Home/Posts Tagged ‘garbage’
Posts Tagged ‘garbage’
Pollution, Feb 1st, 2012,
Rubbish is piling up in Mexico’s capital after the city’s largest waste dump, Bordo Poniente, was closed after the landfill was, for lack of a better word, filled. The landfill, in fact, was meant to close back in 2005, but the city managed to delay closure by 6 years. Now garbage is accumulating in illegal dumps in Mexico City, on street corners and even in front of monuments. The fact that Mexico lags behind in waste reducing measures, such as recycling programs, compounds the problem in the DF. From the Guardian: The demise of the Bordo Poniente exposed how acutely…
Tags: border, Bordo Poniente, garbage, Mexico City, US, waste
Politics, Pollution, Sep 27th, 2010,
The ongoing web of problems between rubbish and corruption has turned Italy’s once rustic region of Campania into an area known for the mafia and toxic waste. Naples, the capital of Campania, is once again the center of protests, in which 2,000 locals rioted, threw stones and burned garbage trucks early Friday and during the following three nights. The protesters are against their city being used as a giant dump for the north of Italy – including further plans to build yet another waste facility on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. From a report in the Edmonton Journal: The clashes…
Tags: Campania, garbage, Italy, mafia, Naples, rubbish, toxic waste, war
Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 24th, 2010,
A recent study attempting to measure the amount of plastic debris in the Atlantic has shed more light on the scale of this type marine pollution and its effects on ocean ecosystems. The findings, which analyze data collected from 22 years of oceanic surveys, list several impacts of plastic on marine life, including animals becoming entangled in plastic debris, animals eating plastic and debris facilitating the redistribution of certain species outside their normal habitat. From an article in Wired: The data were gathered by thousands of undergraduates aboard the Sea Education Association (SEA) sailing semester, who hand-picked, counted and measured…
Tags: Atlantic, debris, garbage, marine, ocean, Patch, plastic, sea, study
Pollution, Weird Stuff, Aug 11th, 2010,
It sounds like a complete fantasy and it probably is, but a group of Dutch environmental designers at WHIM Architecture want to turn the Great Pacific Garbage Patch into an eco friendly island paradise. But then again, a lot of great ideas start off as fantasies. The plan, dubbed ‘Recycled Island’, would simultaneously clean up the plastic from the Garbage Patch and create a livable, sustainable island space. With a hundred million tons of plastic floating in the Patch – most of it broken down into microscopic beads, which in turn absorb toxins and enter the food chain through being…
Tags: architects, Dutch, ECO, garbage, island, Pacific, Patch, plastic, recycled, sustainable, WHIM
Recycling, Videos & Documentaries, Jul 29th, 2010,
When I lived in the US we separated our newspapers, cans and some plastic bottles and put them into a container to be collected by a truck once a week. In Sweden we divided glass (both dark and light), metal, plastic, paper, batteries and light bulbs in a special structure in front of my apartment building. In Ireland we just chucked everything into a big tip to be sorted through at a processing plant and then sold to the UK, which also has its own methods of recycling. Below are two separate video reports by Al Jazeera English on two…
Tags: Cairo, China, Egypt, garbage, plastic, Recycling, waste
Climate Change, Green living, Jun 2nd, 2010,
There is something that happens in many rural areas around the globe. It’s a fairly common thing and it can also be a fairly dangerous thing, both to your health and to the environment. What am I referring to? Backyard Trash Burning. Yes, in many rural areas—small towns or out in the country—people will burn their trash. Typically, the trash is burned in a burning barrel (usually a 55 gallon metal drum), though some will also burn their garbage in boxes, a wood stove, or even a small pit dug into the ground. Items that are burned consist of things…
Tags: backyard trash burning, damage, danger, disposal, environmental, fire, garbage, hazards, Health, heavy metals, open burning, pollutants, Pollution, recycle, reduce, reuse, trash, waste
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 23rd, 2010,
There is far too much trash in our oceans and one marine animal is an unfortunate example of this. A young, male Gray Whale was found stranded along the shore of West Seattle. At least 50 gallons of stomach content were sorted through and while some of it was actually food, the rest were items that no living creature should even attempt to eat or digest. The garbage found amongst those stomach contents included: a golf ball, duct tape, sweat pants, pieces of plastic, surgical gloves, small towels, and over 20 plastic bags! The only good news about the situation…
Tags: death, garbage, gray whale, Pollution, stomach contents, stranded, trash, West Seattle
Green living, Recycling, Weird Stuff, Apr 17th, 2010,
When it comes to plastic, many people are divided on the issue. Some absolutely refuse to buy or use any plastic products. Others have no problem with plastic, as long as it’s disposed of properly (reused or recycled). Given issues such as the Pacific Garbage Patch and the more recent Atlantic Garbage Patch, I don’t blame people for being upset about plastics. However, whether people approve of plastic or not, it’s still a major part of our lives. It can be found in toys, storage containers, luggage, medical equipment, construction supplies, vehicle parts, furniture, and even clothing. There have been…
Tags: art, design, garbage, innovative, plastics, products, projects, recycle, Recycling
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 28th, 2010,
As China’s economy grows, so does the amount of rubbish it produces – by 10% each year. The Chinese government is struggling to keep up with the consumer society its economic policies have created. The resulting dumps and landfills – both official and illegal – are an ever-increasing blight on the country’s growing metropolitan areas. One way to get rid of the rubbish is by burning it in government incinerators or simply out in the open, but this releases toxic fumes and dangerous pollution. Photojournalist Wang Jiuliang has been documenting the waste problem in and around China’s capital of Beijing…
Tags: Beijing, China, Chinese, dumps, garbage, Guardian, Lianzhou, photo, rubbish, Wang Jiuliang, waste
Climate Change, Green living, Pollution, Recycling, Weird Stuff, Mar 17th, 2010,
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that stew of broken down plastic trash that lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is getting bigger. An article in Tuesday’s Telegraph cites various estimates of the Patch’s size, which may have doubled over the past ten years: Dr Simon Boxall, a physical oceanographer at the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, goes even further: “It’s the size of North America. But although the patch itself is extremely large, it’s only one very clear representation of the much bigger worldwide problem.” Plastic waste spells death for a million birds and 100,000…
Tags: garbage, great, ocean, Pacific, Patch, plastic, Plastiki, Rothschild, Telegraph, trash
Climate Change, Green living, Pollution, Recycling, Wildlife & Flora, Feb 25th, 2010,
Not to be outdone by its fellow large expanse of sea and longtime nemesis, the larger Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean can now claim a colossal plastic garbage patch of its own. According to reports from the BBC and AP, the Atlantic ‘Rubbish Patch’ – located within the latitudes of 22 and 38 degrees N in the North Atlantic Ocean – is comparable to the better-known Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The researchers carried out 6,100 tows in areas of the Caribbean and the North Atlantic – off the coast of the US. More than half of these expeditions revealed floating…
Tags: AP, Atlantic, BBC, garbage, great, north, ocean, Pacific, Patch, plastic, poison, pollutants, rubbish, sea, trash
Climate Change, Green living, Recycling, Sep 4th, 2009,
If only there was a How Clean Is Your House? for cities: Two matronly ladies storm into Naples and scold a shamefaced mayor into cleaning up his act, vacuuming under the bed and somehow disposing of 400,000 tons of toxic so-called “ecoballs,” which are anything but what their name would have you believe. We, the viewers get to gasp with incredulous, self-righteous indignation because our home cities aren’t complete rubbish heaps. “How could they let it get so far?” we wonder out loud, tossing an empty bag of potato chips into the recycling bin, knowing some responsible civic worker will…
Tags: Berlusconi, Camorra, Campania, garbage, Naples, Pollution, Recycling, TOXIC
