landfills
Some cities, like San Francisco and Seattle, are able to recycle more than they send to landfills, but the majority of the U.S. sends their trash to the dump. Beyond landfills, waste in the U.S. also goes to recycling centers, composters and waste-to-energy plants.
Intentional littering and dumping are a big cause of marine debris. Sometimes the trash goes directly into the ocean, like when beachgoers don’t pick up after themselves. … Those rivers and streams can eventually carry the trash to the ocean. Improper or careless waste disposal is another big cause.
People often leave trash on beaches or throw it into the water from boats or offshore facilities, such as oil rigs. Sometimes, litter makes its way into the ocean from land. This debris is carried by storm drains, canals, or rivers.
Most likely, the trash will end up at a landfill in your state. However, since landfills are often far away, there could be some stops along the way once the garbage has left your curbside.
At least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, and plastic makes up 80% of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. Marine species ingest or are entangled by plastic debris, which causes severe injuries and death.
Although incineration reduces the volume of waste, the ash will always need burial. Those pollution controls are expensive, and cost is a major hindrance to building new incinerators in the United States, where landfill space is relatively cheap.
Marine litter is not only ugly – it can harm ocean ecosystems, wildlife, and humans. It can injure coral reefs and bottom-dwelling species and entangle or drown ocean wildlife. Some marine animals ingest smaller plastic particles and choke or starve. … The economic impact of marine litter is thought to be significant.
The junk originates from what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a large area covered by drifting plastic marine debris in the central North Pacific Ocean. Some of this garbage is pushed onto Kamilo Beach and the adjacent shoreline of about 3 miles (5 km) by converging currents and prevailing trade winds.
Kamikatsu, Japan
Perhaps one of the most well-known zero-waste communities outside of the United States, the village of Kamikatsu made a zero-waste declaration back in 2003 and never looked back.
Of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority—79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter.
The Problem: Over 1 million marine animals (including mammals, fish, sharks, turtles, and birds) are killed each year due to plastic debris in the ocean (UNESCO Facts & Figures on Marine Pollution). Currently, it is estimated that there are 100 million tons of plastic in oceans around the world.
China contributes the highest share of mismanaged plastic waste with around 28 percent of the global total, followed by 10 percent in Indonesia, 6 percent for both the Philippines and Vietnam.
According to the EPA, Americans generate over 250 millions tons of trash each year. Right now, most of that trash doesn’t get recycled or composted. Instead, it ends up in landfills and incinerators, polluting the communities that house these facilities and exacerbating our climate crisis.
Burning household garbage in burn barrels, stoves, and fire pits creates pollution that’s dangerous to human health and contaminates the air, water, and soil.
In fact, Denmark’s waste-to-energy incinerator, Amager Bakke, is so well known it has become a tourist attraction, and is celebrated as one of the world’s cleanest waste-to-energy incinerators.
There are two municipal solid waste incinerators still operating in California: the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility (SERRF) in Long Beach and the Covanta Stanislaus incinerator in Stanislaus County. … Southeast Resource Recovery Facility (SERRF) Incinerator in Long Beach.
No exemptions are allowed for burning plastics and household garbage. In recognition of limited availability of waste services in some of the more rural and sparsely populated areas of California, some exemptions may be allowed to burn paper and cardboard, and to use burn barrels, in designated geographic areas.
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