In 1987, propaganda forced our nation into a program on which we’d
come to spend billions of tax dollars every year, a program that we’d grow to
never question, a program whose moral justification is always assumed. I was
pulled along in this feel-good scheme with everyone else. Earlier this year, I
created a power-point presentation for my previously assumed non-green parents
to convince them to let our family finally get a recycling bin. Because my
power-point ensured my devotion and unfortunately single-minded goal, in
addition to my nerdy ambition, they allowed me to bring the bin into our home,
but with the aid of many facts about recycling that I had never known nor had I
thought that they had. This brings me back to a better story of greater
relevance, a story that answers; what created this whole recycling thing?
The Mobro 4000. In March 1987, a barge left a port in Islip, New
York with 3,168 tons of trash, heading for Morehead City, North Carolina, where
the trash would be turned into methane. Unfortunately, when news channels began
reports on its arrival, a bedpan was viewed in a background shot of the barge,
and rumors spread of the risk of hospital waste. North Carolina officials then
rejected the drop-off of the garbage, and the barge had to head toward a new
destination. After being rejected in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Mexico, and
Belize (Katz, Jane), the barge was
finally ordered to be allowed entry back into New York to be incinerated in
Brooklyn. Although this event was purely a money-making arrangement constructed
by a mob boss who works with waste management, it burst the country into an
environmentalist frenzy.
(The video shows tells the story of the Mobro 4000 featuring the masterminds who created
it all, connecting it to the mass-recycling launch (Voyage of the Mobro 4000).)
 |
| Municipal Solid Waste Recycling rate increase over past 50 years (Municipal Solid Waste) |
In hindsight, this activism is nice to think about. What person
wouldn't support a nation truly working as a whole with the intentions of
making this world better for the generations to come? However, we must lower
our high-heads and never cease our self-checking in order to maintain the
correct executions of what are truly
good intentions.
So, why are landfills so profoundly disgusting and discouraged by
the human population? There are the obvious answers: they're ugly, gross,
smelly, and all the other elementary insults. But the main concerns are that
they bring our garbage into contact with our underground minerals; that they
release harmful toxins into our atmosphere; that landfills are solely
detrimental to our environment. False. Don’t get me wrong, these are all justifiable
concerns, but there is a solution intact for every one.
Lots of qualifications must be obtained before a landfill can be
properly constructed, let alone, be used. Questions about the area of land for
the landfill, surrounding environment and possible impacts, the underlying
bedrock and soil composition, the flow of surface water over the site, or the
historical value of the area must all be answered with no harmful consequences
pertaining to the landfill’s creation(Freudenrich,
Ph.D. Craig). In addition, seven different layers for protection and
drainage must be made below the old and new cells of garbage in a landfill to
protect minerals underground (Freudenrich, Ph.D.
Craig).
Although the Earth below our landfills is well off, the upper atmosphere must
be addressed as well. The anaerobic breakdown in landfills does in fact release
gases during its process, and these gases contain approximately 50% methane.
This methane is harmful to breathe and is also identified as a greenhouse gas,
making it an unfortunate contributor to global warming. But, methane is also
able to be broken down to create energy(Facts
about Landfill Gas), which happened to be the primary cause of the Mobro
4000s travels back in 1987. These techniques demonstrated by innovative waste
collectors to collect and create energy from methane gases are spreading to
more landfills each year.
So how does the energy-efficiency of recycling factories compare?
It's well-known that the recycling of aluminum is extraordinarily productive,
as breaking down and reproducing an aluminum can takes about 5% of the energy
it takes to make an original one from bauxite ore (Kazmeyer, Milton), but are these
rates just as high for other materials, such as plastic? We aren't paying a
deposit to bring plastic bottles back in, so why glass & aluminum? In order
to properly evaluate the effectiveness of these recycling organizations, one
must see if this re-creation process for materials, such as plastic, costs more
money and energy than it would've been to make these products from scratch.
As for the problem of landfill space, there
isn't one. The EPA has made several notes of the decreasing amount of landfills
in our country but makes no hints at what is most important: their capacity (Facts About America’s Landfills). The landfills
that we have have the space estimated to last hundreds, if not thousands of
years altogether. And hopefully by then, we will have more efficient and
productive recycling programs. Up until that point, more education is necessary
for the proper constructive habits in the "saving" of the Earth
before we are forced to save it from ourselves. Las Vegas comedians Penn &
Teller produce a Mythbusters-esque tv show, called "Bullshit,"
in which they provide the facts behind commonly accepted beliefs and
habits, and they recently came out with one on recycling (shown above). I plan
to expand on many of their key concepts in coming posts, including the role of
tree farms, the unknown redundancy taking place in recycling factories, and the
plentitude of time and money wasted on recycling that should instead be out
towards creating a new hobby for the American population.
Works Cited
“EPA
History." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 15 Apr.
2014. http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-history.
"The
Facts About America's Landfills." Postcom: Association for Postal
Commerce. Postcom, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. http://postcom.org/eco/facts.about.landfills.htm.
"Facts
About Landfill Gas." Www.dem.ri.gov. Environmental Protection
Agency, Jan. 2000. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. http://www.dem.ri.gov/programs/benviron/waste/central/lfgfact.pdf.
Freudenrich,
Ph.D. Craig. "How Landfills Work." HowStuffWorks.
HowStuffWorks.com, 16 Oct. 2000. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/landfill.htm.
Katz,
Jane. "What a Waste - Boston Fed." What a Waste - Boston Fed.
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 2002. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. https://www.bostonfed.org/economic/nerr/rr2002/q1/waste.htm.
Kazmeyer,
Milton. "How Much Energy Does Recycling Save?." Home Guides.
SF Gate, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. http://homeguides.sfgate.com/much-energy-recycling-save-79720.html.
Langston,
Jennifer. "Mandatory Recycling Program Working Well." Seattlepi.com.
Seattle PI, 14 Mar. 2006. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Mandatory-recycling-program-working-well-1198413.php.
"Municipal
Solid Waste." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 10
Apr. 2014. http://www.epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/municipal/.
"Voyage
of the Mobro 4000." Retro Report RSS. Retro Report, 6 May 2013.
Web. 11 Apr. 2014. http://retroreport.org/voyage-of-the-mobro-4000/.
