Trash has become a major problem here on earth and there is no one else to blame besides us, humans, and most of us aren't doing anything to get rid of it or even prevent it. Most People will litter without even thinking of the consequences, unknowing that in fact, that bag from the Doritos chips will likely end up in the ocean or a landfill. But why should we care, we don't live in the ocean and there is plenty of land that we don't use and don't need, plus if we ever need to we can just burn the trash, right? Well let me explain why everything I just said is all wrong and It will kill us if we continue to think this way.

Let me explain what trash is and what ours consists of. By definition trash or garbage is, “things that are no longer useful or wanted and that have been thrown away” a quote from Merriam Webster. Now think about what that may be in our lives. Perhaps it's a water bottle, disposable bag, Cereal box, milk jug, plastic spoons, and forks, or maybe even leftover food from dinner or lunch. Well there have been a lot of studies on what is most prominent in our waste and I'll get into what these do to the ecosystem and wildlife in a later paragraph but for now, let's understand what is actually ending up in our oceans and landfills. In 2018 The Total MSW (Material, Waste, and Recycling) generated was approximately 292.4 million tons. 23.1% of that being paper, 21.6% being food, and 12.2% being plastic. These are the 3 most abundant but nevertheless, this comes to about 67.5 million pounds of paper, 63.2 million pounds of food, and 35.7 pounds of plastic. This would be a lesser problem if the majority of it was recycled but unfortunately, only 23% or 69 million pounds was recycled and 9% or 25 million pounds was composed, Together equalling 94 million pounds or 32.1% of the Total MWR that year. After all the other ways of getting rid or reusing the waste about 50% of the MWR ended up in landfills which is better than all of it but more work is needed to be done. (statistics from The United States Environmental Protection Agency) So what does this all mean? Essentially If this percentage of 50% of a year's total MWR ending up as being reused and the other half making its way into landfills, as our MWR increases each year we will just over time make bigger and bigger piles of trash taking more and more land each year eventually running out of space. Keep in mind this is only The United States’ data not even taking into consideration other countries' waste. 

Let's go more into depth about the problems landfills cause. First, what is a landfill? The simplest way I can describe a landfill is a dug up hole in a patch of land with a liner/barrier to prevent any liquids or junk escaping into the environment, The intention is to leave these pieces of trash in an enclosed area away from civilization left to decompose. But let's focus on what makes landfills so dangerous to our environments, wildlife, and even our livelihood. Now we've all heard of global warming and I bet you’d be surprised to find that, “U.S. landfills released an estimated 114.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of methane into the atmosphere in 2019; this represents 17.4 percent of the total U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions.” (EPA.GOV) If you didn't know methane is the leading gas in causing global warming. You can see that by landfills emitting a good amount of our total methane production they are only doing us harm. But landfills also just downright hurt us, and affect our health. “There is a 12% increased risk of congenital malformations in children born to families that lived within a mile of a hazardous waste landfill site.” (COLORADO.EDU) Just being within a mile of a landfill can possibly affect your offspring. They also make the land around them cheaper and less valuable due to people not wanting to live or farm around a potential biohazard which will lead us into my next problem with landfills. They can have problems like a broken barrier where they can leach out into our environment leaving trash in the areas around or trash and other liquids can get into groundwater. This would directly affect any wildlife that may rely on a river nearby or maybe some crops that are being grown in the surrounding lands. The trash itself can also just be straight-up dangerous, “Electronic waste is a good example. Waste such as televisions, computers, and other electronic appliances contain a long list of hazardous substances, including mercury, arsenic, cadmium, PVC, solvents, acids, and lead.” (EnvironmentalVictoria.org) These chemicals and substances would no doubt be a detriment to any ecosystem if we just left them anywhere, so landfills are better than nothing but Landfills also use up our land, “The creation of landfills typically means destroying natural habitats for wildlife. The average landfill size is 600 acres. With over 3,000 active landfills in the United States, as much as 1,800,000 acres of habitat have been lost.” (COLORADO.EDU) This land could be used for so many more important things but instead lies millions upon millions of pounds of just waste, and it's a waste of space. So what's stopping us from getting rid of it? What makes it so hard that we have to leave it in these piles across our nation?

There is a major misconception that the easiest way of getting rid of trash is to simply burn it. This could not be further from the truth, in fact, it may be the most dangerous way of getting rid of trash, “Burning waste, either in an open fire or an incinerator, releases toxic chemicals into the air as smoke, and into the soil and groundwater as ashes. Wastes containing mercury, lead, and other heavy metals release these poisons into the environment when they are burned.” (hesperian.org) I couldn't have put it in better words. Put simply, When we burn waste it just changes the form of the trash from something we can easily see, in fact, it's an eyesore, into smoke and ash. This is way harder to control and does more damage when released into the environment or our air. “Plastics used to make IV and blood bags, tubes, and some syringes produce highly toxic chemicals called dioxins and furans when they are burned. These chemicals have no color or smell and can cause cancer, make both women and men infertile” (hesperian.org) The stuff released from these fires are not something that we can ignore, they cause major health issues to us and animals as well as hurt our crops. But what makes trash so hard to just recycle? Well trash is a general term, to recap trash is a waste of any substance or material which is discarded after primary use, So the problem is that most things that make up trash are looked at as useless and recycling is hard and expensive. “A transfer station in New Hampshire reports that sending rubbish to a landfill costs $68 a ton. Recycling it? That costs $125 a ton. Wasn’t recycling supposed to save us money, not cost twice as much?” Most people aren't worried about the future and will just spend less time and money on the easier alternative of recycling, landfills. But where is this trash and waste going if it makes its way out of a landfill? 

The biggest cause of trash that builds up or ends up in the ocean is littering. Trash will be left on the ground then get picked up by the wind. The trash makes its way into a river then swims all the way into the ocean. ”People often leave trash on beaches or throw it into the water from boats or offshore facilities, such as oil rigs. Sometimes, litter makes its way into the ocean from land. This debris is carried by storm drains, canals, or rivers. The wind can even blow trash from landfills and other areas into the water.” But what does the trash do in the ocean? You may have heard of an ocean patch or a build up of trash, These are huge piles of trash that are in the ocean. “Trash accumulates in five ocean garbage patches, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California.” (The Ocean Cleanup) The Great Pacific Garbage patch being the biggest patch, is absolutely massive. “The GPGP covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France.” (The Ocean Cleanup) But the trash isn't just piling up into these big piles and sitting there. We’ve all seen a picture on a sad commercial of a seal with a piece of plastic around its neck but this is just a small part of the problem with having plastic in the ocean. Naturally fish eat things that float by them, but when that thing is a piece of plastic it causes a lot of problems. “There is evidence that microplastics and even smaller particles called nano plastics can move from a fish’s stomach to its muscle tissue, which is the part that humans typically eat.”(The Maritime Executive) The plastic isn't only affecting our marine life, it is making its way onto our plates. And over time the amount of fish that have plastic and the amount of plastic is increasing. This is a part of a bigger problem, You see it's not only humans that are being affected but other animals eat fish and then those animals get eaten, and so on. So eventually if nothing is done to stop this every animal will have trace amounts of plastic in them, This comes with a lot of risks and health problems. In research, this has been known to cause cell damage/death and allergic reactions. So is anyone doing anything to get rid of this ocean trash? 

The Ocean Clean up is a non-profit organization that aims to reduce the amount of plastic making its way into the ocean as well as lessening the overall amount of plastic in the ocean. The ocean clean-up has invented a bunch of different inventions to prevent the amount of trash making its way through rivers with robots that pick it up before it makes its way into the ocean. They also use huge nets to collect stray trash or even trash in the huge patches. Once the plastic is captured it is sent off to be sorted and recycled.  But this is not easy and won't happen fast it will take many years to clear up the huge mess we have created,  “After fleets of systems are deployed into every ocean gyre, combined with source reduction, The Ocean Cleanup projects to be able to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.” This is a bold claim but with their constant research and development of new ways of getting rid of trash in the ocean they may actually be able to prevent further damage to the ocean ecosystem. This would in turn prevent massive damage to all life on earth. 

So in conclusion Trash is nothing but bad and we all need to start thinking of it as a threat to our earth. And with the collective effort of millions across the world we may be able to prevent further damage and it right now looks impossible but we may even be able to reverse some of the damage.