Persuasive Essay On The Olympics

“This is by far the worst water quality we’ve ever seen in our sailing careers,” said Ivan Bulaja, a coach for an Austrian team training at Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, where the 2016 Olympics will be held. The waters are polluted with sewage, dead fish, and trash, posing a serious threat to athletes training or competing there. Kristina Mena, a professor of public health, is an expert in water quality, and conducted a risk test for athletes competing in the waters Rio, assuming they would consume three teaspoons, which is far less than athletes say they take in. "The levels of viruses are so high in these Brazilian waters that if we saw those levels here in the United States on beaches, officials would likely close those beaches," Mena said. She found "an infection risk of 99 percent". Erik Heil, age 26, was treated at a hospital in Berlin for flesh-eating bacteria, soon after sailing in an Olympic test event in August at Rio. …show more content…
Turns out, Brazil is the fifth largest producer of trash, sending 27 billion tons of trash per year to unsafe destinations, overflowing Rio’s dumps and polluting Guanabara Bay. The only recycling system is the catadores, citizens who handpicked recyclable goods from dumps. Since Rio de Janeiro is to host the 2016 Olympic Games, the city planned consequential changes to its waste system, and new recycling centers are opening next year. In neighborhoods with limited waste services and open trash piles, it is no surprise trash is scattered throughout the environment.
“Waste is just a misplaced resource” ~Ken Dunn. Trash disposal is a difficult problem. Waste consists of organics, single-use packaging, biomedical products, electronics, durable goods, paper, plastic, glass and aluminum. Since waste is a misplaced resource, I thought up a solution to the waste management problem. What if there was a “system of systems” that dealt with trash? Waste would then be reduced, and even waste