Introduction

So in Mr. Chodan's Social Studies 901 we are doing a project related to the environment. It can be anything you want including saving water/electricity/heat, fundraising, etc. I chose to reduce waste. 

WASTE: (of a material, substance, by-product) Eliminated or discarded as no longer useful or required after the completion of a process.

Every Canadian on average produces 2 . 2 kg of waste everyday. That's a lot of waste. And we're running out of room to put it. Only select items can be recycled/re-used. The rest? Into landfills it goes. But it doesn't just decompose as fast as you think it does. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. Some plastics can take 500 years tostart decomposing. Other kinds of plastic can last forever. Literally. Other things we humans throw away can include many toxic items, such as batteries, paint, pesticides and used computer equipment. All the toxic can kill plants, animals, humans and possibly poison our water supply, which would be the end of life on Earth. 

Did you know that one third of all food produced every year is thrown away? How much people could that have fed? The human population is forever growing. But the Earth and its resources are not. If we keep throwing away all this stuff that doesn't need to be thrown away, we WILL run out of resources. This may happen faster than you think. 

Four billion trees are cut down every year. Approximately. 

How long does it take to cut down a tree?

A few seconds later...

Now how long does it take to grow a tree?

   -->    -->    10 years later...     A lot more years later...     etc etc

The Earth can't renew itself to keep up with humans and most people don't make the effort to help.

Questions? Thoughts? Ideas? Comment below. Or just say hi so I know you visited. :)

December 20, 2011