Restructuring the waste management system to get rid of these giant mountains of trash in every city. By doing this we would have to start recycling everything on a very fine scale and to allow the country to have more raw materials. Anything that can be broke down like cardboard or food products have it sent to make cheap compost or incinerate it for energy. Make buying cans, glass and plastic bottles have a resale on those products, similar to Germany, Canada, or Australia. Doing this would fix the trash mountains and preserve the environment. Making a much cleaner country.
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I agree!!!
I have lived in 4 countries and traveled to 26 countries thus far, and even though some countries are far worse than America when it comes to Recycling, Composting, & Waste Management, there are countries that are DECADES ahead of us. Please look at what some countries are doing:
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Denmark has built a plant that has turned their waste into energy and heat and also created a ski park on top: https://youtu.be/pOqocj2h6EM?si=cnShCmUWC4-SXcAn
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Switzerland requires EVERY citizen to recycle because they will not pick up their trash unless they are using their trash bags and these bags are expensive and so every citizen is sort of ‘forced’ to recycle. My cousin lives outside of Zurich and I see they have a place for everything!! For their compost, for their glass sorted by color, aluminum, paper, etc. and so every week they actually put very LITTLE into the landfill. Granted Switzerland has less land than America because it’s a small country but JUST BECAUSE AMERICA HAS MORE LAND DOESN’T MEAN WE SHOULD JUST DUMP OUR TRASH EVERYWHERE AND ANYWHERE just because it is cheaper. We need to be smarter and set an example. Everything should have its place: Paper, Glass, Aluminum, Compost, Plastic, etc.
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I learned that the composting in San Francisco is given to the wineries up in Napa, but here in San Jose if you live in an apartment / condo, you are not given a composting bin and so I have to collect it myself and then find somewhere to put my compost out in nature or a farm / garden. COMPOSTING should be a standard in America!!! There are some plastics that require 500 years to break down – why are we mixing organics with plastics that have completely different break-down cycles??? Compost / green waste should go directly back to the land, just like plastic needs to go back to new plastic.
We cannot keep disrespecting nature our like this, polluting both our land and water with our trash!!! We need to become more conscious beings and do better!!!