80% of Amarica's solid waste is being dumped into 6,000 landfills, spread across every sate in the country.But the opyion is shrinking fast: In the past eight years, more that 3,000 dumps have been closed. Plastic is particularly baned in the landfills.
Even if there were more room for it all, dumped garbage and industrial waste can become leathal when corrosive acids, chemicals, and discarded metal seep out of landfills and into groundwattes supplies, contaminating drinking water and polluting agricultural land.
One alternative to dumping garbege, is to burn it.But, incinerating waste at a high temperature for a certain number of times, turns garbage into very gaseous things and into toxic ash.Improperly storing ash could pollute ground water, and it could even cause fires or explosions. If some mechanical problem arises at the facility, and wastes begin to pile up, incompatible chemicals could mix, making up a very poisonous cloud.
Across the country, illigal dumping is a growing problem.One major reason is that disposal costs are increasing, and people don't want to pay.We are discovering that many local dumps, which were built without environmental protections and therefore offer cheap disposal, can threatten human health and the environment.But, declining number of landfills will encourage illagal dumping.Some areas of the United States of America face a severe shortage of disposal capacity. Govenments must find a way to grant the permits needed to site and build adaquate disposal capacity.
To discourage illigal dumping, local governments need to be sure that diposal sites are available, accessible, cost effective, as well as environmentally protective.
Illigal dumps can pose serious hazards to human health and safty to the environment.
A Look At A Few Illigal Dumping Problems...
In an effort some years ago, the state created a special category of landfills that would accept only construction and demolition debris(C&D).Other kinds of solid waste found their way to the unregulated C&D landfills.Violating the law, the owners/operators accepted the solid waste; the C&D landfills thereby became illigal dumps posing as facilities that were free to do what they wanted.There were no regulations on them.
Springfield, Massachusetts, had a successful anto-dumping program and was regularly nominated for Clean City and other awards.Thge citizens would fill out "report-a-dump" forms in the local newspaper and send them to the Department of Public Works.The city would follow up by going to the House Court, which would order the property to clean up.If the owner did no agree to clean up, a city cleanup team would do the job, and a cleanup cost would be placed on the property. And among many other services, the city would offer free collection of bulky discards, like large appliances.
Hauling cost in New Jersey are one of the highest in the country because the state has too little disposal capacity and exports over half its waste to other states for disposal. In 1998, officials of PLainfield declered a limited health emergency. Some New Jersey residents, whether unwilling to follow the state's strict rules on separating recyclable material from their other garbage, tthrow bagged rubbish out of their cars as they turn up onto the highway entrance ramp in Newmark on their morning to New York City.
State and local governmetns across the country are tightening enforcement of illigal dumping laws and working to heighten citizen awarness of the costs and consequences of illigal dumping. Here are a few examples :
If you see illigal dumping, report it.
You schould support cleanup of streams, country lanes, vacant lots, and other sites of illigal dumping.
