Trash in New York

Trash in New York

Introduction

New York is one of the largest cities in the world. It is a densely populated city with over 8 million people. Due to this large population, New York produces large volumes of trash in a single day. It produces approximately over 50,000 tons of trash in a day (Grimm and Nancy 756-760). This constitutes residential and commercial trash. These large volumes of trash find their way into landfills in neighboring states. The smell from landfills pollutes the air in surrounding environment thus rendering the efforts to implement changes to landfills null and void. In New York, trash is into two major categories: Residential and commercial. Residential trash is the waste from our homes. Residential trash ranges from food remnants, wrapping materials to plastic bottles. Commercial trash is from industries e.g. effluents and gases. Landfill method of waste disposal handles all the named waste in mass. There is no classification of waste into categories. For example, food waste is a biodegradable type of waste. However, commercial trashes like electronic waste are non-biodegradable. There is also waste that can be recycled. The generalized approach of landfill method to waste management is ineffective. Waste management should be specialized. Composting, recycling and waste prevention are the effective methods of trash management.

Conclusion

There are various reasons for discussing the above waste management methods In relation to New York City. The city has been over dependent on landfills for waste management.  Landfills have proved to be expensive and ineffective.  Landfills do not reduce the levels of trash in the city. They are dumping sites for the trash. The method has increased the number of landfills in the neighboring states. Landfills are therefore a corrective measure. Effective trash management requires preventive measures. This will reduce the volume of trash in the city. Trash management in New York requires diversified and modern ways (Gerlberg 1103-1110). Corrective measures are likely to be ineffective owing to the large population. The above methods encourage people to contribute less trash to the dustbins. The methods discussed are economical in solving the trash problem. In landfills, transportation of the trash to the sites costs a lot of money (Morrissey & Browne 297-308). Therefore, the use of preventive methods will reduce expenditure. The above methods require only framework and policies from the administration. The New York administration will only need to set up measures for composting, recycling and preventing waste.  The discussed methods support the involvement of the residents in waste management. The involvement of residents makes it easier to manage waste management. Residents will buy enough food. This reduces the amount of excess food taken into waste as trash. Recycling of plastic bottles and bags will reduce the amount of plastics thrown as trash. Prevention measures like the banning of smoking in parks also contribute to reduction of waste. It is clear that waste management in New York cannot be effective if we concentrate on corrective measures. The problem is not how we dispose the waste produced. The focus should be on how we reduce the large volumes of trash economically. Composting of trash is useful. The composed trash acts as organic manure in farming. Recycling enables to save money spent on buying plastics and plastic bags. Therefore, the above methods are both effective and economical to the New York administration.

Works cited

Gelberg, Kitty H. “Health study of New York City department of sanitation Landfill employees.”

Journal of occupational and environmental medicine 39.11 (1997): 1103-1110

Grimm, Nancy B., et al. “Global change and the ecology of cities.” science 319.5864 (2008):

756-760.

Morrissey, A. J., and J. Browne. “Waste management models and their application to sustainable

waste management.” Waste management 24.3 (2004): 297-308

Urban, Dean L. “Landscape ecology.” Encyclopedia of Environmetics. (2006)

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