Lunch, Landfills and What I Tossed

Global warming is a major problem in the world nowadays. Much of this is caused by man himself or herself. For some experts, it is due to our irresponsibility with the way we live. Other experts argue about trends in weather patterns and matters similar to this. The bottom line is that global warming is here and it must be dealt with effectively. Letting the problem of global warming continue only increases the risk of self annihilation. You see... when the temperatures get too warm on Earth, we will be unable to grow certain crops that we depend on. In addition, food, which is necessary for livestock, will also have difficulty growing because of the weather change and we will be without food. However, there are things that we can do to make a change. We need to look more at how we live day to day. More specifically, we need to look at what we throw away into dumps, which can contribute massively to global warming. Things from diapers to batteries can give off harmful gasses, which can propel global warming to phenomenal heights. In the article Lunch, Landfills and What I Tossed, we get an inside look at what actually gets tossed into a garbage dump. I personally believe that with large metropolitan areas like New York, the amount of waste generated is tremendous undoubtedly. Millions of pounds of garbage gets disposed every year and some of what gets thrown out is absolutely mind boggling. Sadly, New York is putting up little effort to enforce a recycling program. As maintained by the author of the article, Mireyya Navarro, "New York, meanwhile, is going backward: it now recycles about 15 percent of the waste collected by the Sanitation Department, which is primarily from residences, down from a peak of 23 percent in 2001. And while city officials have said they are reviewing so-called “pay as you throw” systems, there is no indication that the city might adopt one." This to me is really scary, because it shows a city that is reverting back to its old ways of caring less about the environment and more about what really shouldn't matter. It is crucial that major players like New York City adopt recycling programs, because they play a huge role in the effects of global warming. Imagine if all the cities in the world with at least a million people were doing this. It would clutter the world, pollute the waters, and ruin the lives of many people and animals. Speaking of polluting the waters, the amount contamination is unfathomable everyday, which enters our oceans and lakes. This is because cities like New York have relatively lax policies on environmental protection it seems. In fact as stated before, the rate of recycling and eliminating of waste in landfills and other sensitive areas is decreasing, which means more stuff is ending up in rivers and water ways. Only we can make a change and that change needs to come now. The article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/nyregion/on-recycling-nyc-goes-from-leader-to-laggard.html