Julianne K. Kaphar
In the United States, we live in a society of mounting consumerism, which is having severe consequences on the environment in which we live in many ways. In particular, trash has created a specific threat to our environment as the amount of waste per capita in the U.S. increases (4.4 lbs per person, per day) (Blair 2000) and available land for landfills remains constant and thus increasingly limiting.
Trash has always been an issue for societies in the past. The very first garbage dumps were created about 10,000 years ago, when prehistoric peoples began forming villages around farms. Because they were no longer nomadic, they had to now live with the problems that their waste brought, such as wild animals and bad smells. These people groups dealt with this problem by digging pits outside their villages to dispose of their waste. In 2100 B.C.E., the ancient Egyptians began a system of collecting garbage from the wealthy to be dumped into the Nile River. At around 500 B.C.E., the first garbage dump law was passed in Athens, requiring that trash be dumped at least one mile outside the city walls. Many of us are familiar with images of the Middle Ages, with trash and raw sewage being dumped into the city streets. By 1400 in Paris, the piles of garbage were as high as the city walls!
The Industrial Revolution created conditions that began to have irreversible effects on the environment. Factories dumped their waste and chemicals into rivers and lakes, and cities poured their sewage into these same rivers and lakes. Garbage was deposited into dumps without any thought to how they would affect the environment. However, when scientists began to connect disease and high infant mortality rates to the unsanitary conditions of the cities and the polluted water, city leaders began to realize something needed to be done. As a result, cities began to burn their garbage in incinerators. Many cities also began dumping their trash out in the ocean, although much of the trash returned to the beaches.
Over the past several decades, people have become more and more concerned about the long-term effects of trash and pollution on the environment. As a result, more research has been done on how to effectively deal with waste with minimal harm done to the environment. While scientists have indeed been able to develop new technologies to deal with waste (e.g., better landfills, recycling technology, etc.), the amount of waste being produced has increased astronomically.
Though proponents of our consumerist society would argue that there is plentiful space in our vast nation for future landfills, the reality is that each time a landfill is created, an ecosystem is destroyed. Many states rely on other states to import their trash because of a lack of space for landfills. This industry of shipping trash has become profitable and popular. In fact, it is estimated that more than 17 million tons of trash are exported to out-of-state landfills every year (Montague 1998). This massive transportation of trash adds significantly to the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted into the air, leading to increased global warming.
Though the technology involved in designing landfills has significantly improved over recent years, problems still exist. One issue is the fact that although landfills are protected with a thick layer of resistant plastic and a layer of absorbent clay to prevent the leachate (dirty water generated by the waste) from going to the groundwater, the plastic is not designed to last and could possibly begin breaking down in as little as thirty years. The clay could easily dry up and crack, and the elaborate drainage system designed to carry the leachate to treatment facilities is prone to clogging. Also, the gasses that escape are toxic to the environment, and many studies show high rates of different cancers and low birth rates among populations close to landfills (Montague, 1998).
Furthermore, because of our thirst for the newest, most updated technology, the disposal of computers, cell phones and other devices has created a monstrous addition to an already problematic situation. Developing nations have become toxic dumping grounds for our technological trash, creating severe environmental hazards.
The notion of "garbage" carries a huge stigma in our society. Once it is thrown out, it is not to be discussed or thought of again. Where once people were largely responsible for disposing their own waste, people are now totally disconnected from it. Because of this disconnection, our society has grown more and more thoughtless about the amount of waste it creates. There is a sense of general satisfaction that recycling can take care of the issue. However, the unfortunate reality of recent years has been that even though we recycle more as a nation, we are producing even more solid waste than ever before.