Where Does My Trash Go?

Where Does My Trash Go?

             A big question someone might have is Where does my trash go? Well to answer your question 56% of your trash you throw out everyday goes into what is called a landfill. A Landfill is a giant building that looks a lot like a football field that holds all the trash and slowly breaks it down. How does a landfill work? the garbage or waste goes in dump trucks, then the dump trucks take the waste to the landfills. Once the dump truck dumps the waste into the landfill it naturally decomposes or breaks down the waste. Image your favorite team’s football stadium getting filled up with waste.

If you think about it we make up a lot of stinky trash. The single person dumps about 29 pounds of waste away in a week. That's 1,600 pounds a year for just one person. We have billions of people on this planet, now image how much trash we have. If you have 4 people living in your house you would throw out 6,400 pounds of trash a year!

    Another question you might want to know is are landfills good for the environment? Yes and no, as of now the landfill is the best way to get rid of and break down waste and is most commonly used. It keeps a place to store the waste when we have no place to put it.

Figure 1 a landfill

     

  There are some down falls to landfills thought waste is often spilled out of landfills which is bad for the environment. Also you can tell by Figure 1 that Landfills aren’t a pretty sight to see. Due to the smell and the ugly sight most people hate landfills and think they are eye sores.
  

       What happens to landfills after we don't use them anymore? after a landfill fills up with trash the government still has to look over it for 30 years! After those 30 years are up we recycle the landfill and we can turn it into a park or field or playground and other places. Did you ever think that maybe the play ground you play on was once a landfill?

       Landfills are the best way we have right now of cleaning all the smelly waste we create. So, next time when you are at a park just think maybe this could have been a landfill before. Also remember if you ever passing by a landfill remember to cover your nose!

 

                                                                     Works Cited
Figure 1 Fox Chicago (2012) retrieved from http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/18604715/hundreds-of-community-members-gathered-tuesday-to-oppose-landfills-in-chicago