I can bet that the most of you never think to check the labels at the grocery store to determine if they are made of recycled products. I think it also safe to assume that you've simply tossed a candy bar wrapper into the trash bin without hesitation (some of you don't even make it that far! You have strangely adapted to the idea that the outside your car window is your waste can!). Ok, Ok-- I will admit, I am as trashy as the rest of you! Don't take that the wrong way-- it is just straight truth. We are a soiled culture heading straight for the gutters if we don't take some quick action!
In a lifetime, the average American will throw away more than 600 times their adult weight in garbage. If you add it up, this means that someone weighing 150 pounds will throw away over 90,000 pounds of trash! An estimated 292,527,540 live in the U.S.---
Water Pollution
English: 30% hydrochloric acid
Colorful Recycling Containers for Trashyou do the math! That means that over 26,327,478,600,000 pounds of waste will need disposal. In addition, did you know a cotton rug alone can take up to 450 years to dissolve? You are likely to be gone before the landfill will even begin to dent! Not to mention the toxic pollution it will be efficiently creating. Toxic chemicals such as cyanide, dioxins, mercury, methane, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid and lead escape into the air and leech into the ground include. Those "breaths of fresh air" don't sound very refreshing eh'?
Beyond the landfills, our forestry is in great toil as well. Over half of the Earth's forests are gone and up to 95% of the original forest area in the U.S has been destroyed! Destruction of wetlands, forests, rivers and other places essential to wildlife are in combat...