Where Is Away?

Posted by Esmeralda Ramirez on May 26, 2011 in Telegram Past News

  Editor’s Note: Esmeralda Ramirez  Arts and Entertainment Editor of the Telegram and this piece is her opinion. This article does not reflect the official opinion of the Telegram Editorial Board.

When parents or any one else tells you to throw the garbage away, have you ever thought and asked yourself if there is an away? Trash is a problem we have here in the United States and its not a problem just here, it’s a problem globally. We humans think that we can just make products and toss them into the earth in landfills but most of us don’t know what really happens to our trash. Our responsibility is to put it out on the curve, we don’t realize where or what happens to it.

There are 3 rules of waste, the first is that there is no away, the second is waste doesn’t stay put and the third is that it’s easier and cheaper to prevent trash than to clean it up. What I mean when I say there is no away I mean that it really doesn’t go away its just moved, it doesn’t just disappear. Just because it’s not in your house anymore doesn’t mean it has vanished forever the trash is taken to landfills or put in incinerators. Waste doesn’t stay put we try to seal it in liners so water won’t be contaminated but all we are really doing is putting dangerous chemicals into the soil. The different chemicals that are in plastics are toxic and very bad for the environment. Methane gases are released through all the trash, its one of the most dangerous green house gases. Sometimes our fresh water becomes contaminated because it goes in the waste, not only is our fresh water being contaminated but our sea is too. Plastic is ending up in our oceans and fish are eating plastic resulting in the food chain which means that we are also consuming plastic as well. It would be less expensive to prevent all this from happening instead of trying to clean up after ourselves. We can start programs that will inform the people of what’s going on instead of finding out later because of a big disaster. Prevention is the key.

The human population ties in with our waste because as our population increases the amount of waste we produce goes up as well. But that doesn’t mean we can not find some solutions to our problems, we shouldn’t let the population stop us from what we should be doing. We can decrease the amount of waste we produce by composting and buying products with less packaging. According to the movie trashed ¾ of the waste in the United States is unnecessary waste and 1/3 of the worlds waste is produced by us. Our trash and landfills are resulting in climate change because of the gases that are released in the atmosphere. Our soil is being harmed and destroyed because we are burying all of our trash in the ground which is very much toxic. We are using a lot of resources on this planet and then putting them back in the earth in a not safe matter. We are trashing our planet.

 I believe that we should start at the beginning and stop the mass production of all this waste which would be the companies that use too much packaging. We should stop buying products with to much packaging  because the people have the power and should say no to make a change for the better. Capturing methane and making power out of it would be a great way to decrease the gases that are going into the atmosphere and we will also be using it for good, reusing and reducing. Composting would be a good way to make fertilizer with trash that we don’t need anymore like food. Nothing in nature is waste or should be wasted, this is just another way to look at it. So before throwing “away”, just think about it.