Your construction project has just been completed. There’s nothing left to do except for the final stages of construction debris removal. You don't think about that waste again. On trash pick up day, you make sure that waste disposal companies with their roll off trailers and container bins haul it away. Your construction site cleanup phase is completed. You don't have to think about that waste again, either. But maybe you have wondered, as you watch the garbage dumpsters pull away, just where that construction debris end up? What happens to this trash? According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans generate trash at an astonishing rate of 4.6 pounds (2.1 kilograms) per day per person, which translates to 251 million tons (228 million metric tons) per year. This is almost twice as much trash per person as most other major countries. Some gets recycled or recovered and some is burned, but the majority is buried in landfills. The purpose of a landfill is to bury the trash in such a way that it will be isolated from groundwater, will be kept dry and will not be in contact with air. Under these conditions, trash will not decompose much. A landfill is not like a compost pile, where the purpose is to bury trash in such a way that it will decompose quickly. Landfills will leak. According to Zero Waste America’s web site, a landfill is a carefully designed structure built into or on top of the ground in which trash is isolated from the surrounding environment. The purpose is to avoid any water related connection between the waste and the surrounding environment, particularly groundwater. This isolation is accomplished with a bottom liner and daily covering of soil. Basically, a landfill is like a bathtub in the ground; a double-lined landfill is one bathtub inside another. Unfortunately, unlike bathtubs all landfills eventually will leak, out the bottom or over the top. Landfills and your Health There is insufficient data linking health problems with our local landfills. However, there has been more than adequate documentation nationwide to assure a direct correlation with landfills and health problems. According to Dr. Peter Montague in Rachel’s Environment & Health Weekly, the following are just a few documented studies that highlight the extent of the problem: â€Significantly reduced stature (height) for a given age among children who lived near Love Canal, the chemical waste dump in Niagara Falls, N.Y.; â€Low birth weight and birth defects in California children born in census tracts having waste disposal sites. â€In Tucson, Arizona abnormal amounts of children born with heart defects revealed that 35% of them were born to parents living in a part of the city where the water supply was contaminated with Trichloroethylene (TCE) from a hazardous waste site; â€Enlargement of the liver and abnormal liver function tests reported in residents exposed to solvents from a toxic waste dump in Hardemann County, Tenn.; â€Dermatitis, respiratory irritation, neurologic symptoms and pancreatic cancer at 7 waste disposals sites. Contamination and Clean Up The main problem associated with contamination is the â€corrective action†that needs to occur to clean up the problem. In a recent study, 163 municipal solid waste landfills found evidence of ground-water contamination and adverse trends in ground-water quality at 146 of them. That’s a 90% contamination rate for groundwater beneath municipal solid wasteland fills. Once it is contaminated it is almost impossible to clean it up. Solution: Reuse, Recycle or Incineration The advantages of reusing products, recycling waste products and incineration of solid waste far outweigh the disadvantages and the ultimate outcome of landfills: the contamination of your fresh water supply. You will eventually agree with the skeptics of recycling and the proponents of landfills that without water, humankind can not exist. This article was written by Sherman Rogers, Founder and president of All Waste, LLC. Rogers started in 1998 with a single Mack truck and 12 roll-off dumpsters. Today, Sherman Rogers runs an all-Mack fleet of 18 trucks and more than 1200 dumpsters. Other services include portable storage containers, trash pick-up, and delivery of landscaping supplies including mulch, sod, top-soil, and crush aggregate. http://thegarbageman.com/ ALL WASTE, a trash container rental company, services the following communities: MACOMB COUNTY: Mt. Clemens, Romeo, Washington Twp., Harrison Twp., Sterling Hgts., Warren, Shelby Twp., Utica, East Pointe, Macomb, St. Clair Shores, Clinton Twp., Centerline, Roseville, Fraser, Anchor Bay, New Baltimore, Chesterfield Twp., New Haven, Armada and Marine City. OAKLAND COUNTY: Rochester, Rochester Hills, Troy, Bloomfield Hills, West Bloomfield, Clarkston, Auburn Hills, Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Southfield, Lathrup Village, Oxford, Lake Orion, Ortonville, Waterford, Pontiac, Clawson, Berkley, Beverly Hills, Farmington Hills, Farmington, Huntington Woods, and Oak Park. WAYNE COUNTY: Detroit, Dearborn, Grosse Pointe, Highland Park, Hamtramck, Redford, Dearborn Hgts., Inkster, Romulus, Canton, Plymouth Twp., Northville, Livonia, Garden City, Westland, Wayne, and Harper Woods. For information about All Waste services contact Sherman Rogers at 877-524-1002 or email at Sherman@all-waste.com This Article was submitted by Right Now Marketing Group, LLC. WASTE Removal Services, construction debris removal, trash pick up, waste disposal companies, roll off trailers, container bins, construction site cleanup, garbage dumpsters, trash container rental
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