Too Much Trash

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Introduction

Every year, the typical American family throws out:

• 2,460 pounds of paper
• 540 pounds of metals
• 480 pounds of glass
• 480 pounds of food scraps

All told, each of us throws away more than 1,200 pounds of trash per year, farm more than people in most other countries.  About 80 percent of that garbage ends up in landfills--dumps, as they are more commonly known.  (Of the remaining 20 percent, about half is recycled and half is incinerated.)  One big problem is that we are running out of landfill space--more than half of the nation's landfills will be full within ten years.  Where will we put all our garbage when we've run out of space?

But trash presents more than a space problem.  Between 5 and 15 percent of what we throw away contains hazardous substances--substances that can seep into the ground and contaminate air, water, and soil, eventually injuring people and other living things.  Batteries, plastics, inks used on packages, and disposable diapers are just some of the things we throw away that contain hazardous substances that can cause serious problems.
 

The Problem of Packaging

One of the things we throw away most often is packaging.  Think about the products you and your family buy.  From snack foods to compact discs, many products contain a great deal of packaging.  Some have four or five layers, including several layers of plastic, far more than may be necessary.  If your household is typical, about one-third of the packaging you buy will be thrown away immediately upon opening a package.

Excessive packaging also adds to the cost of a product, so you pay extra for products that have a lot of wrapping.  We also pay for garbage in other ways--through higher taxes needed to create new landfills, for example, and through higher medical bills and health insurance costs required to cure the illnesses caused by pollution.
 

The Recycling Solution

The real tragedy behind the mountains of trash we produce is that a lot of what we throw away can be reused or recycled.  Not everything is recyclable, and some materials are more easily recycled than others.  But recycling makes perfect sense in any case.  After all, why throw away what we can reuse?

What exactly can be recycled? Almost anything:

• Metals--such as aluminum, steel, and tin.  All of these metals must be mined from the ground, which can damage the local landscape and create water and air pollution.  Most metals can be melted down and recycled again and again.  This saves huge amounts of energy.
• Glass--is made largely from sand, and there is hardly a shortage of that in the world.  However, turning the sand into glass takes a large amount of energy.  Much less energy (and much less sand) is used when glass is melted down and made into new bottles and jars.  Every ton of crushed waste glass used saved the equivalent of about 30 gallons of oil.
• Paper--is made from trees, of course, and cutting down trees can cause environmental problems.  In the United States we cut down more than 4 billion trees a year to make paper and cardboard for newspapers, magazines, packaging, junk mail, kitchen towels, toilet paper, boxes (and homework assignments!), among many other things.  It takes at least 25 years for a tree to grow tall enough to be made into paper--which we may use and throw away in a matter of minutes!  Turning trees into paper also uses tremendous amounts of energy and water and causes a great deal of air and water pollution.
• Plastics--are made from chemicals, many of which are made of fossil fuels such as oil.  Because the technology has not been perfected, very little plastic is being recycled in the United States.  And recycling plastic is different from recycling glass, aluminum, and paper.  While you can turn used paper into new paper, and turn an aluminum can or glass bottle into another can or bottle, you cannot turn a plastic hamburger container into another container.  At best, the container can be made into something different--a flowerpot, for example, or a videocassette box--so there are limits to the usefulness of recycling plastic.
• Other materials--this includes a variety of products that we can use every day, such as batteries (including automobile batteries), clothing, oil, tires, and yard wastes.  Check out the rest of this site for specific suggestions on how to recycle some of these things.

What can't be recycled? In general, it isn't possible to recycle things made out of several different kinds of material---several kinds of plastics, for example, or metals mixed with plastic or paper.  Here are just three example of unrecyclable things guaranteed to end up in landfills:

• aerosol cans, made from several kinds of metals and plastics.
• juice boxes, made from a combination of plastic, cardboard, and aluminum foil.
• squeezable plastic ketchup (and mustard and other products) bottles, made from several different kinds of plastic molded together.

 

The Myth of Degradability

We used to think that after we discarded something into a landfill that it would eventually biodegrade--that is, it would rot and disappear completely.  But we have come to learn that this doesn't really happen.

In a sense, everything in the world is biodegradable.  Given enough time, air, sunlight, and other elements, your family's house, car, and possessions will all break down and wear away.  It could take hundreds or even thousands of years for this to occur but it will happen sooner or later.

But when things are buried in a landfill, where there is little if any air or sunlight, things do not break down.  In fact, burying things in a landfill tends to preserve trash rather than dispose of it!
 

How to Tell What's Recycled

There are several ways to identify products made of recycled material.  Some products state on their labels "Made of recycled material."  But some labels don't disclose how much of the material is recycled.  Is it 5 percent or 100 percent?  There may be no way of knowing.

Look for the recycled symbol (if you don't know what that looks like, you don't deserve to be here), but be careful:  sometimes the symbol means that the product can be recycled, not that it is made from recycled material.

If the product or package is made from cardboard, such as a box of cereal or crackers, there is an easy way to tell whether it has been recycled.  Peak under the top flap.  If the underside of the cardboard is gray or dark brown, the box is made from recycled material.  If the underside is white, it is made from virgin (unrecycled) material.

Whenever you have a choice, always choose the product made from recycled material.

What Can You Do?

You probably already know about the "three Rs"--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic.  But there are three more Rs you should know to help you become a Green Consumer:
 

• Refuse to buy things that are excessively packaged, that are made of plastics or other materials that are not fully recyclable, that are wasteful in other ways, or that you don't really need.
• Reuse whatever you can.  And buy products made of or packaged in reused (recycled) material.
• Recycle as much as you can.  This allows us to get the most use of out of our precious resources.

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