With the current population in the United States being 307,898,367 (U.S. Census Bureau), this means Americans throw away 449,531,615,820 pounds of trash a year. If Americans are producing this much trash, where are they putting it all? They’re piling it up in landfills. According to the article, “Landfills: Hazardous to the Environment,” the United States has 3,091 landfills in use right now as well as over 10,000 landfills that are not in use (par. 1).
The North Pacific Gyre: Recycling is Dire There’s a new continent in the Pacific Ocean! This continent has been called many things from the great pacific garbage patch to Trash Island. This swirling mass of plastic bags plastic bottles and other non perishable items has been accumulating in the Gyre for years. Caught in the northern Pacific currents that form the N. Pacific Gyre. This Largely covered area of plastic remnants that have been broken down to small pieces have a damning effect on the wildlife that depends on the Gyres currents for food.
Nuclear waste was such a problem for Chelyabinsk because of the three nuclear disasters that took place there at the Mayak complex. The man disaster was the third that took place in 1967. The disaster occurred because people were dumping nuclear waste into Lake Karachay, not realizing the potential consequences. In 1967, a cyclone went over the lake causing the water filled with nuclear waste to spread everywhere. But with all the problems that face Chelyabinsk, the people still dump liquid radioactive waste into the lake every year.
Later Tuesday night, the hurricane had subsided, but the superstorm it unleashed caused so much chaos in about 17 other neighboring states in the country, leaving millions with power shortages and homeless now. “The biggest problem is not the first few days, but the coming months”, said Alan Rubin, an expert in nature disaster discovery. The economic impact “Sandy” has left is immense as the destruction caused is estimated to be about $20 billion, and about $10 billion in lost
9-1-1 The earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane in New Orleans, and the Demolition in San Francisco are all examples of National Disasters around the world. The human population has been affected by national disasters since the beginning of time; over billions of people have either become homeless, heart, and in most cases dead. The United Stases is the most powerful and richest country in the world yet the government and celebrities go out and help other countries spending billions of dollars on water, food, and shelter before helping people back home. We have more than 500,00 people homeless right now, that alone is a national disaster. Unfortunately, other countries aren’t so lucky; like Africa.
During hurricane Sandy’s passing through Jamaica power was lost and “more than 70 percent of its customer base that lost electricity during the passage...”, that includes homes and businesses (“Paulwell criticises JPS response to Hurricane Sandy” 1). Likewise, in America the “power outages now stands at more than 5.6 million homes and businesses down from a peek od 8.5 million...”( “Hurricane Sandy death toll reaches 74 in U.S.” 1). New Jersey was the hardest hit state across the country with about 2.5 million customers out, which is about 62 percent of the state
In 2010 approximately 85 million tons of municipal solid waste was recycled. This accumulated to saving more than 1.3 quadrillion Btu of energy which is equivalent to over 229 million barrels of oil (Environmental Protection Agency, 2013). A second is Reusable bags. As convenient as paper or plastic are when at the store both paper and plastic are harmful to the environment. In 1999 the American Forest and Paper Association found that in the United States alone 10 billion paper bags where used (Larry West, Paper Plastic or Something Better).
But it is in turn up to people to make personal choices to help eradicate or at least ease the rate of poverty. Everyday 870 million people go hungry while 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted or lost every year. This causes severe damage to the environment as unconsumed food is responsible for 1.3 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions. And economically, food that is wasted costs $750 billion every year which is equal to Switzerland’s GDP. Every day, people, especially in the developed countries, waste almost as much food as the entire food production of sub-Saharan Africa.
In the 40 years prior to 2002 there were 900 cases of leprosy in the United States. In the following 3 years there were 9,000 cases and many were from undocumented immigrants. Malaria was eradicated in the 1940’s but recently has broken out from southern California across the country to our own Houston, Texas. These are horrible diseases that kill and statistically come from our illegal
Sandy left tens of thousands homeless, crippled mass transit, triggered paralyzing gas shortages, inflicted billions of dollars in infrastructure damage and cut power to more than 8million homes. In New Jersey alone, Sandy caused at least $29.4 billion, including costs of personal property, businesses, infrastructure and utility damage. However, in New York City, the storm was costing about $200 million a day in lost economic activity. Not only did Sandy affect the geography, it affected communities. The lack of food, power, and heat affected absolutely everyone emotionally and physically, causing the sociology of disaster.