Description of Land Pollution
It is easy to confuse land pollution with soil pollution, but they are two different things. Soil pollution concerns itself with how various substances, mostly chemicals, affect our soil and environment when present at higher than natural concentrations. Land pollution concerns itself mainly with something all Americans know intimately--their trash. Trash and trash disposal rarely pollutes just our land. It also pollutes our water and our air.
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Size
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Man-made solid waste, or trash, is a huge problem. Everyday, the average American produces almost 4 pounds of trash. At almost 300 million people in the United Sates, that is over 1 billion pounds of trash produced in this country daily. About half of that ends up in landfills, and only 30 percent of it is recycled.
Significance
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Land pollution in the form of litter is still a huge problem. Americans throw nearly one million bushels of trash along roadways and in public places, most of which directly ends up in local waterways after being washed down storm drains. Many products, like plastic, Styrofoam and paper clog up waterways and leach chemicals into the water, while cigarette butts leach carcinogens like benzene, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide into the water A large amount of trash in storm drains can cause backups and flooding.
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Effects
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Landfills contain many hazardous chemicals that leach into ground water and that disperse into the air. Many household cleaning products contain ammonia, phosphorus, chlorine bleach and dangerous acids. Batteries leak toxic heavy metals like mercury, lithium, lead, cadmium and nickel into the soil, where it seeps into ground water. Chemicals like antifreeze, car fluids, used oil, paint and solvents end up in landfills as well, adding toxins to the air and groundwater. Many of these substances and their fumes are also flammable, creating a serious fire hazard.
Considerations
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Biodegradable food products may not seem like they could be hazardous, but rotting food attracts disease-carrying vermin and creates pathogenic bacteria. This bacteria washes into local water systems in runoff and can poison animals and humans. Rotting vegetable matter and pet waste also creates methane and carbon dioxide as it decomposes. These are both greenhouse gases that some scientists believe contribute to global warming.
Prevention/Solution
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About 80 percent of all trash is recyclable and as much as 75 percent of Americans have access to curbside recycling or recycling centers. There is a lot of room for better land pollution management in every American home. Many of the items that recycle best, like plastics, glass and metal, take decades, if not centuries, to break down and will remain in landfills. Recycling not only cuts down the amount of trash in landfills and reduces the amount of natural resources wasted to make new items, but is also makes financial sense. It is dramatically less expensive to recycle and refine a wide range of materials, such as aluminum, than it is to make new. Recycling and reusing saves money as well as the environment.
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References
- Photo Credit birds at a landfill site in Extremadura/Spain image by Lars Lachmann from Fotolia.com
