Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Landfills: The full essay

Landfills
 
 
Landfills are a major problem in our world. According to Just Live Greener “Every hour, Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles, 90% of which will finish their short lives in a landfill”. If landfills are not stopped, it will impact our Earth. Humans need to be aware of the effect of landfills has on the planet and learn about how to prevent it. Landfills damage our environment.

             A landfill is where waste can be disposed. One type of landfill is a sanitary landfill. This landfill actually helps the environment. How? The people seal the garbage away. The second type is municipal solid waste. This is also like a sanitary landfill, except it holds more of our household waste. The last type is an unsanitary landfill. This landfill can affect human life and the health of our environment.                                                                                

Landfills can be used in many ways. In fact, the gases in a landfill, like methane, can be used to heat our homes, or gives us electricity, but these gases can be minor. To produce this methane gas and others, H2O and oxygen go into the dirt covered pack. Once this happens, the gases go out doing their evil mission: hurting the atmosphere. In a sanitary landfill, operators have to control the H2O and oxygen. If operators cover the pack too early, the pack will go down and pollute for a long time. Lastly, the gases produce the odor of the landfill.

            There are a variety of reasons landfills are harmful to the environment. When a landfill breaks down, it takes many, many years to disintegrate. Years…years are bad. Like I said, it produces many gases to harm the atmosphere. These gases contribute to different climate changes. Also, if the landfill pack is covered too early, it is also polluting the ground and air. Humans keep putting garbage into landfills. The more garbage, the more the world is having weird climate changes and negative effects to our environment.

            There are few things that are being done to change landfills. One way is that miners can come, because there are minerals in landfills! When miners come, they can look for rare minerals. Operators can set up a hunt for different metals. If we also educate people about landfills, then people might start recycling and reduce all the garbage. Reduce, reuse, and recycle is a great way for people to help reduce landfills.

            Educating people about the effect of landfills will help in making a difference with our environment. When people are informed on landfills the hope is that they will inform others. As a result of spreading the information about landfills, people might take action. Furthermore, when people take action to help landfills this can connect with other environmental issues. For example, if people reduce, reuse, recycle this would help make a difference with landfills and littering.

            The consequences from the use of landfills would be awful to our environment. Based on my research and findings, I took action by making a blog/ website. First, I explained to my mom about Blogger. Second, we went on the internet. Third, we went on Google.com. Fourth, we made an account. Fifth, we did the steps on Blogger. Sixth, we added a post. Then people can read it. On my post I talked about how harmful landfills are. The address is www.happy-begreen.blogspot.com. I feel that landfills can change our Earth.

            In conclusion, landfills are an important issue in our environment. The more people are aware of how their actions can make a difference both negatively and positively, the better chance we have in truly making the world a better place. How can you make a difference?