What A Waste: 5 Things You Didn't Know: Garbage
Pages: 1 2
Here are five things you didn't know about garbage.
1- Garbage has its own patch in the Pacific OceanThe first thing you didn't know about garbage is a nasty thing to think about: In one region of the Pacific, the discarded plastic garbage bobbing around is so prevalent that it outweighs the surface zooplankton population by a factor of 6 to 1, according to a study by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF). This region is foully referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which happens to sound like the title of the most cynical Charlie Brown special of all time.
At any rate, the AMRF believes that the whole world's oceans may contain as much as 100 million tons of plastic debris.
2- Garbage is all over Mount EverestYou would never know it by looking at the majestic, snow-white contours of the world's highest peak, but the people who spend time there are colossal slobs.
The well-trodden but challenging paths up the mountain are notoriously filthy; the most frequently encountered bit of garbage is a discarded oxygen tank, but over the years climbers have been known to discard plenty of other gear on the mountain as well.
If garbage-strewn paths weren't bad enough to spoil your leisurely hike 29,000 feet up, another frequent site will: dead people. A handful of climbers have reluctantly defied the old maxim about what goes up must come down, dying in a deep freeze at elevations too high to be retrieved safely.
3- Some garbage can live a million years or moreAnother thing you didn't know about garbage is just how determined some of it is to stay garbage. The Australian. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that glass bottles require a million years to fully break down in a landfill; that plastic foam cups require over 500 years; aluminum cans between 200 and 500 years; plastic bags as many as 20 years, and cigarette butts as many as five years.
We're not sure how the EPA arrived at the figure for glass, but here's a plausible theory: In 1939, archeologists found some Homo Erectus fossils in Indonesia that dated back one million years. Is it possible that among the bones they found an empty with an expiration date?
Think you can handle two more things you didn't know about garbage? Read on... Next Page >>