essay on garbage problem

Garbage Pollution Essay Sample

Pollution is a major problem in the world. One of the major sources of pollution in our garbage dumps. Garbage dumps are not just an eyesore, but they also create harmful gases that pollute the environment and harm people who live nearby. The sample below will outline some ways to reduce garbage pollution by recycling more often and throwing less away.

Essay Sample On Garbage Pollution

• Thesis Statement – Garbage Pollution Essay
• Introduction – Garbage Pollution Essay
• Main Body – Garbage Pollution Essay
• Conclusion – Garbage Pollution Essay

Thesis Statement – Garbage Pollution Essay The pollution of garbage is a problem that affects many people. However, there are ways to combat this issue and help the environment at the same time. Introduction – Garbage Pollution Essay Garbage pollution is one of the largest sources of our global economic loss, and it’s a problem that needs to be addressed. The United States alone spends around $11 billion annually on waste management. Globally, this figure rises to roughly $200 billion. This doesn’t even take into account the environmental costs in terms of air quality, water contamination, ecosystem disruption, and biodiversity loss. With the ever-escalating cost in time and money spent managing garbage worldwide, it’s high time we start exploring alternatives before things get out of hand! Get Non-Plagiarized Custom Essay on Garbage Pollution in USA Order Now Main Body – Garbage Pollution Essay The high level of pollution in every sphere cannot hide the problem of garbage pollution in the world in modern times. If we move around our head there are thousands of instances where garbage pollution is becoming the cause of life taking diseases. The initiative taken so far by the national and international conventions to control this pollution proves out to be on the wane. This is because there is no solid solution given so far to resolve this issue effectively. If we burn these heaps of garbage they will give rise to air pollution causing smog and different respiratory diseases as well. That is why no such ideas seem to be in the light which can be applied to control this pollution so far. The negative consequences of garbage pollution can be seen in the form of big heaps of garbage which suddenly fall causing the death of several people. Other results can be considered in the reduction of air quality, spreading of the diseases like dengue as mosquitoes becomes very prominent in such areas where no hygiene is maintained. The water of the drinking water sources is also contaminated when rain puts this garbage through its flow in the rivers and lakes. So we cannot say that garbage pollution is affecting our life in one or two ways but we are getting in danger from everywhere. Finding genuine and effective solutions to deal with the ill consequences of Garbage pollution is very important as the rising dumps are indicating towards the worst condition in the future time. If you are thinking of recycling and reusing things more and more then it could be possible to a certain limit because we cannot recycle and reuse everything and this is sure that the above solution is not much effective to cater such a big issue in real grounds. Although it can impart its role in the decrease of its ratio it is not able to mitigate the issue completely. Some intellectual people suggest keeping the degradable and nonbiodegradable substances separately so that biodegradable things can be utilized as manure in the farms and this will also be helpful to suppress the problem to a certain amount apart from recycling and reuse. As far as the reduction of the problem is concerned we can consider these tips and ideas best and useful as well. But to find the ultimate and best solution which can finish off the entire problem by eradicating its roots is not possible from these minor initiatives. Something big and new needs to be given by the researchers who are active in the research field to save the environment from the pollution of a different type. Some people are giving solutions like stop using polythene bags and materials for packaging and supplying things. These bags should be replaced by something which can be degradable by the microorganisms. For example, bags made up of eco-friendly material can be subjected to the use of packaging. But the serious issue that is confronted to adopt this idea is that liquid material is hard to pack in these types of bags and they easily tear out and are not solid like that of polythene. But it does not mean that we cannot use this idea at all. There are many things which can be packed easily in the paper bags as well and using such bags can lower the pollution to a great amount. This is how a new idea can also be subjected to the reduction of pollution. If we measure the success rate of controlling pollution caused by the garbage dumps in the world by applying the above techniques mentioned here like re-cycling, reusing, and separating the degradable and nondegradable material effective changes can be considered. It is not new in the idea to use these things for reducing the garbage pollution but the main reason why we are not getting success to control it even after so much of time it our poor actions to take these initiatives and follow them. Until or unless we are not able to control our action towards spreading pollution nothing can be done to deal with this serious issue. Especially developing and undeveloped countries are suffering from the ill consequence of garbage pollution to a high level than the developed ones. So, it is very crucial to give attention to this problem so that we can effectively deal with it. Any type of problem encountered by the students of the college in writing their essay on garbage pollution can be solved by taking the essay writing services for college or school. Students Assignment Help is giving high-quality essays written on various topics to the students who belong to their respective fields. You can ask the essay writers anytime to write your essay on garbage pollution and become free from the fear of getting a low score in your essay writing assignments. You do not have to wait for long hours to avail of this service on time as experts are always there to serve the students in the form of ghostwriters. Essay Editing And Proofreading services are also easily provided to the college and master students on various topics apart from the one mentioned here. Buy Customized Essay on Garbage Pollution At Cheapest Price Order Now Conclusion – Garbage Pollution Essay The average American produces about 220 lbs of garbage each year. This is equivalent to 4 bags of trash per day, which equates to 1444 pounds per year for the typical family. These numbers are staggering and it can be difficult to comprehend just how much impact this has on our environment until you do the math. The good news is that there are simple steps we can take at home and in school to reduce our impact on global warming. Hire USA Experts for Garbage Pollution Essay Order Now

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We hope we’ve helped you understand why garbage pollution is such a serious issue and what can be done about it in your community.

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Climate Action

How our trash impacts the environment.

• How Our Trash Impacts…

February 28, 2019

By Austin Downs, Richard Acevedo and Kennedi Humble

Due to the mass amounts of unsustainable, human-generated waste entering our environment, the detrimental effects of pollution have continued to negatively impact numerous ecosystems around the world. Different types of waste, such as microplastics, are continuously polluting our oceans and landfills due to the lack of biodegradable and recyclable materials within these pollutants. A recent study found that out of the  400 million  metric tons of plastic waste produced annually, only  9%  is successfully recycled. (Find out  more about plastic pollution  and how you can help  reduce your own waste .) In 2017, for instance, the Environmental Protection Agency calculated the United States’s total generation of solid waste to be around  267.8 million tons , ultimately representing a  5.7 million  waste increase since 2015. All together, unsustainable waste has negatively impacted the environment through its contribution to worsening the climate crisis, wildlife population, and our very own public health. 

Climate Change

The way our society disposes of waste is not only extremely troubling, but has become increasingly irresponsible as well. Our government leaders have failed to implement sustainable foundations into action to allow our environment to successfully mitigate and adapt to climate change. For example, when looking at the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and landfills, researchers found that  20%  of the total human-driven methane emissions have been produced from waste landfills, and  91% of these landfill methane emissions  have been caused by open-trash incineration. Considering that approximately  65%  of the United State’s waste is being discarded in this manner, the crucial lack of sustainable government regulations and involvement on the waste disposal process continues to contribute large-scale risks to both our atmosphere and the people that live near these burning sites.

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Ecosystems vary widely from location to location. However, one of the most dire consequences of our global waste problem manifests itself in relation to our marine life and waterways. In other words, human-generated waste affects mass amounts of aquatic beings that are dependent on the ocean for their livelihood. Numerous marine species consume mass amounts of plastic or solid waste due to their inability to distinguish between food and waste and are continuing to have traces of pollutants within their body. Researchers have found  microplastics  in 100% of turtles, 59% of whales, 36% in seals, and even 90% in seabirds they examined. Not to mention, waste pollution is often deadly, resulting in over  100,000  marine mammals to be killed annually. When it comes to biodiversity, our waste problem is severely plaguing the health of the world’s species.

Public Health

Human health is at risk through our lack of environmental awareness and action. If our society continues to produce large amounts of trash without proper disposal, it will be the downfall of humanity, wildlife and ecosystem well-being. We cannot prevent or promote longevity if humankind does not adapt sustainable behaviors toward our Earth. If emissions from waste disposal continue to increase, climate will not only be negatively impacted, but human health as well. Through environmental contamination, one can develop  diseases , such as asthma, birth defects, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and more. These issues will continue to increase if environmental action is not established in the near future.

Austin Downs is the coordinator for the Great Global Cleanup. 

Richard Acevedo is a Fall 2019 intern.

Kennedi Humble is a Fall 2023 intern

Earth Day Network

Related stories, earthday.org’s interview with two youth climate activists, end plastics, angry birds are angry at plastic, our plastic ocean.

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Essay on Waste Management for Students and Teacher

500+ essay on waste management.

Essay on Waste Management -Waste management is essential in today’s society. Due to an increase in population, the generation of waste is getting doubled day by day. Moreover, the increase in waste is affecting the lives of many people.

For instance, people living in slums are very close to the waste disposal area. Therefore there are prone to various diseases. Hence, putting their lives in danger. In order to maintain a healthy life, proper hygiene and sanitation are necessary. Consequently, it is only possible with proper waste management .

The Meaning of Waste Management

Waste management is the managing of waste by disposal and recycling of it. Moreover, waste management needs proper techniques keeping in mind the environmental situations. For instance, there are various methods and techniques by which the waste is disposed of. Some of them are Landfills, Recycling , Composting, etc. Furthermore, these methods are much useful in disposing of the waste without causing any harm to the environment.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Methods for Waste Management

Recycling – Above all the most important method is the recycling of waste. This method does not need any resources. Therefore this is much useful in the management of waste . Recycling is the reusing of things that are scrapped of. Moreover, recycling is further converting waste into useful resources.

Landfills – Landfills is the most common method for waste management. The garbage gets buried in large pits in the ground and then covered by the layer of mud. As a result, the garbage gets decomposed inside the pits over the years. In conclusion, in this method elimination of the odor and area taken by the waste takes place.

Composting – Composting is the converting of organic waste into fertilizers. This method increases the fertility of the soil. As a result, it is helpful in more growth in plants. Furthermore it the useful conversion of waste management that is benefiting the environment.

Advantages of Waste Management

There are various advantages of waste management. Some of them are below:

Decrease bad odor – Waste produces a lot of bad odor which is harmful to the environment. Moreover, Bad odor is responsible for various diseases in children. As a result, it hampers their growth. So waste management eliminates all these problems in an efficient way.

Reduces pollution – Waste is the major cause of environmental degradation. For instance, the waste from industries and households pollute our rivers. Therefore waste management is essential. So that the environment may not get polluted. Furthermore, it increases the hygiene of the city so that people may get a better environment to live in.

Reduces the production of waste -Recycling of the products helps in reducing waste. Furthermore, it generates new products which are again useful. Moreover, recycling reduces the use of new products. So the companies will decrease their production rate.

It generates employment – The waste management system needs workers. These workers can do various jobs from collecting to the disposing of waste. Therefore it creates opportunities for the people that do not have any job. Furthermore, this will help them in contributing to society.

Produces Energy – Many waste products can be further used to produce energy. For instance, some products can generate heat by burning. Furthermore, some organic products are useful in fertilizers. Therefore it can increase the fertility of the soil.

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The World's Plastic Pollution Crisis Explained

Much of the planet is swimming in discarded plastic, which is harming animal and possibly human health. Can it be cleaned up?

Conservation

Children Play among Plastic

While plastic pollution is a worldwide problem it is most obvious in less-wealthy African and Asian nations, like the Philippines. Here, children play among plastic waste on the shore of Manila Bay.

Photograph by Randy Olson

Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues, as rapidly increasing production of disposable plastic products overwhelms the world’s ability to deal with them. Plastic pollution is most visible in less-wealthy Asian and African nations, where garbage collection systems are often inefficient or nonexistent. But wealthy nations, especially those with low recycling rates, also have trouble properly collecting discarded plastics. Plastic trash has become so ubiquitous it has prompted efforts to write a global treaty negotiated by the United Nations. How Did this Happen? Plastics made from fossil fuels are just over a century old. Production and development of thousands of new plastic products accelerated after World War II to the extent that life without plastics would be unimaginable today. Plastics revolutionized medicine with life-saving devices, made space travel possible, lightened cars and jets—saving fuel and lessening pollution —and saved lives with helmets, incubators , and equipment for clean drinking water. The conveniences plastics offer, however, led to a throw-away culture that reveals the material’s dark side: Today, single-use plastics account for 40 percent of the plastic produced every year. Many of these products, such as plastic bags and food wrappers, are used for mere minutes to hours, yet they may persist in the environment for hundreds of years. Plastics by the Numbers Some key facts:

• Half of all plastics ever manufactured have been made in the last 15 years.
• Production increased exponentially, from 2.3 million tons in 1950 to 448 million tons by 2015. Production is expected to double by 2050.
• Every year, about 8 million tons of plastic waste escapes into the oceans from coastal nations. That’s the equivalent of setting five garbage bags full of trash on every foot of coastline around the world.
• Plastics often contain additives making them stronger, more flexible, and durable. But many of these additives can extend the life of products if they become litter, with some estimates ranging to at least 400 years to break down.

How Plastics Move around the World Most of the plastic trash in the oceans, Earth’s last sink, flows from land. Trash is also carried to sea by major rivers, which act as conveyor belts, picking up more and more trash as they move downstream . Once at sea, much of the plastic trash remains in coastal waters. But once caught up in ocean currents, it can be transported around the world. On Henderson Island, an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Group isolated halfway between Chile and New Zealand, scientists found plastic items from Russia, the United States, Europe, South America, Japan, and China. They were carried to the South Pacific by the South Pacific gyre , a circular ocean current. Microplastics Once at sea, sunlight, wind, and wave action break down plastic waste into small particles, often less than half a centimer (one-fifth of an inch) across. These so-called microplastics are spread throughout the water column and have been found in every corner of the globe, from Mount Everest, the highest peak, to the Mariana Trench, the deepest trough . Microplastics are breaking down further into smaller and smaller pieces. Plastic microfibers (or the even smaller nanofibers), meanwhile, have been found in municipal drinking water systems and drifting through the air. Harm to Wildlife Millions of animals are killed by plastics every year, from birds to fish to other marine organisms. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by plastics. Nearly every species of seabird eats plastics. Most of the deaths to animals are caused by entanglement or starvation. Seals, whales, turtles, and other animals are strangled by  abandoned fishing gear or discarded six-pack rings. Microplastics have been found in more than 100 aquatic species, including fish, shrimp, and mussels destined for our dinner plates. In many cases, these tiny bits pass through the digestive system and are expelled without consequence. But plastics have also been found to have blocked digestive tracts or pierced organs, causing death. Stomachs so packed with plastics reduce the urge to eat, causing starvation. Plastics have been consumed by land-based animals, including elephants, hyenas, zebras, tigers, camels, cattle, and other large mammals, in some cases causing death. Tests have also confirmed liver and cell damage and disruptions to  reproductive systems , prompting some species, such as oysters, to produce fewer eggs. New research shows that larval fish are eating nanofibers in the first days of life, raising new questions about the effects of plastics on fish populations. Stemming the Plastic Tide Once in the ocean, it is difficult—if not impossible—to retrieve plastic waste. Mechanical systems, such as Mr. Trash Wheel, a litter interceptor in Maryland’s Baltimore Harbor, can be effective at picking up large pieces of plastic, such as foam cups and food containers, from inland waters. But once plastics break down into microplastics and drift throughout the water column in the open ocean, they are virtually impossible to recover. The solution is to prevent plastic waste from entering rivers and seas in the first place, many scientists and conservationists—including the National Geographic Society—say. This could be accomplished with improved waste management systems and recycling, better product design that takes into account the short life of disposable packaging, and reduction in manufacturing of unnecessary single-use plastics.

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Related Resources

Essay On Garbage Pollution for Students & Children – Get In Simple Words Here

• January 12, 2022

Garbage pollution is a serious problem. It is the most important issue in our society today and it has become a very big challenge for us to address. The problem of garbage pollution in cities has been increasing day by day, which has led to a lot of problems such as health issues, environmental degradation, and economic losses.

Define Garbage Pollution as Follows:

Today, pollution is the country’s major effect, as trash from homes, industries, and factories is thrown on the road or on vacant land, causing stink and harming human health. Garbage such as domestic vegetable leaves and iron, cans, paper, plastic, dead animals and their bones, moist waste, hazardous garbage from the chemical sector, and many more items that cannot be classified.

The discarded trash is then set on fire, resulting in air pollution that is very harmful to human health. Places are not cleaned, and the river is polluted as a result of the pipeline’s connection to the river’s body. These pipes discharge very toxic material, which kills aquatic creatures.

The Environment Is Affected By Garbage Burning

Rubbish includes numerous poisonous substances that are detrimental to the health of living organisms, and the burning of garbage contains Carbon monoxide, which is very harmful to the body. This carbon monoxide then enters the body and damages the lungs.

People nowadays burn trash, which is very hazardous to the body and, according to scientists, may result in death. Air pollution is produced by the combustion of such inorganic components, which not only poisons the air but also spreads numerous illnesses that are currently the leading cause of mortality, such as lung damage, cardiac arrest, and many others.

The Consequences Of Garbage Pollution In The Air

Today, all of the resources that we get freely from God have been severely contaminated as a result of the country’s growth, and we have forgotten the significance of the environment. Toxic gases are released into the atmosphere by a significant number of companies and industries.

The fresh air collects all of the garbage’s foul odors, causing the air to become contaminated. Mosquitoes, flies, and mice find trash refuse to be a rich breeding ground. Some trash from the home and industry is dumped in the river, polluting the water.

Garbage Pollution Control Techniques

Both rich and developing countries should dispose of their waste properly. The technology that have been introduced today have sped up our lives, yet pollution has yet to be addressed. The major sources of energy and resources are becoming more contaminated.

For trash disposal, the following steps should be taken:

Composting:

It is a technique in which all home trash, such as vegetable waste, fruit waste, and all food waste, is dug up and utilized to give rich manure to the soil. We should not dump rubbish about; instead, it should be properly disposed of into the ground. After six months, this manure will be more helpful.

If you have any questions or comments about Essay On Garbage Pollution, please post them in the comments section below. The garbage pollution in the ocean is a problem that has been present for a while. This essay discusses how garbage affects the ocean and what we can do to help.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a garbage pollution.

Garbage pollution is the process of making a place where garbage accumulates and causes problems for people, animals, or plants.

What are the effects of garbage pollution?

Garbage pollution is the accumulation of human-generated solid waste in an area. It can be the result of overproduction, improper disposal, or inadequate collection and treatment.

How can we stop garbage pollution?

Garbage pollution is a form of environmental degradation that happens when humans discard materials into the environment without recycling them first. It can be caused by improper waste disposal, but it can also happen as a result of human activity such as littering and over-consumption.

Related Topics

• Garbage Pollution

Essay On Human Rights In India For Students In Easy Words – Read Here

• January 10, 2022

Essay On Food Waste For Students & Children In Simple English

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Garbage Pollution Research Paper

Introduction, land pollution, air pollution, water pollution, solutions and recommendations.

Human activities are largely attributed to the loss of the planet’s biodiversity. The impact of man on the environment is so enormous since he has facilitated the rate of species extinction a thousand to ten thousand times the normal rate (Derraik, 2002). The extinction of marine life for instance, has been accelerated by waste debris and the global climatic variations.

The twenty first century has been marked by a dramatic technological advancement that has uplifted the standard of living. However, this has also come with a great cost since the materials produced are difficult to dispose without affecting the environment. Plastic bags, household garbage and electronic waste are such products, which have posed a great risk to the environment since the means of disposing them is difficult (Derraik, 2002).

Thesis : Garbage remains are a burning problem that we have to face today. It is close to everyone who lives in the world because we product trash every day. In most of the world, we do one of two things with our ordinary garbage: burn it or bury it. Neither one is good for us or for the environment. Burning garbage in incinerators releases dangerous gases and dust which contribute to global warming and pollute lakes, forests. How to reduce the garbage remains become a big issue for everyone.

Typical house hold waste contains papers, cardboards, chlorine-bleached plastics, foils, food scraps and batteries (EPA, 2011). Averagely, in the U.S, a single person can produce 3.72 pounds garbage daily, where 40% of 50 million people living in the non-metropolitan region of the nation are estimated to burn their waste (backyard burning), while 63% of the total daily garbage is incinerated in burn barrels. As a result, more than 1.8 billion pounds of garbage from household is incinerated in burn barrels annually (MDEQ, 2005).

According to Hill (2010 p.345), more than ‘500 billion one-time-use plastic bags’ are used annually in the world and end up being littered ubiquitously to comprise waste/misuse. At the same time, plastics are non-biodegradable and burying them only destroys the ecosystem, posing a hazard to marine ecosystems. Plastics are polymeric, highly non-biodegradable and persist for a long time in the natural environments (Hill, 2010).

Electronic wastes/e-waste comprises of discarded electronic appliances such as computers, phones, TV, and fringes. These are hazardous when improperly disposed in landfills or when incinerated. For instance, the Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT) present in televisions contains phosphors and lead that contaminates the land and water if improperly disposed, or when there is transfer of the ash from the incinerators. Such landfills contaminate the surrounding soil which in turn contaminates the underground water (MDEQ, 2005).

Plastics are derivatives of fossils fuels with varied chemical properties hence, complicating the recycling process. Therefore, burning garbage particularly the ones containing plastics, pollute the atmosphere through emission of toxic gases. Many have volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) such as chlorine/bromine that are released on burning and destroy the ozone layer.

Carbon dioxide and monoxide released from burning organic matter also accumulates in the atmosphere. Ultimately, they deplete the ozone layer resulting to global warming, which is the chief facilitator of climate change (MDEQ, 2005).

PVC in particular, releases dioxin upon burning. Dioxin is an organic chemical, which has detrimental health effects when inhaled since they are carcinogenic and bio-accumulative. Incineration emits flue gas that contains hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) such as carbon monoxide and dioxide, nitrogen oxides, benzene, styrene, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), furans as well as heavy metals like lead, arsenic and mercury, which significantly pollute the environment (MDEQ, 2005).

Burn barrels release smoke containing hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde, which irritates the respiratory system and eyes. Formaldehyde is present in pressed wood and paints. On the other hand, bleached papers and plastics contain chlorine, which releases dioxins when combusted with other garbage at minimal temperatures.

Dioxins cause cancer, immune system dysfunction and birth defects (EPA, 2011). On the same note, statistics from 2002 to 2004 indicates that backyard and barrel burning comprised 57% of the source of furans and dioxins (U.S. Department of Health, 2011; EPA, 2011).

More so, combusting garbage with synthetic materials emits heavy metals that are carcinogenic and implicated with some birth defects. Combusting polystyrene polymers present in foam cups and plastic packaging produce styrene gas that can pass through skin as well as lungs and mucous membranes to cause damage to the central nervous system (U.S. Department of Health, 2011).

Some plastics and electronic wastes go ahead to breakdown into simpler toxic products that pollute the underground as well as the running water when buried or left to litter in dumpsites. After incineration of electronic wastes and plastics, the ashes finally find their way in rivers and lakes thus posing a hazard to marine life.

Mercury, dioxins, Furans and PCBs bioaccumulate in the ecosystem and therefore, they are transferred through the food chain. When plastics pile together due to poor disposal, they clog drainages and sewers leading to floods, where mosquitoes and other pathogens breed causing poor sanitation with serious health implications (Derraik, 2002).

The ash from incinerators may contain hazardous products, which when buried or placed in the landfills, contaminate the soil. Mostly, they contain heavy metals most of which are carcinogenic e.g. cadmium, lead mercury from batteries as well as chromium and arsenic from treated wood. These accumulate in plants or contaminate ground and running water.

Garbage debris moves to the oceans, killing the marine life such as zooplankton and marine turtles. Garbage discarded in beaches and from ships into the waterways or through fishing nets could ultimately be eaten by marine life, obscuring their digestive systems. Some are strangled, entangled or trapped by the debris causing the organisms to drown/starve, become exposed to predators or unable to hunt their prey.

These are some of deleterious impacts of marine debris facilitated by garbage littering, which jeopardize the existence of these organisms (Derraik, 2002). The ingested plastics also contain polychlorinated biphenyls that are hazardous to invader species. Moreover, the marine ecosystems also face the danger of hypoxia/anoxia, due to garbage debris that imbalance its usual functioning (Derraik, 2002).

The economic implications of garbage cannot be ignored since enormous amount of money is spent in clearing and treating the litter, addressing public health concerns and recycling. International legislations and cooperation should be oriented towards conserving the environment through proper disposal of garbage, recycling of plastic and use of alternative packaging that are biodegradable or long lasting bags that can be reused severally.

Moreover, public awareness should be enhanced through education of the wider community through the school curriculum. International relations facilitated by the concept of ‘Thinking globally and acting locally’ significantly address the environmental threat posed by garbage disposal (Derraik, 2002).

Garbage pollution can be managed through recycling measures or banning of plastic bags used in packaging. Alternative ecofriendly means of packaging should be drafted while high taxes should be imposed on the manufacturer and consumers of these plastics. Electronic waste can also be recycled and refurbished. ‘Reduce’, ‘Reuse’ and ‘Recycle’ are the 3Rs that go a long way in handling the issue of garbage.

Pre-cycle entails selecting items that are less packaged or those that can be reused. Reuse of old papers, plastic bags and cans, offering old clothes for charity as well as using a coffee mug rather than disposable cups is crucial. Reduce, refers to minimizing the household garbage through purchasing economy packs and avoiding wastage of papers. Recycling of plastics and papers, cardboards and even e-waste should be upheld (U. S. Department of Health, 2011).

Biodegradable garbage should be left to decompose in a composite pit while the rest should be placed in licensed landfills. To sum it all, backyard burning should be regulated in all countries particularly in the rural regions since it does not only pollute the air but also comprises a significant emission of toxic residue that poses a high risk to the public health and more so, decrease the quality of life.

Burn barrels that facilitate incomplete combustion to emit very toxic compounds should be regulated. Therefore, licensed incinerators with filters and temperatures exceeding 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit to facilitate complete combustion, should be embraced to minimize hazardous emissions.

Derraik, J. G. (2002). The pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris: a review. Marine Pollution Bulletin , 44(9), 842-852.

Hill, M. K. (2010). Understanding Environmental Pollution . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). (2005). Backyard Burn Barrels Vs. Municipal Waste Combustors . Web.

U. S. Department of Health. (2011). Does Burning Trash Make it Disappear: Stop Backyard Burning . Web.

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (2011). Outdoor Air – Industry, Business, and Home: Backyard Trash Burning – Additional Information . Web.

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Plastic factories like this one in China are increasing production of virgin plastic, even as plastic pollution sweeps into the oceans in record volumes.

Plastic pollution is a huge problem—and it’s not too late to fix it

Correcting our plastic waste problem requires a fundamental change in thinking about how plastics are made, used, and discarded, two new studies say.

The global campaign to gain control of plastic waste is one of the fastest-growing environmental causes ever mounted. Yet it hasn’t been enough to make a dent in the growing tonnage of discarded plastic that ends up in the seas.

In the next 10 years, the waste that slides into waterways, and ultimately the oceans , will reach 22 million tons and possibly as much as 58 million tons a year. And that’s the “good” news—because that estimate takes into account thousands of ambitious commitments by government and industry to reduce plastic pollution.

Without those pledges, a business-as-usual scenario would be almost twice as bad. With no improvements to managing waste beyond what’s already in place today, 99 million tons of uncontrolled plastic waste would end up in the environment by 2030.

These two scenarios, the result of new research by an international team of scientists, are a far cry from the first global tally published in 2015, which estimated that an average of 8.8 million tons flow into the oceans annually. That was a figure so startling to the world when it was published five years ago, it helped invigorate the plastic trash movement.

Jenna Jambeck, the University of Georgia engineering professor who calculated that number, also came up with a vivid analogy to put it in context. It would be the equivalent of one dump truck tipping a load of plastic into the ocean every minute every day for a year. Jambeck is also part of the team that came up with the new calculations. But coming up with a new way to visualize 22 to 58 million tons proved a challenge.

“I don’t know. We’re getting into the realm of what’s incomprehensible,” she says. “How about a football stadium filled with plastic every day? Or enough plastic to cover Rhode Island or the country of Luxembourg ankle deep?”

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Neither of these new analogies, while accurate, capture the magnitude of what’s at stake. (More: We're drowning in plastic—find out why. )

Like climate change, a lot rides on how the global community responds in the next couple of decades. And, though the parallels between the problem of plastic waste and climate change are obvious—both are rooted in oil, the basic ingredient to make plastics, they are dissimilar in one key way: plastic’s persistence. While there is some possibility, however remote, that technology and restoration of natural ecosystems could remove CO 2 from the atmosphere, there is no such analog for plastic. Virtually indestructible, it doesn’t disappear.

“For me, the biggest issue is the question of permanence,” says George Leonard , the Ocean Conservancy’s chief scientist and a member of the team that produced this newest forecast. “If we don’t get the plastic pollution problem in the ocean under control, we threaten contaminating the entire marine food web, from phytoplankton to whales. And by the time the science catches up to this, perhaps definitively concluding that this is problematic, it will be too late. We will not be able to go back. That massive amount of plastic will be embedded in the ocean’s wildlife essentially forever.”

The power of two

Royal Dutch Shell will produce plastic pellets like these at its new plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. The plant will create more than a million tons of the tiny pellets. Many in the Pittsburgh area see it as an economic engine, but others worry about the long-term environmental harm.

The analysis is the second in recent weeks to look ahead to the future of the plastic economy and conclude that correcting the waste problem—40 percent of plastic manufactured today is disposable packaging—requires a fundamental change in thinking about how plastics are made, used, and discarded.

The new findings were made by a team of scientists funded by the National Science Foundation through the University of Maryland’s National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center ( SESYNC ). The other project, which looks ahead to 2040, was led by the Pew Charitable Trusts and SYSTEMIQ, a London-based environmental advisory and investment firm, and was first made public in July. Both studies were published together in the journal Science in September.

What’s unusual is that two independent scientific working groups, using differing methodologies and timelines, reached the same broad conclusions. Both laid blame for the rising tonnage of plastic in the seas on the growth of plastic production that is outpacing the world’s ability to keep up with collecting plastic trash. They also agreed that reducing surging waste requires reducing surging production of virgin plastic.

“The magnitude of the problem is the same. The difference is in methodology,” says Stephanie Borrelle, a marine biologist in New Zealand and lead author of the SESYNC study. “We have to do something about this and do it soon. Our annual count of leakage doesn’t account for what’s already in the oceans.”

Both projects also concluded that plastic waste could be significantly reduced, though not eliminated, using existing technologies. That includes improving waste collection and recycling, redesigning products to eliminate packaging made from unrecyclable plastics, expanding refillables, and in some cases substituting other materials. But solutions such as recycling, now globally hovering around 12 percent, would also require a massive scaling-up with many additional recycling facilities that don’t exist.

The SESYNC project also calls for cleaning up plastic waste from shorelines, where possible. To give an idea of the scale involved in achieving that goal, it would require a billion people to participate in the Ocean Conservancy’s annual beach cleanup that now attracts about one million volunteers.

“The inconvenient truth now is that this business-as-usual growth in production of new plastics is not compatible with ending plastics in nature,” says Ben Dixon, a former sustainability manager at Royal Dutch Shell and partner at SYSTEMIQ. “That’s the inconvenient truth both studies get to the heart of. We may see more pressures from investors, customers, and a changing of the world underneath the feet of these companies.”

Both projects captured the attention of the plastics industry, which was quick to praise the research, but dismissed the idea of reducing production of virgin plastic as “highly counterproductive and impractical,” in the words of the American Chemistry Council, a trade group for the petrochemical industry. In emailed responses, ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical, two of the world’s leading manufacturers of polyethylene, agreed.

“Reducing production to solve the waste problem will, in turn, aggravate the carbon and climate problem as alternative materials have higher emissions,” Dow said.

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The manufacturing of plastic emits less CO2 and uses less water than for glass or aluminum. Some argue that such accounting doesn’t always factor in all the costs, such as environmental cleanup and weight. Glass manufacturing emits less CO2 per gram, but glass bottles are heavier. And, in the marine world, they say, it’s beside the point: Turtles eat plastic bags, not glass bottles and aluminum cans.

Todd Spitler, an Exxon spokesman, said the company’s focus will be on “increasing plastic recyclability, supporting improvements in plastic waste recovery and minimizing plastic pellet loss from our operations."

The SESYNC study calls for setting global limits on the production of virgin plastic, a recommendation unlikely to be realized. At the last United Nations Environmental Program meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2019, negotiations to pass a resolution calling for phasing out single-use plastic by 2025 and to draft a legally binding treaty on plastic debris ended in a stalemate.

The Pew/SYSTEMIQ study calls for reducing virgin production by 11 percent, arguing there is enough waste plastic that could be recycled and remade into new plastic to satisfy demand. The problem is that virgin plastic—new resin created from natural gas or oil—is so cheap to make that it undermines the economics of the recycling market. It is simply less expensive to manufacture new plastic than to collect, sort, and process disposable plastic into new feedstock. Especially now, with the collapse of oil prices. (Read more on the SYSTEMIQ study here.)

Plastic production to increase by 2050

In fact, production is forecast to more than double by 2050—increasing to 756 million tons anticipated in 2050 from 308 million tons produced in 2018, according to a report published by the American Chemistry Council in 2019. In the United States, $203 billion has been invested in 343 new or expanded chemical plants to produce plastics, according to ACC figures published last February. Production capacity for ethylene and propylene is projected to increase by 33 to 36 percent, according to an estimate by the Center for International Environmental Law.

Keith Christman , the ACC’s managing director of plastics markets, says the demand for plastic products, such as lightweight automobile parts and materials used in home construction, including insulation and water piping, is only going to grow.

“New technologies is the direction that we see the industry going,” he says.

Historically, plastic production has increased almost continuously since the 1950s, from 1.8 million tons in 1950 to 465 million tons in 2018. As of 2017, 7 billion of the 8.8 billion tons produced globally over that whole period have become waste.

The industry attributes future growth to two factors: the increasing global population and demands for more plastic consumer goods, fueled by the increasing buying power of a growing middle class. The UN projects that the world’s population, now about 7.8 billion, will add about two billion more by 2050, primarily in Asia and Africa. Globally, the middle class is anticipated to expand by 400 million households by 2039—and that is where the plastics market growth will occur.

Africa, to cite one example, shows the complications that lie ahead for gaining control of plastic waste in the coming decades. The continent today generates waste at a low rate by global standards, according to a UN report published last year. It also has limited environmental regulations, weak enforcement, and inadequate systems in place to manage waste. But as its population explodes and becomes more urban, and as buying habits change with higher standards of living, sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to become the dominant region producing municipal waste.

“Everyone is going to need to play a role along the whole value chain,” says Guy Bailey , a leading plastics analyst at Wood Mackenzie, a consulting firm specializing in energy, chemicals, mining and other research.

“If you are a recycler, it is difficult to make an investment when oil prices completely destroy the economics of your business. If you are a packing company, you are faced with so many choices of materials, it’s hard to know which to pick. If you are a chemical company, you clearly can see the reputational challenge. They risk losing their social license to operate if things go too far. They want to address those challenges.”

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, founded last year by 50 industry titans, committed to investing $1.5 billion in creating solutions to improve methods for collecting plastic waste and recycling into new products. So far, it has launched 14 projects, many in Southeast Asia and Africa, including in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Ghana.

Jacob Duer, president and CEO, said the new report “reiterates the necessity and the urgency in addressing the issue and underlines the importance of a paradigm shift.”

As the organization, based in Singapore, matures, he says the number of projects and capital investment will grow. But it opposes reducing virgin plastic production.

Both Duer and Martyn Ticknet, head of the Alliance’s project development, see similarities between tackling plastic waste and global efforts to close the hole in the ozone layer that began in the 1970s. Last year the hole had shrunk to its smallest size on record since its discovery.

“We’ve solved major crises before,” Ticknet says. “It takes some time to get going.”

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Essay on Garbage Problem Solution

Students are often asked to write an essay on Garbage Problem Solution in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Garbage Problem Solution

Understanding the garbage issue.

Our world has a big problem with trash. Every day, we throw away tons of waste, which piles up and hurts our planet. This waste can harm animals, plants, and even us.

Reducing Waste

One way to fix the garbage problem is by making less trash. We can use things more than once, like water bottles and bags. Choosing products with less packaging also helps.

Recycling and Composting

Another solution is recycling. This means turning old things into new ones. Composting is similar but for food and garden waste. It turns them into good soil.

Proper Disposal

Lastly, throwing trash in the right place is important. This means not littering and following local rules for garbage disposal to keep our environment clean.

250 Words Essay on Garbage Problem Solution

Our world has a big problem with garbage. Every day, we make a lot of trash like plastic, paper, and food waste. This trash can harm our planet. It can make the land, water, and air dirty. If we don’t take care of this trash, it can make animals and people sick.

Reducing Trash

One way to solve the garbage problem is to make less trash. We can do this by using things again instead of throwing them away. For example, we can use a water bottle many times instead of using a new one each time. We can also fix things like toys and clothes so we can keep using them.

Recycling means taking things like paper and plastic and making them into new things. This helps because we don’t need to get new materials from nature. Composting is when we turn food waste into food for plants. We can put banana peels and apple cores in a compost bin, and they will turn into something that helps plants grow.

When we do have trash, we need to throw it away the right way. This means putting it in the correct bins so it can go to places that can handle it safely. Some trash can be dangerous, like batteries, and needs special care so it doesn’t hurt the environment.

Everyone’s Role

To solve the garbage problem, everyone needs to help. This means people at home, schools, and businesses. If we all work together, we can make less trash, recycle more, and keep our planet clean and safe for everyone.

500 Words Essay on Garbage Problem Solution

Introduction to garbage problems.

Our world has a big problem with trash. Every day, we make lots of waste from our homes, schools, and workplaces. This waste can be things like plastic bottles, food scraps, and old papers. When we don’t handle this trash the right way, it can harm our planet. It can make our water dirty, hurt animals, and make the air unpleasant to breathe.

Why We Need to Care About Trash

Taking care of our trash is important because we all share the same Earth. If we let trash pile up, it can make our neighborhoods look bad and can also spread sickness. Plus, some trash, like plastic, can take hundreds of years to break down. This means it will stay in our environment for a very long time, causing problems for many generations of people and animals.

Reducing Our Trash

One way to solve the trash problem is to make less trash. We can do this by using things more than once. For example, instead of using a new plastic bag every time we shop, we can bring a bag from home that we can use many times. We can also choose to buy things that don’t have a lot of packaging or that use materials that are better for the environment.

Recycling is when we take things we have used, like bottles and cans, and make them into new things. This helps because it means we don’t need to use new materials from the Earth to make more products. Composting is another way to help. It means taking food scraps and other natural waste and letting them break down into a kind of dirt that can help plants grow. This is good because it turns waste into something useful and helps reduce the amount of trash.

Proper Trash Disposal

When we do have trash, it’s important to throw it away the right way. This means putting it in bins that are for trash and not just leaving it on the ground. In many places, there are different bins for different kinds of waste, like one for recycling, one for compost, and one for trash that can’t be used again. Using these bins the right way helps keep our environment clean.

Technology and Innovation

Scientists and inventors are always trying to find new ways to deal with trash. They are creating machines that can sort trash into different types without humans having to do it. They are also working on ways to turn trash into energy that we can use to power our homes and cars. This is exciting because it can help solve our trash problem and give us clean energy at the same time.

The trash problem is something we all need to work on. By making less trash, recycling, composting, and throwing away our trash the right way, we can help keep our planet clean and safe. With the help of new technology, we can find even better ways to deal with our waste. It’s important for everyone, including kids, to do their part in solving the trash problem. When we all help, we can make a big difference for our world.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Short Essay on Garbage in English for Students

Read our Essay on Garbage  to enhance your writing skill. This Garbage essay in English , helps to improve your higher grades in examination.

Garbage, often referred to as waste or trash, is a pressing environmental issue that affects our communities and the planet. This essay explores the impact of garbage on the environment, the importance of proper waste management, and the steps we can take to reduce waste and promote sustainability.

So, lets go through or read the Essay on Garbage in English. 

Table of Contents

Short Essay on Garbage in English

Understanding garbage, what is garbage.

Garbage refers to any unwanted or discarded material, including household waste, industrial byproducts, and construction debris. It consists of various items such as plastics, paper, food scraps, and packaging materials.

The Environmental Impact of Garbage:

Improper disposal of garbage has detrimental effects on the environment, including pollution of air, water, and soil. Landfills emit greenhouse gases, while plastic waste contributes to ocean pollution and harms marine life.

The Importance of Proper Waste Management

Waste reduction and recycling:.

Reducing waste at its source and implementing recycling programs are essential components of proper waste management. By minimizing the amount of garbage produced and recycling materials, we can conserve resources and reduce environmental impact.

Composting and Organic Waste:

Separating organic waste, such as food scraps and yard trimmings, for composting is an effective way to reduce the volume of garbage sent to landfills. Composting not only diverts waste but also produces nutrient-rich soil for gardening and agriculture.

Steps Towards Sustainable Waste Management

Education and awareness:.

Raising awareness about the importance of responsible waste management through education campaigns and community outreach is crucial. By informing individuals about the consequences of improper disposal, we can encourage behavior change and promote sustainable practices.

Government Policies and Regulations:

Governments play a vital role in implementing waste management policies and regulations. They can establish recycling targets, incentivize sustainable practices, and enforce penalties for illegal dumping, ensuring accountability and compliance.

Innovative Technologies and Solutions:

Advancements in waste management technologies, such as waste-to-energy systems and recycling innovations, contribute to more sustainable waste treatment. Investing in research and development supports the exploration of new solutions to address the challenges of waste disposal.

Effective management of garbage is crucial for protecting our environment and ensuring a sustainable future. By practicing waste reduction, recycling, and composting, as well as supporting government initiatives and technological advancements, we can minimize the impact of garbage and create a cleaner and healthier world.

Frequently Asked Questions about Garbage

1. how long does it take for garbage to decompose.

Answer: The decomposition time for garbage varies depending on the material. For example, plastic bottles can take hundreds of years, while organic waste decomposes relatively quickly.

2.  Why is recycling important for reducing garbage?

Answer: Recycling reduces the need for new raw materials, conserves energy, and decreases the amount of waste sent to landfills. It helps preserve natural resources and mitigates environmental impacts.

3.  Can individuals make a difference in managing garbage?

Answer: Absolutely! Individuals can adopt practices such as reducing consumption, recycling, composting, and participating in community cleanup initiatives to contribute to better waste management.

4.  What are the consequences of improper garbage disposal?

Answer: Improper disposal leads to environmental pollution, health risks, and aesthetic degradation. It can contaminate water sources, release toxins into the air, and harm wildlife.

5.  How does recycling contribute to a circular economy?

Answer: Recycling allows materials to be reused, reducing the need for extraction of new resources. It supports a circular economy by minimizing waste generation and promoting resource conservation.

6.  Are there alternative solutions to traditional landfills?

Answer: Yes, alternatives include waste-to-energy facilities, which convert waste into electricity or heat, and anaerobic digestion, which produces biogas from organic waste.

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Home Essay Samples Environment

Essay Samples on Garbage Problems

The harmful effects of an ocean pollution to marine life and human health.

Have you ever littered on the beach and have thought about the negative impacts it will cause? A majority of humans do not think about the lives of others who are non-human-like sea creatures, whales, organisms, fundamentally marine animals. We as humans do what is...

• Garbage Problems
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How Litter Affects New Orleans And Its Environment

Litter is trash of any sort tossed where it does not have a place. Litter is gum wrappers and cigarette butts. Littered roadways, properties and unlawful dumps cost Pennsylvania a large number of dollars every year in cleanup costs. Littering and illegal dumping additionally scar...

Recycling and Its Influence on the Animal Protection

As we all know, recycling is something we should do to protect our environment. The amount of litter that is in our environment is very large. Not recycling is harmful to both our air and water. One time Suzie was telling me a story about...

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An Extensive Analysis of the Survey on Recycling Schemes

The findings from this study have several implications for future implementation of recycling schemes not only in the specific neighborhoods but also in the city. An overwhelming majority of individuals reported recycling behavior. Through the use of TPB, it is possible to identify the main...

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The Truth About Natural Resources and Recycling Practices

Contrary to popular belief, recycling practices have been around for centuries. In fact, some of the earliest forms of recycling date back to 1031 in Japan with the reuse of waste paper. It wasn’t until the industrial age that people dropped recycling ; the mass...

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Proper Management of Waste And Garbage Monitoring System

Abstract Waste collection today is inefficiently performed using static routes and schedule some bins are overflowing with waste causing unnecessary clean up costs. This type of inefficiency waste both time and money and harmful for environment, It's creates unhealthy conditions for people also it makes...

Burn Garbage is Harmful to Human Health

With developed society, there are lots of new companies or factories. They provide several products which is for human life, such as beverage, newspaper and electric devices. People utilize them in the life. When they are gone, they will become garbage. The consequence of these...

Garbage Removal For Health, Aesthetic And Sanitation of the Society

Garbage removal is regularly considered as something that should be underestimated for those not associated with this business. Be that as it may, garbage removal is a very essential service since the health, aesthetic and sanitation of the society are maintained and kept amiable to...

The Garbage Problems in Our Society

With garbage comes pollution and unlike other animals, humans cannot keep up with their waste. The problem of trash production has been around for ages, but has continued to be ignored by the population. Working in the restaurant business, living in an urban area for...

Best topics on Garbage Problems

1. The Harmful Effects of an Ocean Pollution to Marine Life and Human Health

2. How Litter Affects New Orleans And Its Environment

3. Recycling and Its Influence on the Animal Protection

4. An Extensive Analysis of the Survey on Recycling Schemes

5. The Truth About Natural Resources and Recycling Practices

6. Proper Management of Waste And Garbage Monitoring System

7. Burn Garbage is Harmful to Human Health

8. Garbage Removal For Health, Aesthetic And Sanitation of the Society

9. The Garbage Problems in Our Society

• Importance Of Recycling
• Importance Of Water Conservation
• Climate Change
• Protecting The Environment
• Global Warming Effects

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Essay on garbage 14 Models

Last updated Friday , 15-03-2024 on 11:31 am

Essay on garbage, Waste is the leftover pieces of anything we use in our daily lives. When we eat food, some pieces and crusts remain.

When we use fabrics to make our clothes, some pieces of fabric are left over. As for the medicine, we take it, take injections, and then throw away the empties.

Essay on garbage

But where does this waste go? Unfortunately, it is dumped in the nearest residential areas, where it is thrown into the water or on the roads.

This behavior is an improper disposal of waste and is harmful to the environment. Among the most dangerous wastes that are dumped into the water are dead animals and factory waste.

Because of the lack of awareness about people, these behaviors have increased significantly, and with the increase in the number of people on Earth, pollution has reached frightening levels.

One of the most dangerous consequences of pollution is that the Earth’s temperature has risen, causing a dangerous phenomenon called global warming.

Garbage problem essay

All countries of the world suffer from the problem of waste disposal, due to insufficient awareness of the danger of improper disposal.

This problem starts when a particular factory is located near a water source, they do not hesitate to throw the waste into the water regardless of the results.

As for the plastic waste, it is incinerated, which causes thick black smoke to rise, causing respiratory and eye diseases for residents of the areas near the burning sites.

Even medical waste is dumped on the streets and in landfills without regard to the dangerous infection it carries.

To solve this problem, scientists must intervene because they are the ones who are able to provide appropriate suggestions.

The scientist is the one who has the correct scientific vision that rids the earth of waste, and at the same time, their experiments on waste benefit humanity.

Garbage problem solution essay

The only solution to the problem of waste disposal is to dispose of it in a healthy manner that benefits the environment, and not by throwing it into water sources and agricultural lands. We must know that each type of waste has a certain healthy and safe way to dispose of it safely

But what are the proper ways to dispose of waste? Contagious hazardous waste, such as medical waste, must be buried deep underground.

As for the waste that comes out of factories, it must be disposed of by burial as well, because it spoils the crops and pollutes the water, causing the destruction of crops and bringing dangerous diseases such as cancer to humans.

Proper waste disposal essay

The best way to get rid of waste is to recycle it, which means introducing it to certain factories that recycle it, whether products of the same product or a new product.

One of the most important recycling factories are plastic recycling factories, where plastic waste is converted into new products and resold to the consumer.

There are also factories for recycling paper, where it is recycled into a new product with high economic value. Recycling allows the state to manufacture its needs in order to dispense with imports.

There are several products that may result from recycling, some of which are made of plastic and some that are made of paper.

As for plastic products, there are several types and several shapes, some of which are simple to manufacture and used for simple household purposes, and some of them are of higher quality and characterized by durability and strength, so they are used in the manufacture of important tools.

Short essay on garbage

Waste is everything that is dispensed with and thrown away from residential or industrial places. There are two types of waste, including what comes out of the house, whether it is food or utensils that were used in the kitchen, such as plastic bags or dishes made of light materials for one use.

There is heavy waste, which is left over from factories of various kinds, some of which are chemicals or plastics.

Each type of waste has a correct way to dispose of it.

There is medical waste, which is discharged from hospitals and places of treatment for patients in various specialties. Medical waste is considered a hazardous waste.

Waste disposal essay

Waste disposal may be beneficial to humans, or it may be non-beneficial. The first type is by shipping waste to designated factories after sorting it.

When we throw waste, it accumulates with each other of different types. We find plastic waste with glass and paper, and of course food and diapers with them.

But there are some people who specialize in sorting this garbage and putting each type separately. And when the sorting ends, the garbage goes to the places designated for each type. Where they are dealt with according to what is available to them.Some of them are made of plastic, and this is the most important type of recycling. There is a large amount of paper in the garbage, which goes to factories for recycling paper.

As for the metal waste, it is of good importance because it goes to factories that smelt and reform the metals.

Garbage pollution essay

The earth has become so polluted that garbage is everywhere. As a result of its dumping in the water, a large pollution occurred in the drinking water sources, which infect people with serious diseases such as kidney failure and liver disease.

Not only did people throw rubbish, but factory and ship waste were dumped a lot. Fisheries have been greatly affected by the oil spill from huge oil tankers.

And we will not forget the air pollution due to burning non-combustible waste such as plastic and hazardous medical waste.

These unhealthy methods of garbage disposal have bad effects on the environment and humans.

As for the environment, it causes environmental pollution and global warming.

As for human health, it suffers from serious diseases such as diseases that target the lung and respiratory system, and diseases that affect the eyes and skin.

Waste disposal solutions essay

Garbage was once a heavy burden on nations, because it could not be disposed of easily. But these days it has become a source of income for the state because of its use in recycling. When waste is recycled, it fills the market need and prevents import from abroad.

And there are major countries like China that ship garbage from other countries, in order to recycle and sell it again.

As for countries that do not have recycling plants, they dispose of waste by burning it or giving it to other countries.

The problem that stands in the way of most countries and prevents them from recycling and benefiting from their garbage is the huge cost of building recycling plants. Where the factory takes several steps until it converts the waste into a new product that conforms to the specifications.

Short essay on garbage problem

Waste has become an energy source as countries burn waste to generate energy. There are other types of waste that are impossible to use again.

Among these wastes are medical waste, which includes medicine bottles, cotton and syringes, due to the transmission of infection from one sick person to another healthy person. Therefore, the only solution to get rid of them is to bury them underground.

The same situation is for dead animals, so they must be buried, not burned, in order to ensure that they are disposed of in a proper manner, because if they are burned, they will pollute the air, which will infect humans. And if it is thrown into water sources, it pollutes the water and poisons people and crops.

For these reasons, all countries of the world strive to save the earth from the negative disposal of garbage.

One of the most important efforts undertaken by these countries is to try to educate viewers about the seriousness of the situation. Education is through television and social media. And by going to schools and educating children.

Garbage disposal essay

The global trend is towards hygienic garbage disposal. This interest is due to what happened to the Earth during the past few years. As pollution increased by a large percentage, the ozone layer was damaged.

One of the most important risks faced by all countries is the problem of global warming, which threatens the Earth with increasing temperatures.

As the Earth warms, the ice melts, causing floods and tsunamis that could inundate several cities. Therefore, burning of waste must be prevented in all countries, and those who incinerate it must be punished with severe penalties that frighten him and frighten others. Burning causes a great deal of pollution to the air, which affects children and young adults.

One of the most important diseases that have spread due to pollution is asthma, which affects young and old, as it causes bouts of shortness of breath and has no treatment except for bronchial expansion sprays. There are new diseases that have emerged with the increase in pollution, such as cancer of all kinds.

As the Earth warms, the ice melts, causing floods and tsunamis that could inundate several cities. Therefore, burning of waste must be prevented in all countries, and those who incinerate it must be punished with severe penalties that frighten them and frighten others. Burning causes a great deal of pollution to the air, which affects children and young adults.

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America’s Young Farmers Are Burning Out. I Quit, Too

I n 2023, Scott Chang-Fleeman—a young farmer like me—put down his shovel. A post on his Instagram read, “Shao Shan Farm, in its current form, is going on indefinite hiatus.” From the outside, the burgeoning farm had the makeup of one that could stand the test of time. In reality, his experience of farm ownership was wrought with challenges.

A farmer in his late 20s, Chang-Fleeman started Shao Shan Farm in 2019 to reconnect with his roots and provide a source of locally grown heritage Asian vegetables to the Bay Area. He quickly secured a clientele and fan base—two of the greatest hurdles of starting a farm—and became the go-to for San Francisco’s high-end Asian eateries.

But after four years of creative pivots to withstand unexpected hurdles that included financial stress, severe drought, and a global pandemic, Chang-Fleeman made a choice that many young farmers are considering: to leave farming behind. Why he left and what could have kept him on the land are critical questions we must address if we are to have a sustainable and food-secure future.

The USDA Census of Agriculture reported that in 2017, nearly 1 in 4 of the 3.4 million agricultural producers in the US were new and beginning farmers. Many of these new farmers are doing exactly what it seems American agriculture needs: starting small farms. According to the most recent data from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) in 2019 , farms with annual sales of less than $100,000 accounted for about 85% of all U.S. farms. And though not all of these small-scale farms are necessarily organic, small farms are more likely to grow a diversity of crop types, use methods that reduce negative impacts on the climate, increase carbon sequestration, and tend to be more resilient in the face of climate change.

Read More: How Extreme Weather Is Affecting Small Farmers Across the U.S.

There has been a growing interest among younger people in recent years in sustainable and organic farming practices, as well as in local food systems. This interest has led people in their 20s and 30s to enter into small-scale farming, particularly in niche markets such as organic produce, specialty crops, and direct-to-consumer sales.

As a result, both congressional Democrats and Republicans have maintained that encouraging young people to farm is of utmost importance in ensuring the stability of our food system. But getting young people into farming may not be the problem. Keeping them on the farm may be the hardest part.

I should know. I quit too.

Chang-Fleeman got his start in agriculture right out of college, where he spent several years working at the on-campus farm. As a third-generation Chinese American, he noticed a distinct lack of Asian vegetables at local farmers markets, particularly those that were grown organically, and suspected there would be a demand should a supply exist. He started trialing some varieties, and his suspicions were quickly affirmed when samples of his choy sum caught the attention of chef Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s, a contemporary Chinese eatery with a Michelin star in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Jew provided some seed funds for what was to become Shao Shan Farm in 2019.

During the first year running his farm, Chang-Fleeman focused his sales on his relationships with local restaurants, while attending some farmers' markets sales to supplement income. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, he lost all of his restaurant accounts overnight.

Like many farmers at that time, he pivoted to a CSA model, offering farm boxes that provide a household with an assortment of vegetables for the week.

“So literally over a night, I reworked my crop plan” he told me. “Just to get through that year, or through that season, not knowing how long [the pandemic was going to] last.”

As if a global pandemic wasn’t enough, in 2021, California entered a drought, and he lost the ability to irrigate his crops come mid-summer, which meant a hard stop for production.

“I was hoping to hit some sort of a rhythm, and every year felt a bit like starting from scratch,” Chang-Fleeman reflected.

Throughout farm ownership, he worked side jobs to compensate for the slow build of business income and the fact that he could only afford to pay himself a monthly salary of $2,000. He regularly worked 90 hours a week. At the same time, farm expenses were on the rise.

“The cost of our packaging went up like three times in one year and the cost of the produce didn't change,” he explained. “Our operating expenses went up like 30%, after COVID.”

In four short years, Chang-Fleeman experienced an avalanche of extenuating circumstances that would bring most farm businesses to their knees. But the thing that finally catalyzed the closing of his business was burnout. He relayed the experience of the exhaustion and stress building over time until he reached a breaking point. “If I don’t stop now, it’s going to kill me,” he recalled thinking.

Chang-Fleeman’s burnout reminded me of my own story. In the fall of 2018, I took what ended up being a two-month medical leave from an organic farm I managed in Northern California in order to try to try to resolve a set of weird symptoms that included dizzy spells and heart palpitations. If you know anything about farming, fall is not the time to be absent. It’s peak harvest time and the culmination of all of your work is underway. But as my medical anomaly continued to worsen, I came no closer to getting back to work. After many doctor visits, several trips to the specialist, a flurry of blood tests, and a week of heart monitoring, it took one Xanax to solve the mystery.

Read More: ‘ They’re Trying to Wipe Us Off the Map.’ Small American Farmers Are Nearing Extinction

The prolonged physical stress that I had been harboring at work had triggered the onset of panic disorder, a nervous system affliction that had led me into a near-chronic state of fight or flight mode, causing a swath of physical symptoms not typically associated with “anxiety.”

For me, this was a wake-up call. I turned to a slew of Western and naturopathic remedies to alleviate my symptoms, but ultimately, removing the stressors of farm management was the thing that allowed me to, mostly, reach a nervous system balance. Even still, six years later, I’m constantly navigating the ‘new normal’ of this diagnosis.

A pilot study conducted by agriculture researcher Josie Rudolphi and her colleagues in 2020 found that of 170 participants, approximately 71% met the criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder. By comparison, in the US, an estimated 18% of adults experience an anxiety disorder. Rudolphi’s work indicates that these disorders maybe three times more prevalent in young farmer and rancher populations.

This rang true as I went from farm to farm trying to figure out what so often goes wrong in a new farm operation. Again and again mental health was a through-line. Collette Walsh, owner of a cut-flower operation in Braddock, PA, put it to me bluntly: "I usually get to a point in late August or early September, where there’s a week where I just cry.”

How can we build a farming economy that helps young farmers not only stay, but also thrive on the land? The Farm Bill , a federal package of legislation that provides funding for agricultural programs, is one route. As the reboot of the Farm Bill approaches, it’s a critical time to ask these questions and advocate for policies that support young farmers and the barriers they’re facing in maintaining a long-lasting career in agriculture.

Take for instance, Jac Wypler, Farmer Mental Health Director at the National Young Farmer Coalition (Young Farmers), who oversees the Northeast region’s Farmer and Rancher Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN). The organization was established by the Farm Bill in 2018 to develop a service provider network for farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural workers that was dedicated to mental well-being. Through the network of service providers she directs, called “Cultivemos,” Wypler and her colleagues utilize a multi-tiered approach to address mental health in farming spaces. Cultivemos partners provide direct support in moments of stress and crisis as well as peer-to-peer support spaces.

An expanded (and subsidized) program that scales efforts like Cultivemos to a size commensurate with the young work force is clearly needed. But it’s only part of the picture.

“While we believe that it is important to make sure that farms, farmers, and farmworkers are getting direct support around their mental health,” Wypler explained. “We need to alleviate what is causing them stress.” 

Cultivemos works to address the structural root causes of stress which can include climate change, land prices, and systemic racism, to name a few. They focus on communities that are disproportionately harmed by these structural root causes, specifically Black, Indigenous, and other farmers of color. Finally, they seek to make this impact by regranting funding directly into the hands of these farmers.

“The way I think of regranting is that the USDA and these large institutions are the Mississippi River of funding.” Wypler says. “We’re trying to get the funding into these smaller rivers and tributaries to disperse these funds and shift that power dynamic and leadership dynamic.”

The next Farm Bill cycle will be critical in ensuring this work is continued. In November of 2023, lawmakers signed a stopgap funding bill that allows for a one-year extension on the 2018 Farm Bill. Lawmakers are currently in deliberations over the bill until September when it will be up for a vote. Young Farmers underscores the importance of the appropriations process, which is when program areas that are authorized in the farm bill are allocated funding.

Back-to-the-landism has waxed and waned throughout the last hundred years, booming in the pre-Depression years of the 1930s, dying in the war years and then storming back in the 60s and 70s. When my generation’s own farming revolution came along in the early 2000s, I was similarly swept up. I imagined when I chose to farm that the path would be lifelong. What I hadn’t accounted for, as a determined, starry-eyed changemaker, was the toll that a decade of farming through wildfires, evacuations, floods, power outages, and a global pandemic would take on my mental health.

Don’t get me wrong:  I was happy working hard with my two feet planted firmly on the land. In a better world I and people like Scott Chang-Fleeman would have kept getting our hands dirty, making an honest, if modest, living providing good and wholesome food in synch with the rhythms of the planet.

But to borrow a word from the world of ecology, being a young farmer in today’s economy is “unsustainable.” The numbers don’t work economically and, eventually, any mind trying to square this un-squarable circle is going to break. The economic, physical and mental challenges are all interconnected.

It’s hard to find an American, Republican or Democrat, red or blue state resident that doesn’t want more young hands on the land. We all rightly see agriculture as a pathway to personal fulfillment and a way to make our food supply healthier and more secure. But words and intentions can only do so much. We must answer these very real problems with very real subsidy.

If we don’t, my generation might be the last to think of going “back-to-the-land” as something actually worth doing.

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Waste in space: Why junk in Earth orbit is becoming a huge problem

Who knew space could get crowded? Junk is filling the space above Earth.

In recent weeks, some of that junk has made its way back.

In January 2021, astronauts at the International Space Station pitched a pallet of used lithium-ion batteries over the side to free up some room after NASA determined it would "harmlessly reenter the Earth’s atmosphere," according to  Ars Technica .

Three years later, on March 8 of this year, a nearly 2-pound chunk of it may have torn through the roof and two floors of a man's house in Naples, Florida .

 On April 2, large fiery streaks of light appeared over a wide area over Los Angeles. It turned out to be space debris, part of a Chinese spacecraft, according to the U.S. Space Command . 

What is space junk? We explain: 

There are various types of space junk

Space junk basically is any machinery or debris left in space by humans.

Items range in size from large objects such as failed or dead satellites to tiny objects such as paint flecks and nuts and bolts. 

Types of debris include:

• Rockets : Portions of the rocket stages used in launches and discarded in low Earth orbit.
• Payload : Satellites that have reached the end of their operational lives.
• Mission-related objects : Items such as hand tools, screws and nuts and bolts. One example is a tool bag that drifted away during a spacewalk in December 2023. 

Unable to view our graphics? Click here to see them.

Since the beginning of space exploration in 1957, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has collected data on space debris. It tracked Russia's first satellite, Sputnik, which launched the same year. Since then, NASA, the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs and the European Space Agency have tracked thousands of objects orbiting Earth.

NASA estimates 17.6 million pounds − or 8,800 tons − worth of objects are in Earth orbit, according to its most current Orbital Debris Quarterly News. And the number of small satellites is expected to increase.

About 44 tons of space debris falls into Earth’s atmosphere each day. About 95% of it burns up. 

Where do you find space junk?

Space junk typically circles the planet in low Earth orbit, or within 1,200 miles of Earth's surface. Orbits are classified in three basic categories: 

• High : Most weather and communications satellites, farthest from the planet's surface.
• Medium : Navigation and specialized satellites, intended to observe a specific area.
• Low : The majority of research satellites, such as the fleet of NASA's Earth Observing System .

There are 9,777 objects circling Earth, the majority of which are in low Earth orbit, according to the satellite tracking website Orbiting Now . 

Why is space junk dangerous?

There are roughly 100 million debris fragments larger than 0.04 inches in size and about 23,000 particles larger than 4 inches in orbit.

Debris can travel at 18,000 mph , according to NASA. That's 10 times faster than the speed of a bullet, so even a tiny paint chip can rupture a spacesuit or damage delicate solar arrays and electronics on a satellite.

Future and current missions can be at risk of debris strikes. There are drawbacks to maneuvering a satellite to avoid space junk: the satellite may end up in a less efficient orbit.

How does junk get into space?

Countries that launch objects into space contribute to debris. 

Since 1957, the U.S. has launched 9,632 objects into space, according to Our World in Data. The U.S. accounted for the majority of satellites launched into orbit last year. 

Number of launches in 2023: 

• U.S. 2,166 
• United Kingdom 144
• Luxembourg 12

What’s the risk of being hit by a piece of falling space debris? 

Your risk of being injured by falling space debris is less than 1 in 100 billion , according to the European Space Agency . 

That means you have better odds of winning a Powerball jackpot of any amount, at 1 in 292 million. 

Though that's not zero, your chances of being hit by a falling satellite are 65,000 times lower than the risk of being struck by lightning and three times lower than the risk of being struck by a meteorite, ESA says. 

CONTRIBUTING George Petras and Emily DeLetter , USA TODAY, C.A. Bridges and John Tufts/USA TODAY NETWORK

SOURCE NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Our World in Data, The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and European Space Agency

NPR Senior Editor Uri Berliner Resigns Amid Suspension for Op-Ed

“I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay,” Berliner writes

NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner, who publicly criticized the organization for progressive biases in an op-ed last week, resigned from his role Wednesday amid a five-day suspension which started last week. 

Berliner posted an excerpt from his resignation letter to NPR CEO and president Katherine Maher on social media in which he said, “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.”

Berliner acknowledged the 25 years he spent with the organization adding that he doesn’t “support calls to defund NPR,” which have been re-ignited in right-wing circles since his op-ed was published. 

“I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” Berliner continued. 

My resignation letter to NPR CEO @krmaher pic.twitter.com/0hafVbcZAK — Uri Berliner (@uberliner) April 17, 2024

On Tuesday, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik reported that Berliner has been suspended for five days without pay since last Friday. Part of the reason for Berliner’s suspension is that he failed to secure approval to publish in another news outlet. The suspension was categorized as a “final warning,” for Berliner.

Berliner also did not reach out to NPR to comment prior to publishing – however, he did note that he attempted to bring his concerns to leadership on multiple occasions.

Berliner’s Free Press essay has created a massive headache for NPR leaders, whose internal struggles have been publicly picked apart in the aftermath. Additionally, many staffers were furious with the situation, with several refusing to work with Berliner if he returned to the outlet following his suspension. 

When reached for a response on the senior editor’s resignation and suspension, NPR spokeswoman Danielle Wilson said that the organization does not comment on personnel matters. 

In response to Berliner’s scathing op-ed, which claimed that the organization lacked “viewpoint diversity,” NPR leadership launched a multi-level review process, with the goal of understanding their audience and the general public better. 

NPR will implement quarterly network-wide editorial planning and review meetings, which will serve as a “venue for NPR newsroom leadership to hear directly from Member organization editorial leaders on how our journalism serves the needs of audiences in their communities.”

In a recent interview, Berliner told Folkenflik that the leader that NPR needs right now must be “unifying,” but that “this seems to be the opposite of that. 

Maher, in her response to Berliner’s essay on Friday, noted that while she welcomes questions about whether the organization is properly serving its audience, “Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”

“It is deeply simplistic to assert that the diversity of America can be reduced to any particular set of beliefs, and faulty reasoning to infer that identity is determinative of one’s thoughts or political leanings,” Maher wrote, referencing Berliner’s argument that the organization lacks balance in employing staff with varied political viewpoints.

On Thursday, four days after his original essay, Berliner told the New York Times that he had not been punished, and that the only formal action NPR had taken was to remind him that NPR policy requires employees to get approval before speaking to or writing for other media outlets. Berliner also said that he hadn’t done so before talking to the New York Times. He received his five-day suspension the next day.

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Garbage Problems — Garbage Burning: Environmental Impacts and Solutions

Garbage Burning: Environmental Impacts and Solutions

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The New Movie ‘Civil War’ Matters for Reasons Different Than You Think

By Stephen Marche

Mr. Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

“Not one man in America wanted the Civil War, or expected or intended it,” Henry Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, declared at the beginning of the 20th century. What may seem inevitable to us in hindsight — the horrifying consequences of a country in political turmoil, given to violence and rived by slavery — came as a shock to many of the people living through it. Even those who anticipated it hardly seemed prepared for its violent magnitude. In this respect at least, the current division that afflicts the United States seems different from the Civil War. If there ever is a second civil war, it won’t be for lack of imagining it.

The most prominent example arrives this week in the form of an action blockbuster titled “Civil War.” The film, written and directed by Alex Garland, presents a scenario in which the government is at war with breakaway states and the president has been, in the eyes of part of the country, delegitimized. Some critics have denounced the project, arguing that releasing the film in this particular election year is downright dangerous. They assume that even just talking about a future national conflict could make it a reality, and that the film risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is wrong.

Not only does this criticism vastly overrate the power of the written word or the moving image, but it looks past the real forces sending the United States toward ever-deeper division: inequality; a hyperpartisan duopoly; and an antiquated and increasingly dysfunctional Constitution. Mere stories are not powerful enough to change those realities. But these stories can wake us up to the threats we are facing. The greatest political danger in America isn’t fascism, and it isn’t wokeness. It’s inertia. America needs a warning.

The reason for a surge in anxiety over a civil war is obvious. The Republican National Committee, now under the control of the presumptive nominee, has asked job candidates if they believe the 2020 election was stolen — an obvious litmus test. Extremism has migrated into mainstream politics, and certain fanciful fictions have migrated with it. In 1997, a group of Texas separatists were largely considered terrorist thugs and their movement, if it deserved that title, fizzled out after a weeklong standoff with the police. Just a few months ago, Texas took the federal government to court over control of the border. Armed militias have camped out along the border. That’s not a movie trailer. That’s happening.

But politicians, pundits and many voters seem not to be taking the risk of violence seriously enough. There is an ingrained assumption, resulting from the country’s recent history of global dominance coupled with a kind of organic national optimism, that in the United States everything ultimately works out. While right-wing journalists and fiction writers have been predicting a violent end to the Republic for generations — one of the foundational documents of neo-Nazism and white supremacy is “The Turner Diaries” from 1978, a novel that imagines an American revolution that leads to a race war — their writings seem more like wish fulfillment than like warnings.

When I attended prepper conventions as research for my book, I found their visions of a collapsed American Republic suspiciously attractive: It’s a world where everybody grows his own food, gathers with family by candlelight, defends his property against various unpredictable threats and relies on his wits. Their preferred scenario resembled, more than anything, a sort of postapocalyptic “Little House on the Prairie.”

We’ve seen more recent attempts to grapple with the possibility of domestic conflict in the form of sober-minded political analysis. Now the vision of a civil war has come to movie screens. We’re no longer just contemplating a political collapse, we’re seeing its consequences unfold in IMAX.

“Civil War” doesn’t dwell on the causes of the schism. Its central characters are journalists and the plot dramatizes the reality of the conflict they’re covering: the fear, violence and instability that a civil war would inflict on the lives of everyday Americans.

That’s a good thing. Early on when I was promoting my book, I remember an interviewer asking me whether a civil war wouldn’t be that terrible an option; whether it would help clear the air. The naïveté was shocking and, to me, sickening. America lost roughly 2 percent of its population in the Civil War. Contemplating the horrors of a civil war — whether as a thought experiment or in a theatrical blockbuster — helps counteract a reflexive sense of American exceptionalism. It can happen here. In fact, it already has.

One of the first people to predict the collapse of the Republic was none other than George Washington. “I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations,” he warned in his Farewell Address. “This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature.” This founder of the country devoted much of one of his most important addresses, at the apex of his popularity, to warning about the exact situation the United States today finds itself in: a hyper-partisanship that puts party over country and risks political collapse. Washington knew what civil war looked like.

For those Americans of the 1850s who couldn’t imagine a protracted, bloody civil war, the reason is simple enough: They couldn’t bear to. They refused to see the future they were part of building. The future came anyway.

The Americans of 2024 can easily imagine a civil war. The populace faces a different question and a different crisis: Can we forestall the future we have foreseen? No matter the likelihood of that future, the first step in its prevention is imagining how it might come to pass, and agreeing that it would be a catastrophe.

Stephen Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

Source photographs by Yasuhide Fumoto, Richard Nowitz and stilllifephotographer, via Getty Images.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

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She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

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New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.