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Recycling: As a Community and as a Nation
Many countries view America as a ‘throwaway’ nation, and unfortunately from an ecological (and moral) standpoint there is a great deal of truth in this label, because we produce the most waste per capita worldwide. I intend to discuss some of the many aspects of recycling we Americans (and countries such as Taiwan and much of Europe) have begun to incorporate into our daily lives and why we do so, as well as elaborate upon our new, state of the art Cerro Colorado Landfill and the Intermediate Processing Facility (IPF) located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
There are for main reasons to reduce our landfills and recycle useable items, settling can occur and thankfully there are few communities built upon landfills, secondly, incomplete decomposition can lead to toxic leachate which is produced by many forms of plastics, third, waste produces methane which can (and has) act as an explosive and more commonly these gases can kill vegetation and erode our ecosystem, lastly and possibly the most important factor for inspiring recycling is the groundwater contamination that can occur through leaching and if it is not treated it could lead to an entire aquifer being contaminated.
Approximate Word count = 760
Approximate Pages = 3
(250 words per page double spaced)
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