Unit 9

Vocabulary

MSW: Municipal Solid Waste. All the solid waste created by humans, 60% of all MSW are from households and 40% is from commercial and institutional facilities.

E-Waste: E- Wastes are technologies like broken phone, computers, televisions, and etc. They contain mercury and other substances that are harmful to our environment and to us. They do go to landfills but are often not treated properly and are hard to break apart after its use.

Closed loop recycling: Example of this type of recycling would be aluminum. Used aluminum are able to be renewed hundred percent of the time. So no matter what happens, aluminum will always be able to be recreated by the used aluminum.

Open loom recycling: Example of this would be plastic bottles. Used plastic bottles can be reused in many different ways but cannot always recreate new ones with old ones. And due to high demand from the customers, industries must continue to make more plastic bottles.

Compost: Compost is an organic matter that goes through decomposition in a controlled system and environment and turns in to an organic material that makes the soil rich and enhance vegetation.
Usually the compost pile works best when it has the right ratio between carbon and nitrogen. Putting dry material and wet materials in the compost will give a right ration of carbon and nitrogen.

Leachate: When soluble constituents from landfills and and soil gets in to water, it cause the water to leach.

Sanitary landfill: Putting clay at the bottom and sides of the hole, it prevents unwanted and harmful substances to seep out to the soil. Also to cap off the landfill, people often use plastic or clay to make sure that water or air do not get in contact with the wastes inside.

Environmental justice: No matter who you are you need to care and respect your surrounding environment and the laws and regulations that protects the environment.

Incineration: When waste materials turn in to ash and gas. The ash is disposed during the process of incineration and the air is filtered again before it is sent out to the chimney. This gas are useful for energy sources but other factors like health risks and the placement of incineration facility are big problems.

Waste-to-energy: From incinerated waste, the gas turns in to an energy source for electricity and heat,

Superfund: It is a federal government program that cleans up the hazardous waste to protect the environment and health of people.

Brownfield: Property that redevelops a possible contaminated area with pollutant and hazardous substances.

Biomagnification: This refers to a situation when DDT or mercury or other substance exceeds the background concentration of the substance in animal's diet.

Persistence: Length of time a compound stays inside the soil.


Diseases

Plague: Plague is usually found in rodents, spread by fleas. And when humans are bitten by these infected fleas, they show symptoms of bubonic plague. The Black Death in Europe is famous for this bubonic plague that killed thousands of lives back when they did not have any cure for this plague whatsoever. The reason why the plague spread so widely is because once the bacteria reaches human's lungs, it then travels out through spit drops when one coughs, causing other people to be infected easily.

Malaria: This disease is caused by Plasmodium and is transferred by mosquito bites. This disease multiply the parasite in human's liver and damage the red blood cells. It is most common in Africa and South East Asia region and by using curtains that block out the mosquitoes and medicine to prevent and to heal malaria, the percentage of people getting infected to malaria has decreased up to 60%.

Tuberculosis: Transmitted through person to person with droplets while people cough. It is a respiratory disease that can cause coughing, chest pain, weakness, and weight loss. It is a curable disease with antibiotics and correct treatment.

SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is caused by coronavirus which causes viral respiratory illness. The first reported case on SARS was on February of 2003 in Asia. After that, the disease spread through all around the world. There is no more reported cases of SARS after the huge outbreak but people should still be careful of this disease.


Recycling Discussion

Aluminum is one of the prime example of closed loop recycled material. The old ones can continue to produce "new" ones indefinitely. This will not require more aluminum to be taken out of the earth and can be reused forever. And in developed countries like America, aluminum is a must have material for industries and people's daily lives. By recycling aluminum, you can cut down almost 90% of the price of producing aluminum than the primary production. This will benefit the economy over all. And due to high demand in aluminum, more aluminum is recycled and this means that more labor force are needed. This will provide more jobs to people which will lead the economy in more positive way.
Papers are also one of the main materials that we recycle. By recycling paper and making "new" paper out of old ones, it is doing a huge benefit to the environment. Paper is absolutely essential in our lives and the population is still increasing. This will require more papers to be made, which means more trees to be cut down. Cutting down trees not only take away other animal's natural habitat but can also cause soil erosion and increased amount of carbon dioxide to the air. By recycling and demanding more recycled papers and paper products, less trees and surrounding environment need to be harmed.
Lastly the plastic is bit more complicated. Plastic requires petroleum in the primary production process and this requires a lot of money. And to recycle these plastic bottles is also pricey. So the bottles usually end up in the near by landfills and this does much damage to earth. Plastics, unlike papers, takes longer to decompose underground. When plastics are left in landfills, they will probably be in a same shape for many years. So the environmental gain for recycling plastic, even though it can be pricey, is worth it.

Big Picture Discussion

Like the book mentioned, before U.S, entered the industrial era and became the developed country, people recycled everything. They used cotton diapers instead of non reusable ones, had glass jars, and etc. After the technology developed and people entered the new era, we also entered the throw-away society. And due to large amount of human consumption, we now have problems like recycling and landfills. This chapter especially has a huge human impact because the root of all of these are caused by humans. Humans did not have a slogan Reduce, Reuse, Recycle or landfills and incinerated wastes in the past. Of course recycling, reducing and reusing products and getting rid of wastes like landfills and incineration is a best option for us right now but there are a lot of problems left for us to solve.
There are government legislation like from EPA to control the water and wastes and WHO to control, investigate, and inform the public about diseases. But more we are exposed to these changing environment that is cause by us, we will face more harmful disease and problems later on in the future.