No, it's not "Does Natalie smell funny yet?"
It's "Why is trash bad?"
Jenn just asked me this question to taunt me (in a loving and tender way), and I'm answering it, if for no other reason than fact-gathering increases my moral superiority arsenal.
The short answer:
-Americans generate 251.3 million tons of garbage per year. Landfills are smelly and ugly and nobody wants them in their backyard and if we don't stop throwing out all this crap, they'll be the only backyard we have.
-Trash often escapes its pen (if it was ever in a pen in the first place), endangering/poisoning precious baby animals as it makes its way to our rivers, lakes and oceans to endanger/poison precious baby fish.
-Re: those oceans. Ever read about the North Pacific Gyre, aka the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Kill me now.
- Leachate from landfills pollutes ground water and waterways, destroying ecosystems and killing off species and making our tap water more toxic than Britney.
-Landfills also produce gas, including high quantities of methane and carbon dioxide (aka greehouse gases) along with hundreds of other air contaminants. Which is to say: landfills burn holes in the ozone and give us The Cancer.
Like I said, that's the very short answer. For a slightly longer short answer, try ye olde Wikipedia. And if anybody has some good trash facts/links to share, please get up on those comments!
[Chart from Missouri Department of Transportation "No More Trash!" website]
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