landfill
What is the largest construction you can think of? Does a landfill come to your mind? Probably not. One of the largest buildings on the face of the earth is the Pyramid of the sun, constructed in Mexico and covers approximately thirty million cubic feet of space. Now if you think that is big just imagine an even larger structure: a landfill that occupies over seventy million cubic feet of biosphere, we are talking about the Durham Road landfill, outside San Francisco. It is a sad monument, indeed, to the excesses of modern society [Gore 151]. One might assume such a monstrous mound of garbage is the largest thing ever produced by human hands. Unhappily, this is not the case. The Fresh Kills Landfill, located on Staten Island, is the largest landfill in the world. It sports an elevation of 155 feet, an estimated mass of 100 million tons, and a volume of 2.9 billion cubic feet. In total acreage, it is equal to 16,000 baseball diamonds [Miller 526]. By the year 2005, when the landfill is projected to close, its elevation will reach 505 feet above sea level, making it the highest point along the Eastern Seaboard, Florida to Maine. At that height, the mound will constitute a hazard to air traffic a
below regulatory concern (brc) waste o How long will the operators be responsible for it once it is closed, often referred to as the post-closure period? Nevertheless there are more disadvantages in this system, although we have to take into consideration that without this structures, god knows where would all this garbage be floating. The daily compacting and covering of the garbage deposits effectively squeezes the available oxygen out of the material. Whatever aerobic bacteria are present in the garbage can not survive for very long and so decomposition stops. Anaerobic bacteria, by their very nature, are not present in appreciable numbers in our biosphere. What few manage to enter and survive in the garbage deposits are slow-acting and perform little in the way of breaking down the materials. In other words, rather than the giant compost heap most people imagine, a landfill is actually a huge mummification center. Hot dogs and bananas, decades old; have been recovered from landfills, still recognizable in their mummified splendor [Rathje 111-12]. What little decomposition does occur in landfills generates vast amounts of methane gas, one of the significant greenhouse effect gasses. Landfill gas consists of naturally-occurring methane and carbon dioxide, which form inside the landfill as the waste decomposes. As the gases form, the pressure builds up inside a landfill, forcing the gases to move. Some of the gases escape through the surrounding soil or simply move upward into the atmosphere, where they drift away. [Landfills are Hazardous to Humans] o What is the depth of the landfill in feet, and what will be the height of the highest point of the cap after the landfill is closed? [The basic of landfill]
Some common words found in the essay are:
World War, Cons Sanitary, Florida Maine, Agency Nixon, Staten Island, LANDFILLS INFRASTRUCTURE, Hazardous Humans, San Francisco, Fresh Kills, CA Wadsworth, miller 527, cubic feet, tons day, landfills hazardous humans, daily clay, compostables landfill, inside landfill, clay synthetic, organic compostables, covered impermeable, fresh kills landfill, organic compostables landfill, 85 percent,
Approximate Word count = 1577
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
