What happens to our trash?
A researcher named Carlo Ratti conducted an experiment to see what happened to our trash after we threw it away. He attached trackers to 3000 pieces of trash and followed them with a computer wherever they went. Amazingly some pieces of trash were recorded traveling over 4000 miles. Ratti says that he wonders how we can make the system more efficient in general.
Making our public trash and recycling systems more efficient is very important to me. There is no reason that a single piece of trash has to be transported 4000 miles. I see that as a waste of energy that could better be spent elsewhere. Imagine that we didn't have a public trash system at all. Whenever you wanted to throw something out, you would have to drive it to a landfill yourself. Now would you want to have to drive it 4000 miles before you could get rid of a single piece of trash. Now, we do have a public trash system, so maybe you don't have to drive a bunch of junk 4000 miles, but in reality, someone is. That seems to me like a lot of wasted time and energy.
Questions:
1: How could we make the system more efficient?
2: Do you think it is important to improve our trash and recycling systems? why? or why not?
3: What effect (positive or negative) do you think making our public trash and recycling systems would have on the environment? Explain.
sorry guys, I don't know what happened to the picture. I tried to put one in and it said that it had been added to the post, but when I posted it is wasn't there. Here is a link to the picture I had if you want to see it. http://www.google.com/imgres?q=trash&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1024&bih=609&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=-nVlwq4CTJp8LM:&imgrefurl=http://looneytunes09.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/trash-is-recycled-and-tossed-away%25E2%2580%25A6just-like-a-foster-kid/&docid=958wevaLE_YjmM&w=2304&h=1536&ei=CFZ7TvGCKObE0AGa2OzhAg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=85&vpy=195&dur=3879&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=123&ty=94&page=1&tbnh=123&tbnw=164&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0
ReplyDeleteIt surprises me just how far our trash is transported! I mean, there are landfills in most areas, so I wonder why our trash is being taken so far from home... I don't really want all of the trash I've thrown out to be transported elsewhere because I feel bad that some people have to do that as their job. No one wants to pick up everyone else's junk.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 1: I think we could make this system more efficient by creating more landfills, but having most of them be a lot smaller than the massive ones most people think of when you say "landfill".
I had no idea that our trash went so far away from where it started! I can't believe that a more efficient system hasn't been developed to take care of this problem. This post makes me want to throw away less stuff so all that energy doesn't go to waste to move it.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2:
I think it is very important to improve our waste and recycling system because of all the energy waste that happens in our current system. I agree with Sammy that there should be more landfills that are closer to each other.
The comment above this one was posted by Liv. For some reason my laptop at home doesn't let me use my name.
ReplyDeleteI thinkit is amazing and somewhat unrealistic that the trash traveled a total of 4000 miles. It is also amazing to me that if trash really is traveling this far that we haven't developed a more efficient system to get rid of it.
ReplyDelete1: How could we make the system more efficient?
Even though people would argue against it we need to make our waste system more locally based. In general we should build more landfills closer to our homes and therefore spend less time and money transporting our trash. However I just know that a ton of people would hate this idea and it would be very hard to pass.