Limiting Waste In America Essay

We see trash every day without paying attention. At times we don’t even realize how much trash is thrown away daily. It can be as small as a toothpick, to as big as a vehicle. If you live in a country like the United States of America where plastic, batteries, and other things are thrown away daily, chances are that an average family of four people, can produce as much as twenty pounds of waste per month. People just throw away trash without knowing where that stuff will end up. Solid waste production in the United States is growing in volume and in toxicity tremendously. Our everyday products contain many toxic chemicals like mercury or flame retardant chemicals. When these substances combine with other trash, our waste has an impact on public health and in the environment. This impact has already started and it is destroying our ecosystem. Our rivers are polluted, our forests have trash, and our oceans have oil spills. We need to make a change. If we do not make an effort now, we will suffer consequences in the near future. One of the many problems that we have with trash is that we produce too much of it. According to Toxic Action Center, Americans have been throwing out more than 500 …show more content…
The government is committed to reducing the amount of waste and has set targets for waste reduction. A strategy for limiting waste was published in 2007 looking for at least forty percent of household waste to be recycled or composted by 2010 and then rising to fifty percent by the year 2020. There’s only so much the government can do. People need to make an effort and get our world clean. Recycling is only one aspect of waste reduction. There are other steps which can be taken. There are some tips that can help people recycle. For example, don’t buy things you don’t need or avoid disposable products, designed to be thrown away. Lots of things can be reused. If you can’t reuse them yourself, try to find someone else who