Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair

In 1970 the federal government passed a law, enforced by the EPA, to prevent ozone-damaging air pollution and protect public health.

A closed-loop waste system is one in which waste materials are returned to the product manufacturing system to be recycled instead of discarded in landfills or waterways.

Cogeneration produces heat or other energy with residual steam from the process of electricity generation. 

A disposable economy is one in which consumer products are designed to be used then quickly discarded rather than to last for long periods of time. Examples include plastic soda bottles, single-use plastic bags, electronics designed to obsolesce or break quickly, and other consumer goods designed to last a short period of time.

Downcycling is a method of recycling in which an item is reduced to its component elements. Once separated, the component elements are reused to make some other product, frequently at lower value.

A dump is an above-ground garbage depository site.

The EPA is a federal governmental agency established in 1970 by then US President Richard Nixon. The agency enforces national environmental laws and regulations, researches and assesses issues of environmental concern, and conducts environmental educational outreach.

Electronic devices in our waste removal stream. Much of our e-waste is recycled, though the process requires specialized facilities and large transportation costs that are environmentally damaging. E-waste is also landfilled, finds its way into the ocean, or is dumped on the shores of other countries.

Garbologists estimate Americans waste as much as 15-20% of their food. Some individuals and communities compost this food waste. Much of it is landfilled, where it is preserved underground in airtight chambers.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is almost one million square miles and spans regions of two gyres in the Pacific Ocean. Witnesses describe it as more closely resembling trash soup than a patch. It consists mostly of plastic waste.

Hoarders refuse to discard used items. People with this compulsion often find themselves trapped by the trash in their own homes. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) categorized disposophobia, or hoarding disorder, as a mental illness. The DSM explains that hoarding is more than mere collecting; it rises to a level that creates health and safety risks.

A landfill is a designated area where trash is buried underground in large airtight compartments, then covered with a layer of dirt.

When water passes through a solid, it collects, or leaches, some of the solid’s materials and carries the materials with it. If those materials are toxic or otherwise environmentally harmful, the water carries those materials wherever it travels, for example into the underground water system that sources our drinking water.

Nurdles are tiny pieces of pre-production plastic that are melted, combined, and reformed to manufacture consumer plastic goods. Billions are produced and shipped to manufacturing facilities each year, and many find their way to our beaches and into the ocean, where sea life mistakes them for food. Through the global food chain, these nurdles end up in the food we eat, and consequently in human bodies.

POPs do not degrade like other organic materials. They last forever and accumulate in our ecosystems, adversely impacting the environment and public health.

In the early 1900s communities shipped their edible organic waste to pig farms to be consumed by the animals. This practice was discontinued after researchers discovered it caused disease in the pigs, which they spread to humans, and produced low-quality meat.

Upcyclers turn waste and unwanted products into new products of a high quality and better environmental impact.