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rowanlim
Administrator
Joined: 02 Mar 2008
Posts: 2680
Location: Malaysia
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 Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:37 am Post subject: Human Footprint: Where Does All the Stuff Go? |
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This should be an educational read. Have fun! 
| Quote: | Our human footprint doesn�t end after we buy and consume things; the final impact occurs when we discard items � and we Americans discard four-fifths of a ton of trash per person, per year.
Here are the numbers: Americans generated 251 million tons of trash in 2006, the most recent year for which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has data. Our per capita trash disposal rate was 4.6 pounds per person, per day. Sixty-five percent came from residences, while 35 percent came from schools and commercial locations such as hospitals and businesses.
Where does it all end up? Fifty-five percent gets buried in landfills, 33 percent gets recycled, and 12.5 percent goes to incinerators.
Collecting and transporting trash and recyclables is a mammoth task. According to the National Solid Waste Management Association, the solid waste industry employs 368,000 people. They use 148,000 vehicles to move garbage to 1,754 landfills and 87 incinerators. They also pick up recyclables at curbside in 8,660 communities and take them to 545 materials recovery facilities for sorting. Solid waste is big business to the tune of about $47 billion in annual revenue.
After You Throw It Away
If your trash goes to a landfill it will end up sealed in the ground. It won�t decompose much, if at all, because air and water can�t get in. �Most landfills are more like mummifiers than composters,� wrote Elizabeth Royte in �Garbage Land.�
Landfills have some adverse environmental impacts. Despite careful engineering, they can leak liquids into the groundwater. Landfills also release one-fourth of all methane; landfill and wastewater treatment gases made up 2.3 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2005. At some landfills, gas-to-energy projects capture the gas to make electricity or to replace other fuels.
If your trash goes to an incinerator, it gets burned and turned into ash, which is used to make roads or parking lots, or is dumped in landfills. The burning also produces gases such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide (both cause smog and the latter causes acid rain), as well as trace amounts of toxics such as mercury compounds and dioxins.
Incinerators also create electricity. The 87 active incinerators (called waste-to-energy plants) generate 2,700 megawatts of power a year, which is enough electricity to power 2.3 million homes, but only amounts to 0.3 percent of U.S. power generation.
Pollution created by transporting waste to disposal areas also harms the environment. Trucks and trains used to move waste all create diesel exhaust, which contains nearly 40 toxic substances. Several organizations, including the EPA, have classified diesel exhaust as a probable or potential human carcinogen.
In Manhattan, for example, diesel trucks carry garbage 7.8 million miles every year, according to �Trash and the City,� a report by Environmental Defense. That�s the equivalent of circling the Earth 312 times.
New York City also ships its waste via truck and train as far away as Ohio and Virginia. Mel Peffers, an air quality project manager for Environmental Defense, explained: �Along that route all that pollution coming off of the diesel exhaust is very significant and it is the largest driver for our air cancer, our additional air cancer risk, and specifically the soot associated with diesel � is very bad.�
The Benefits of Recycling
Recycling avoids many of these impacts. When you recycle something, the item gets sorted and used to make similar items � aluminum cans, for example, contain about 41 percent recycled aluminum. It takes 95 percent less energy to make a can from recycled aluminum than from virgin bauxite ore.
By using recycled materials, the manufacturer creates fewer greenhouse gases. Recycling also reduces climate change emissions from incinerators and landfills. �Recycling is a win-win in terms of global warming pollution,� said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council and director of its national solid waste project. |
Source
So I guess we really should have the recycling bins in UMP...doesn't cost much but it does alot to save the environment 
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~music pours on mortals her magnificent disdain~ |
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hellborn_devil
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Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Posts: 36
Location: Malacca
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| Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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Alright, the problem with UMP-ians is, the awareness is just a temporary on and off switch. For a moment, oh dear, we need a recycling campaign; the next moment, silent...Recycling Silence.
That is what going to happen today, 9th April 2008. We are going to happen to recycling activities today. And what? five or six months later, another one approach, like we don't throw rubbish or wastes. Pretty a planet saver, huh!! I wonder.
Taking about Recycling Bins, our engineers are real a planet destroyer. Polystrene for storage of food, for packing purpose. Imagine 2000 undergrads buys food for lunch, and the same amount of students buy dinner, we have a total of 4000 polystrene thrown. Wow, 4000 per day, not even calculating per month, per year. What are we? Beneficial engineers to the society, but a horn red devil to the planet. We are killing the planet soon. I bet one day your grandchildren won't have a nice place to stay if things don't fix.
The emergence of recycling has long taken strong priority in many countries. Neglect the poor countries, we are a developing nations, there is no saying that we couldn't afford recycling bins around University or elsewhere. Of course, they do. Do our people realise? Nah, I don't think so, people are too selfish.
No matter who you are, what you are, you are nothing but just a parasite to this earth, you are borrowing it to live but not protecting it. Engineers, doesn't mean you are from different engineering background, you all play much a role of recycling. |
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rowanlim
Administrator
Joined: 02 Mar 2008
Posts: 2680
Location: Malaysia
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 1:55 am Post subject: |
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I totally agree with you. We can take steps to play our part not just as an EDUCATED, ENGINEERING STUDENT, but as a resident of dear planet Earth.
The fact about consuming 4000 polysterene in ONE day is a hard slap to the face.
I doubt it costs us much to have recycling bins in the area; think of the effects of recycling in the long term...
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calebdanvers
Musician
Joined: 06 Mar 2008
Posts: 1206
Location: Planet Earth
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| Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 9:51 am Post subject: |
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I seriously was only taking a stroll in here when all of a sudden, I thot this cud be an interesting TOPIC to rout on....
Well, I was thinking bout RECYCLING in UMP which sounds really almost IMPOSSIBLE to all UMP students. First of all, I'm one of the ppl who quite many times pack my foods using the environmentally-criticized POLYSTYRENE. Yes that stuff is not safe as it's nonbiodegradable and many environmentalists have come down hard on this stuff. However, I wud like to point out to all of us what in the first place that brought us to POLYSTYRENE? Was it because we knew it wasn't biodegradable and we'd like to be heavily criticised in the end for using it? There are pros and cons to using POLYSTYRENE and PLASTIC eating utensils and I dunwanna splurge them all out here. I'd prefer we all use our heads and think. Bear in mind that as human beings, we can never be PERFECT cuz we are humans.....
YES we are ENGINEERS and y is it that those who are TOTALLY well aware of the IMPORTANCE of RECYCLING not going head to head with our university administration and bring this matter up to them? I'm not trying to scoff at the idea of those who really harbor good intentions to clean up the earth but even these ppl are keeping mum over this matter!!!!!!! 
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