravaged and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall
come unto the Earth of many colors, creeds and classes… and by their deeds
shall make the Earth green again. They shall be known as the Warriors of the
Rainbow”- Ancient Hopi Prophecy (650A.D.) [7]. A prophecy spoken many centuries ago by an
almost lost people calls to mind the issues which face humans in modern times. In
today’s times, humans have created the above horrific situation in which life,
sanitation for life and livable space will be a commodity in the future. Garbage dumps and landfills are now taking up
significant areas of livable space for humans and animals alike. Without
change, humans will be living within the garbage heaps in the future as some
children and families in the third and fourth world as it is called do now
[5][7]. Oceans are now filled with garbage that are killing ocean life at an
unprecedented pace, land is now filled with Hazardous material sites, Landfills
and Garbage dumps that inevitably leak into ground water, food supplies and
breathable air are now polluted almost beyond repair [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. A
change has to come or the planet concerning human life will be done.
According the United state
Environmental Protection agency every year, the United States generates
approximately 230 million tons of "trash"--about 4.6 pounds per
person per day. Less than one-quarter of it is recycled; the rest is
incinerated or buried in landfills. With a little forethought, people could
reuse or recycle more than 70 percent of the landfilled waste, which includes
valuable materials such as glass, metal, and paper. This would reduce the
demand on virgin sources of these materials and eliminate potentially severe
environmental, economic, and public health problems [1][2][3]. Recycling and
composting prevented 86.6 million tons of material from being disposed in 2012,
up from 15 million tons in 1980. This prevented the release of approximately
168 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the air in
2012—equivalent to taking over 33 million cars off the road for a year
[1][2][4][7]. However, that still leaves other issues such as Organic materials
which continue to be the largest component of MSW (Municipal Solid Waste).
Paper and paperboard account for 28 percent and yard trimmings and food waste
account for another 28 percent. Plastics comprise about 13 percent; metals make
up 9 percent; and rubber, leather, and textiles account for 8 percent. Wood
follows at around 6 percent and glass at 5 percent [2][3][6]. These things are
not placed in one landfill or garbage dump in the U.S. but many throughout the
nation. Most of these places for refuse are noted by the EPA: as Landfills are
engineered areas where waste is placed into the land. Landfills usually have
liner systems and other safeguards to prevent polluting the groundwater [2][3].
Next would be Transfer Stations that are facilities where municipal solid waste
is unloaded from collection vehicles and briefly held while it is reloaded onto
larger, long-distance transport vehicles for shipment to landfills or other
treatment or disposal facilities [2][3][4]. Finally there are Hazardous waste sites
which present immediate or long-term risks to humans, animals, plants, or the
environment. It requires special handling for detoxification or safe disposal.
In the U.S., hazardous waste is legally defined as any discarded solid or
liquid that, contains one or more of 39 carcinogenic, mutagenic, or teratogenic
compounds at levels that exceed established limits (including many solvents,
pesticides, and paint strippers); catches fire easily (such as gasoline,
paints, and solvents); is reactive or unstable enough to explode or release
toxic fumes (including acids, bases, ammonia, and chlorine bleach); or is
capable of corroding metal containers such as tanks, drums, and barrels (such
as industrial cleaning agents and oven and drain cleaners). The EPA has a list
of more than 500 specific hazardous wastes [1][2][3][6][7]. This short but
comprehensive list doesn’t even call out places like Yuka Mountain in New
Mexico. The largest Nuclear waste dump in the world [6][7]. According to EPA
numbers, humans are making progress in the recycling arena, but are still a
long shot off the mark at current pace. Currently there are 86 facilities in
the United States for combustion of municipal solid waste (MSW), with energy
recovery. These facilities are located in 25 states, mainly in the Northeast.
No new plants have been built in the US since 1995, but some plants have
expanded to handle additional waste and create more energy. The 86 facilities
have the capacity to produce 2,720 megawatts of power per year by processing
more than 28 million tons of waste per year [1][2][3[4].
Oceans are currently covered
in a plastic soup as discussed in other papers which also leads to the toxicity
of the planet when it comes to humans or wildlife in general [4][7]. According
to the data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), approximately 1.4 billion pounds of trash is dumped in the oceans every
year [1][7]. On an average, 8 million items of marine litter are disposed in
oceans every single year; approximately 5 million of which are either thrown
off board or lost during a storm [1][8]. It is estimated that 70 percent of the
total marine litter is deposited at the seabed; the remaining 30 percent either
keeps floating in the ocean or is washed ashore (beach trash) [1][7][8].
Interestingly, pollution caused by marine transportation only accounts for 10
percent of the total ocean pollution -- and even that is down from 12 percent
in 1990 [8]. As a part of the annual International Coastal Cleanup campaign,
598,000 volunteers collected over 9 million pounds of trash from various sites
across the world in 2011 [7][8]. Even oil spills are categorized but rarely
looked at in the scope of pollution. These spills are categorized into major
spills (over 700 tons), medium-sized spills (7-700 tons), and small spills
(less than 7 tons) [1][8]. In 2011, there was 1 major and there were 4 medium
oil spills recorded from different parts of the world [8]. The Deepwater
Horizon oil spill of 2010 -- also called BP oil disaster -- was the largest
offshore oil spill in the history. It lasted for nearly 3 months and spilled
4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico [4][7][8][9]. Ocean-based activities account for 20 percent
of the overall pollution, and cruise ships have a major contribution in this 20
percent share [4][6][8]. The waste generated on cruise ships is categorized into
grey-water (i.e., the wastewater from sinks, showers, laundry, etc.) and black-water
(i.e., the wastewater from medical facilities aboard, toilets, etc.)
[3][4][7][8]. According to the Cruise Report Card prepared for the Friends of
the Earth in 2009, Ross A. Klein estimates that a moderate-sized cruise ship on
a week-long voyage with 2,200 passengers and 800 crew members aboard generates
210,000 gallons of human sewage [7][8] [9]. In the United States, the Act to
Prevent Pollution from Ships prohibits the ships from dumping any kind of waste
within a distance of 3 nautical miles from the coast. For certain types of
waste, the distance is 12 nautical miles from the coast [8]. Are these areas
and the scant resources used to enforce these new laws enough to even make a
dent in the issue of Ocean pollution? Science seems to have doubts.
Sadly enough, humans are
made to live on land, not in the ocean currently being destroyed. However, in
the cycle of pollution everything starts and ends there, eventually making it
to land, crops, inland water ways and even the air humans breathe
[1][4][6][7][8]. When Congress passed
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976, it fundamentally changed
the way America stores trash. The law and its subsequent amendments require
disposal facilities to line their gigantic trash holes with layers of either
plastic or clay, or both [1][8]. These liners, and a subterranean piping
system, collect the leachate, which is then hauled to sewage treatment plants.
Landfill operators must also install pipes to vent the methane gas, which is
burned off—reducing the super-potent greenhouse gas to mere carbon dioxide.
(Some facilities take advantage of the heat created in the process, using it to
power turbines or turn the methane directly into liquid natural gas.)
[1][3][8]. The 1976 law was a huge win for the soil and groundwater, however there
are drawbacks. Technologically has advanced the landfill sites and expectations
of landfills in current operation [1][8]. The word dump now applies only to
old-school holes in the ground and are more expensive to design and operate
than in the past [2][3][8]. To make up for these costs, landfill operators
began to emphasize economies of scale. Rather than having lots of tiny dumps
scattered everywhere, now there are a small number of mega-landfills. In 1986,
there were 7,683 dumps in the United States. By 2009, there were just 1,908
landfills (PDF) nationwide—a 75 percent decline in disposal facilities in less
than 25 years [1][3][4][8]. Which brings America to the problem with the new system:
Trash now has to travel further from a kitchen or property to its final resting
place, and longer trips mean more greenhouse gas emissions [1][2][3][6][8].
Thirty years ago, a bag of garbage dropped down a chute in Manhattan would have
traveled just a few miles by barge to the aptly named Fresh Kills facility on
Staten Island. (Until 1931, the city dumped most of its trash in the Atlantic
Ocean) Today, it would likely make an overland journey to Ohio, Pennsylvania,
or West Virginia. One ton of garbage traveling 500 miles by train from New York
to the Mountain State would generate 115 pounds of carbon dioxide [1][2][3][8].
If New York City shipped all of its trash to West Virginia the commute would
produce 760,000 tons of CO2 each year [1][2][8]. Now air pollution is becoming
the issue from landfills all across the nation with little notice and no fix in
sight. What are states to do that have no more space to dump internally? This
situation has been a boon of revenue for States like Ohio [1][2][3][8]. Much like
prisoners, trash shipments can be big business for states willing to accept
them. Kentucky, for example, has room for 212 million tons of waste. At the
going rate of $29 per ton, that's a $6 billion economic opportunity [1][3][8].
Ohio has $21 billion of available landfill space [1][8]. Because of political
opposition to local landfills, most Northeastern states' trash will probably be
riding the rails for a long time to come. This is all without the thought of
mining waste in this nation [1][2][4]. Yes waste mine material from the same
states that collect other’s garbage are also a source of issue for the future,
whether the mining is natural, strip, top off or fracking. Or the waste caused
by industrial farming, industry in general, a lot of which get Grandfather
clauses placed into any new EPA regulation stopping them from being fined, but
making it OK for any future attempts to store or deal with waste a finable
offense [1][2][3][6]. What land are humans going to live on in the future?
Where will humans grow food for sustenance?
It seems as though states
would rather accept trash for local residents than build housing for those who
need. Oceans all over the world are now plastic stews with the carcasses of
what used to be marine life intertwined. Land is becoming unmanageable or
unlivable as humans dump more and more waste into areas that will eventually
affect the species. Water ways used for recreation, travel and the like are
almost open sewers in which humans play, eat and defecate again. In some third
world nation’s people actually move entire families into garbage dumps and live
for years at a time [5][7], a practice which seems unimaginable to Americans,
but soon may not be. There is no bubble, no filter and no way of keeping what
happens in the rest of the world from “leaching” into America through natural sources
of all kinds, be those sources air, water or land. Americans worry about the
inundation of Terrorism across the borders and the sanctity of life of the
unborn, without ever really looking at the cradle humans have left for that
life in the future. Hopefully soon the Rainbow Warriors will wake up, and
reclaim or change this before it is too late for the mother that cares for all
species… Mother Earth.
[1] http://www.learner.org/interactives/garbage/solidwaste.html
- U.S. Garbage totals and World Garbage totals
by estimate.
[2]
http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/index.htm
- Municipal Solid Waste by the numbers EPA.
[3]
http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Landfills.htm
– “Landfills in the US and management.
[4]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA3rhyxpeMA
– America’s Mega-Dump Documentary.
[5]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6SPy9qV1M4
– Children Living in the Guatemala City
Dump; “Children of the 4th World” – Documentary.
[6]
http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/landfill.htm
- EPA Landfill watch, differing from Garbage watch on EPA site.
[7]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtoGdrkt9EY
– “Inside the Garbage of the World” Documentary.
[8]
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/ocean-pollution-facts.html
- list of Ocean facts and resources.
[9]
