Intro

We as a society produce so much trash. According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Texans disposed of about 6.83 pounds of trash per person per day of waste in 2016, sending approximately 34.73 million tons of waste to a landfill. At current rates, Texas landfill capacity will be reached in 56 years.

Why is this happening?

Plastic is Forever. They are not bio-degradable. Can you imagine that since plastic was invented, everything that has ever been made from this material still exists? In 1960, plastic accounted for just 1 percent of junk in landfills across the world.

As single-package containers led to an explosion in convenience and use, that number grew to 10 percent in 2005. A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated the amount of plastic debris floating in the open ocean at 7,000 to 35,000 tons.

What can I do to stop this?

Honestly, nothing. Nothing you can do can stop the issue. However, you can slightly help by cutting down on what you throw away. Follow the three “R’s”( reduce, reuse, and recycle) in that order because reducing is the most effective way to cut down the amount of trash you create. Another writer wrote an article about going zero waste which is trying to cut out the trash.

Recycling

Something people don’t realize is that recycling is an industry and is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. In fact, 50 percent of everything that gets put in the recycling bin doesn’t actually get recycled. Before something can get recycled it needs to be processed, bailed, and put on the market. However if no one buys it, the bail doesn’t get recycled. If it doesn’t get recycled it gets thrown in the landfill.

Conclusion

If we keep going as a nation in the same direction our world will become a trash hill. Therefore, If you want to learn more click here.