How we approach waste management is a large contributing
factor the healthfulness of our ecosystems biodiversity. Our Ecosystem’s biodiversity is largely made
up of a few components; the ability for life to find a livable environment free
from harmful waste, the degradation of waste products, and the environmental
impact of their byproducts leeching into soil and air.
Historically, life has organized itself around where people
live and where they put their waste. Whether human waste, or the waste of the products
they use, life arranged itself around what we used today opposed to what we
used yesterday. Widespread knowledge now points to this through the common
awareness of floating islands of trash in the Pacific or the growing amount of
mega landfills across the United States. While we have laws in place to protect
how close we build landfills to our cities the problem in how to manage these
sites remains the same.
Plastic, metals, and other materials, that do not breakdown
– or will not breakdown in our lifetimes – circulate in one our world’s most precious
commodities; our oceans. Slow degradation of waste products, or the inability
to breakdown at all, is also becoming widespread knowledge. We are bombarded
with images of seagulls with soda can plastics around their necks, or the
unlikely presence of a plastic bag in the most obscure of places. Yet, this
common knowledge leaves little room for improvement. Consumers are only
interested in the quality of the product they’re purchasing and less concerned
with the packaging materials let alone where that product will end up once it
becomes refuse.
Both organic and inorganic compounds that breakdown have the
potential to leech chemicals into the soil or byproducts into the air. Methane
is the most widely known and researched gas related to land fills. Neighboring
human establishments, as well as the plant and animal life that surround
landfill sites are directly affected by oversaturation.
Whether in land fills or waste disposal sites, how we think
and manage our waste products impacts our ecosystems either through how they
impede natural wildlife, fail to degrade, or by the waste of their degradation.
Combating waste has just as much to do with our personal choices in our lives
as well as the products or policies we support. Washington State has recently
started to use a waste-to-energy program designed to combat the growing amounts
of waste in their landfills as well as put methane byproducts to use. The savvy
design uses technology to capture the methane gas and transfer it to energy collection
sites like Puget Sound Power & Electric, one of Washington’s largest power
companies.
This shows us just what thinking outside of the box is all
about. Waste reduction is imperative to our overall environment and a major
contributing factor to protecting biodiversity. Using the garbage that is
present to then power the very places we live, work, and play in is nothing
short of genius. In a culture where reduction is often overlooked or regarded
as insignificant there will continue to be a struggle in its promotion. Every
more a reason to increase awareness of the options available, look at what
others are doing, and encourage creativity and futuristic thinking.
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