Sustainbility Essay

Gao 1

Price Behind Cities: Waste and Sustainability

"Growing waste volumes in the region as a result of rapid urbanization and growing affluence and unsustainable waste management practices could undermine the quality of life in the region," said Andrew Tan, chief executive officer of the National Environment Agency (Kan). On average, each American creates more than 4.43 pounds of trash every single day (Levingson), which is the most across globe. Some of people might think the small amount of trash they generate is not a big deal, but each piece of trash is contribution to the destruction of the environment, human and economic pillar of sustainability. Wasted food, packaging, plastics, and old electronics are some of the major members of the community, and have people ever wondered how does garbage impact sustainability?

The first impact of disposing trash is breaking the balance of the ecosystem. According to a research conducted by The University of Bayreuth, many aquatic species will develop their defensive system against their predators. However, when their water source is contaminated by plastics, such defensive system might not get fully developed (Plastic Waste). When a specie loses its defense ability, decreases number becomes inevitable. On the other hand, the number of their predator will suddenly increase due to the excessive amount of available food. Every single specie plays a critical row in the food chain, the sudden decrease or increase of any of them will not only impact them but the entire ecosystem. Furthermore, the impact of plastic waste on the micro-organism realm is not neglectable as well. When plastics break down into tiny sizes, they become the perfect carrier for pathogens (Sahagun). Not only the virus can contaminate water sources across continents, the seafood on people’s dining tables can become toxic as well, because they might have already consumed those broken-down plastic particles.

On the other hand, the processing of solid waste landfill is impacting the environment on a global skill. In 2016, waste decomposition was responsible for about 16 percent of the total human related methane emissions in the United States (United States, Environmental Protection Agency). In many developing countries such as Philippines, India, Cambodia, and Vietnam, the treatment of solid waste still remines open burning with our regulation. Therefore, methane pollution is a huge problem as well (Ferronato). Methane is a type of greenhouse gas that prevents heats escaping from the Earth. As more greenhouse gases are polluted into the atmosphere, the increase of global temperature is expected. Since portions of icebergs will disappear due to the change, animals live in the glacier area will be the ones that take the most significant consequences.

Furthermore, the process of waste disposal is fueled by the health of many humans in many occasions. As more advanced garbage processing methods are adopted by developed nations, many developing countries are still using human labor as their main method of processing trash. According to a study conducted by Tim Collie, many families in Cairo, Egypt are relying on picking out trash from the middle and upper classes. Their children will grow up in heavily polluted area, and their livestock are raised right next to piles of garbage (Collie). When children are in their developing phase, living in such contaminated environment can cause all kinds of different health issues. Some of the issues can be discover right away, but some of them might appear in their far future. In addition, when livestock is exposed to toxic materials, it has a good possibility that the livestock will carry those toxics into their body, and when humans consume them, they never know what the worse scenario will be. Another publication by Financial Express revealed that the amount of the solid waste produced in New Delhi, India has exceeded the limit they can process, which lead to piles of garbage in the residential neighborhoods (Isher). When the solid wastes are left untreated in the compact city, they can containment residents water sources. Since many parts of the city will share the same water pipelines, the number of people can be impacted can become very significant. What’s even worse is that as the city develops, a handful of the cancer-causing chemicals such as Pb, Cd, As and Hg can also enter people’s food web with the mistreated industrial waste (Anetor), and there is nothing people or government can do about that. The reason is that the majority of citizens in those countries rely their lives on working in factories, and one of the major income sources of their government comes from taxing industries too.

Lastly, the economic cost of garbage processing is significant. In 2018, some of the garbage processing cost have raised three times higher than it used to be after the city signed a handful recycle contracts with a handful of haulers (Is it Time to Trash RecycLA). With not much change on their income, many residents cannot afford the new garbage bill without downgrade their life quality (Garbage in, Garbage Out in L.A.), an interview conducted by Wall Street Journal reveals. As people praise the advantages of recycling, they usually ignore the cost behind those benefits, and one of the reasons people tend to forget about the cost is that it has very little impacts on their lives. However, there are many who have to feed themselves on minimum wage, and those are the people who really pay for the recycling. In addition, diseases carried by plastic wastes are infecting many people’s source of income, corals. Currently, there are more than 275 million people relying upon coral reefs for food, coastal protection, tourism income, and cultural significance (Knapton), and every plastic dumped into the ocean will potentially take away money from those people. Based on the study conducted by team from James Cook University, Cornell University and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, plastics make ideal vessels for colonizing microscopic organisms that could trigger disease if they come into contact with corals (Knapton).

At the current stage, garbage processing is negatively impacting all three of aspects of sustainability. With all the plastic waste thrown into the water sources, ecosystems around the world will be soon teared down along the death of species. People in many countries are facing varies health crisis brought by their daily trashing processing work. Low income families are sacrificing their lives quality in exchange for recycling. And each person on this planet is part of the cause of these tragedies, but with efforts from each everyone, the situation can be fixed before it’s too late.

Works Cited

Anetor, Gloria O. "Waste Dumps in Local Communities in Developing Countries and Hidden Danger to Health." Perspectives in Public Health, vol. 136, no. 4, 2016, pp. 245-251. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/1807205321?accountid=35840, doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/10.1177/17579139156261.

Ferronato, Navarro, and Vincenzo Torretta. “Waste Mismanagement in Developing Countries: A Review of Global Issues.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, MDPI, 24 Mar. 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6466021/.

"Garbage in, Garbage Out in L.A." Wall Street Journal, Feb 07, 2018. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/1994659964?accountid=35840.

Isher, Judge A. "Are we being Choked by our Own Garbage? Check Out the Frightening Prospects." Financial Express, Aug 31, 2016. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/1815211652?accountid=35840.

"Is it Time to Trash RecycLA? L.A.'s Garbage-Hauling Franchises Cost More and Fail More often. the City Better Start Working on Plan B." Los Angeles Times, Feb 08, 2018. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/1999050340?accountid=35840.

Levinson, Marc. "At the Top of the Heap; does America Suffer from a Trash Addiction? has it Transformed itself into "China's Trash Compactor"?" Wall Street Journal (Online), Apr 17, 2012. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/1001501130?accountid=35840.

Knapton, Sarah. "Plastic Waste Leaves Reefs Vulnerable to Diseases: Scientists Say 11 Bn Items of Waste are Lodged on Corals, Massively Increasing the Risk of Infection." The Daily Telegraph, Jan 26, 2018, pp. 15. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/1991162800?accountid=35840.

Ogunseitan, Oladele A., et al. “The Electronics Revolution: From E-Wonderland to E-Wasteland.” Science, vol. 326, no. 5953, 2009, pp. 670–671. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40328519. Accessed 6 Aug. 2020.

"Plastic Waste Interferes with Communication: Bayreuth Study shows Risks for Ecosystems." Targeted News Service, Apr 12, 2019. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/2208714813?accountid=35840.

Sahagun, Louis. "A Trash-Based Ecosystem; Scientists Call it the Plastisphere, and it's Got them Worried." Los Angeles Times, Dec 28, 2013. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/1471011663?accountid=35840.

Tim Collie, Staff W. "TRASHING A WAY OF LIFE ; CAIRO'S ZABBALEEN, OR GARBAGE PICKERS, MAY LOSE THEIR LIVELIHOOD.: [BROWARD METRO EDITION]." South Florida Sun - Sentinel, Apr 20, 2003, pp. 1F. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/387924647?accountid=35840.

“Wastes.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 19 Nov. 2018, www.epa.gov/report-environment/wastes.

“Waste Generation, Characterization, Collection, Transfer, and Disposal.” Films On Demand, Films Media Group, 1999, fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=95315&xtid=11470. Accessed 3 Aug. 2020.

"Waste Management." Encyclopedia of Emerging Industries, 7th ed., Gale, 2017, pp. 659-663. Gale eBooks, https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/apps/doc/CX3664200142/GVRL?u=bellevue&sid=GVRL&xid=6dbeceef. Accessed 20 July 2020.