It is not something most of us really give a lot of thought to, trash. You just throw it away and it disappears, right?
Wrong.
The average American tosses out four and a half pounds of trash each day, one of the most common things, the disposable cup.
But have you ever considered what happens to that cup after you throw it out?
Bob Luliucci is Senior District Manager with Waste Management.
“We’re about 12,000 tons a day. It’s primarily MSW, which is municipal waste you would put outside on the curb for pickup. it’s paper, food waste, packaging.”
That cup most likely ends up here, in a landfill. If it contains styrofoam or plastic, it could take 50 years to decompose, that’s right 50 years!
“Plastic is one of the materials that takes the longest to decompose and be as it is for a long period of time.”
If you don’t think recycling is important consider this:
A plastic drink bottle can take up to 450 years to decompose.
An aluminum can: 80 to 200 years; a plastic bag, 10 to 20 years.
And it can take a disposable diaper 450 years to break down, according to The National Park Service.
Geri Rush handles community relations for Waste Management.
“I do think awareness is key here. People need to know to close the loop, not only to recycle products, but to buy recycled products.”
Waste Management runs most of the nation’s landfills.
The company is committed to recycling and would love consumers to think twice about what they throw away.
Luliucci believes that message may be beginning to sink in with consumers.
But the fact remains, we continue to produce more than 245-million tons of waste a day.
The top three things that people throw away are paper, yard waste, and food scraps. The good news about that is all of those things or most of that material is recyclable or you can compost it,” says Rush.
Paper products, like paper towels and napkins, tend to break down quickly, in about two to four weeks.
It’s about the same for an orange or banana peel.
Luliucci says it all depends on what’s in the mix.
“It starts breaking down right away. Again depending on what that material is. Food and materials like that will start breaking down as soon as it’s put in the landfill.”
One third of all garbage thrown away in this country is packaging that can take years or centuries to decompose.
Between Thanksgiving and the New Year we generate five-million extra tons of trash.
About four million tons is believed to be wrapping paper and shopping bags.
Rush says, “When you take a look, as a consumer what you are buying, a lot of things are made with more and more packaging these days and you can really make wise choices when you are purchasing things.”
Luliucci says it’s also about convenience.
“The easier we make it for the customer the more recyclables that we will be able to process. We have seen about a 30-percent improvement in our recyclables.”
The good news is nationwide recycling and composting divert close to 80-million tons of waste from landfills each year.
But most people agree we still have a long way to go.
It’s estimated that as much as 90-percent of what we throw away can be used again or recycled.
So you might want to think twice the next time you toss something into the trash.
And this footnote, the average office worker goes through about five hundred disposable cups a year.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Adrian Popa 10.15.08 at 7:04 pm
what are the most common things that are thrown away that are made of metal?
scott 10.17.08 at 10:21 am
soda cans