Food Waste In Landfills

Great Essays
The average household is not doing enough to reduce or reuse waste products. As a result, landfills are filling up with potential reusable waste. Due to lack of knowledge on how to compost food, food waste can make up nearly 20% of the municipal solid waste (MSW) at a landfill (Nadakavukaren, A., 2011). Greater community education and outreach is needed to help individuals, families and communities compost on a regular basis, and reduce the amount of food waste in our landfills. According to the US census, there are over 300,000,000 people living in the United States (US and World Population Clock, 2015). As a result, an excessive amount of waste is produced and added to landfills. MSW comes from common garbage produced by houses, institutions, …show more content…
This is a delicate balance of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and fluorinated gases. An increase in GHGs can cause an increase in the planets temperature. Image 1.3 shows the ratio of the 4 gases in 2013 (Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, 2015). This is relevant to landfills and compost as both can produces various GHG’s.
One of the causes of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is from solid waste. However, carbon can be removed from the atmosphere through carbon sequestering. Carbon sequestering is the long-term storage of carbon in ocean, soil, vegetation and geologic formations. Oceans store the most however soil holds 75% of carbon on land and therefore play a leading role in the balance of carbon global cycle (Carbon Sequestration in Soils, 2000).
Organic carbon can be lost in soil from accelerated mineralization and erosion (Biala, J., 2011). Therefore, the break down of organic materials will produce carbon dioxide and water into the atmosphere. Composting can put organic carbon back into soil with a low carbon concentration. Increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the soil can replenish carbon depletion. C02 can be in the form of organic and inorganic. Inorganic is carbon in mineral form as calcium carbonate, or created from bedrock. Inorganic carbon is less likely to drop to an undesirable concentration, as it does not biodegrade. Organic carbon is a
…show more content…
Commercial businesses that produce more than 8 cubic yards of waste a week will need to separate food waste and yard scraps to be picked up for composting (Biocycle, 2014). Furthermore, starting January 2017 businesses that produce more than 4 cubic yards of waste are subject to compost separation (Biocycle, 2014).
Through increased awareness on how to compost and the value of compost, this number can be reduced by
To reduce the amount of food waste in our landfills, quick how-to guides to compost needs to be easily available at various community institutions. As an example, schools can compost on campus to redirect food waste while providing the available guide to family and community members. Furthermore, students will have an opportunity to learn the benefits of compost with an opportunity to work in community gardens and use of such compost.
1. A well-ventilated container for ingredients to be held together while beneficial bacteria breaks down matter.
2. Make sure ingredients have a combination of brown and green matter along with light

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash, written in 2012, Edward Humes, a Pulitzer prize and PEN award winning journalist and author in California, educates his readers on the economic, social, and environmental issues revolving around the waste. Humes begins his novel by describing landfills and the struggles many face with maintaining them due to incorrect sealing, being uneducated in waste management, and making excuses. Humes determines that the only way to “fix” our mess is to change our behaviors and become less wasteful. In part one of Humes novel, Garbology, he informs readers of the landfill, Puente Hills, the largest active dump in the country, and the hazardous materials, such as “leachate”, that is infecting the area of Los Angeles County (25).…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Problem In the very large community of Pecan Plantation we have garbage trucks that come by every tuesday morning. For a gated community the size of granbury’s population every family brings a lot of trash to the curb every tuesday. Throught granbury there are many places that residents can take their recycling to in order to dispose of it properly. But just next door in Pecan there is only a single recycling bin placed right in the middle of the community on a road that not many travel. This has become a growing problem in Pecan Plantation due to the growing size of the population every year.…

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In No Impact Man, Colin Beavan discusses many important topics, one of which is about trash. This topic got my interest because we see it everywhere, Colin goes into detail and discusses a lot of facts about it. An interesting observation was made regarding the black color of trash bags, that the reason trash bags are black instead of transparent is because people do not or cannot deal with seeing what is inside of them. Another related topic that always gets my concerns is recycling our waste. There are a lot of people that don’t recycle and just don’t care.…

    • 982 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Im2 Unit 2 Assignment

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages

    My second leap of faith assumption is each person is aware and knows the importance of how to live green by recycling the waste and reusing it again for different purpose. My third leap of faith assumption is people have a strong blender to blend the compost scrap food and nearby garden to pour the blended raw materials. Light Weight Experiment (Experiment design and hypothesis) I started my light weight experiment at my own place.…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Connecting the Community through Food Scraps (Mid Term Goal) Whether or not UIC decides to utilize an anaerobic digester to process food waste a portion should be captured for compost production. This could be used to cut costs on landscaping compost needs, for expansions of UIC’s Heritage Community Gardens, and to provide compost for local community gardeners. A vacant lot on UIC’s west side provides a opportunity to turn a desolate field that separates organizations into a community garden/farm that could connect them, while processing food scrap into compost. The vacant lot is in-between UIC’s College of Applied health Sciences, Department of Public Health, the Jesse Brown VA medical Center, and the Carole Robertson Center for Learning.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The United Nations estimates that one in nine people in the world do not have access to sufficient food to lead a healthy life. More people are reported to die from hunger every day than AIDS (Olson-Sawyer). All people are capable of taking action to help prevent food waste in America. It is important to become educated and understand the importance of why people waste, how it affects the…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Carbon dioxide emissions continues to be a relevant controversial issue in today’s society. this statement is used so many times and heard over almost everywhere media. However, it is one of the causes of the environmental destruction. Garbage and pollution are the other two major with many minor aspects that all lead to only to one final resolution: desolation of ecosystems and destruction of living conditions for us. With all of that trash and pollution in the world, it is one of the leading effects of methane gas making it into our ozone layer and heating the atmosphere that leads to the degradation of our natural living…

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It has come to my concern and attention that recycling should be mandatory in ISA. Americans make more than 200 million tons of garbage each year due to the garbage outburst that is not recycled. I personally believe that recycling should be mandatory in ISA because the EPA system averages out that 75% of the American waste stream of garbage is only 30% recycled which isn’t even half of it. Therefore ISA should go green and have recycle bins which then the recycled items will be processed to a recycling company. One of the reasons recycling should be mandatory is because it will protect wildlife from decreasing the risk of killing an animal from lake to sea, or from forest to rivers.…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Food Waste In America

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This is how food waste is contributed every day around the world. Food waste is a big exasperation to many people and is a major issue in the United States, it takes up much needed room in landfills, and is one of the causes to the rise in hunger. Food waste takes toll in the U.S. and in other countries. Food waste is a vital issue in the United States. "…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Over the course of the semester, we have discussed the negative consequences resulting from the way we, as a society, dispose of our garbage. Most of our trash generally ends up in landfills where harmful chemicals are washed off exposing surrounding areas to harmful pollutants which are then able to cause extensive damage to both the environment and the species which inhabit the area. This method of waste disposal, while convenient for both major businesses and individual civilians alike, has already proven detrimental to the planet and its many species, and has called for a change in the way we manage and dispose of these toxic materials. “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things,” answers that call by providing a number of feasible solutions and changes we can make, not only how we discard our trash, but also how we can avoid the need to create any more.…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Reducing Food Waste Food and water are two of the most important resources for everyone on the planet. No matter what part of the world people are living in, no matter what their income or living situation is everyone needs these two vital resources to live a healthy life. Unfortunately food is not given the respect that it deserves, as perfectly edible food is unnecessarily thrown out everyday. Whether it is being thrown away at supermarkets, restaurants and even in people’s own homes. Most of the food that is being thrown away is still completely fine to eat, but people feel that it is safer and easier to just throw the food away, instead of taking the risk of getting sick from it or finding other uses for it.…

    • 1903 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    "When we dump food into a landfill, we're essentially throwing a trash blanket over a flatulent food man and Dutch-Ovening the entire planet," said John Oliver. Many things can affect the way consumer’s shop that contributes to food waste. For example, when my mother is hungry and haven’t eaten all day and decides to go grocery shopping, she often picks up excessive food because she is hungry. With that being said, she ends up paying about $200 or $300 for grocery.…

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever walked down the road and seen hundreds of cans and bottles that were just tossed out the window? The earth is being polluted more and more each day as people are tossing their trash on the ground. Millions of dollars are spent every year, making simple things such as plastic bottles, because people are sending them to landfills instead of recycling bins. The earth is becoming a dirty place and it is already beginning to impact us. The best ways to make the earth cleaner are to recycle, buy reusable items, and stop littering.…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Composting Research Paper

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Many gardeners may not be aware that common items from around the house can start off a healthy, nutritious garden. Composting is one of the ways to retain a well-maintained garden while avoiding chemical fertilizers. Using compost in your garden has been known to be beneficial in building a sustained garden due to its spectrum of essential plant nutrients. Using compost as a organic fertilizer is an important factor in maintaining a healthy garden because it is cost effective, convenient, saves resources, while helping improve plant development.…

    • 1370 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Much of the warming on Earth has been caused by the increased abundance of carbon in the atmosphere. With the world population growing, many of the forest and trees are being cut down to build residence and service buildings. The process of cutting down trees leads to carbon being released into the atmosphere by machinery,…

    • 1200 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays