Waste Management

We all know that the primary goal of any person on the earth is to live safely. Also, we all know that our existence is threatened by environmental pollution. One cause of pollution is waste. Waste hurts environment in many different ways such as air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination, radioactive contamination, noise pollution, and visual pollution. Of course, the dangerous degree is different from one form to another. Also, these kinds of pollution may cause different diseases to the human including cancer, immune diseases, allergies, and asthma. Simply, the problem is waste. Many forms of pollution are released by countries like United States, Russia, China, Japan, Australia, and many other developed countries. Actually, waste management is the collection, transport, processing, recycling or disposal of waste materials. In Australia, most of the solid wastes were received and disposed at landfills nationwide. Landfill is a method of solid waste disposal in which refuse is buried between layers of dirt so as to fill in or reclaim low-lying ground. Impacts of landfill disposal include consumption of increasingly scarce urban land, potential pollution from toxic wastes, and release of methane from the decomposition of organic wastes, and greenhouse emission through the transportation of wastes to landfills. ( Waste Management, 2006). The strategies of waste management are classified in the waste hierarchy based on their favorableness. In order to clarify the waste management, there are three solutions reduce, reuse and recycle. Reuse and recycle seems to be similar but they are not. Reusing is the using of an item more than on time for example; glass bottles can be collected, washed, and refilled many times. Recycling is the reprocessing of materials into new products for example; aluminum cans can be collected, melted, and made into new aluminum products. Reducing is the decrease in the production numbers. The best solution to management of waste is recycling.

Waste is defined by the UK’s Environmental Protection Act of 1990 as “any substance which constitutes a scrap material, an effluent or other unwanted surplus arising from the application of any process or any substance or article which requires to be disposed of which has been broken, worn out, contaminated or otherwise spoiled; this is supplemented with anything which is discarded otherwise dealt with as if it were waste shall be presumed to be waste unless the contrary is proved”. (Peatling, 2004) An amendment was made on this definition by the Waste Licensing Regulations 1994 to include “any substance or object which the producer or the person in possession of it, discards or intends or is required to discard but with exception of anything excluded from the scope of the Waste Directive”. (Peatling, 2004) There are many different types of waste including solid, liquid, or gas waste. We can also classify waste by the source to comprise household, industrial, and commercial. Household waste is that arises from different types of living places including houses, caravans, prisons, school, and colleges. Industrial waste is which come from a factory or industrial process. The commercial waste comes from premises used wholly or mainly for trade, business, sport, recreation or entertainment. Hazardous wastes are generated mostly by the commercial and industrial sectors and it is required careful waste management because of their potential environmental risk. However, household may cause such wastes through the disposal of paints, solvents, used car batteries and motor oils. The strategies of waste management are classified in the waste hierarchy based on their favorableness. Obviously, Waste come from these sources are various and numerous, for example, sewage, chemical, nuclear, medical, and electronic waste. Also, each type of waste has a different method to manage. (www.wikipedia.com, 2006)

The quantities of waste generated in Australia are increasing as a result of the increase in population. In 1887, there were approximately 3 million people living in Australia. Recently, the estimated Australian population was around 20 million people and the human population keeps growing. (www.science.org, 2006) Another reason for the increase in quantities of waste is the lack of strict legal legislations that prevent or reduce waste. Government has protected the economic factor by not putting at risk industries that employ huge number of Australians and generate billions of dollars income. On the other side, by doing that the government has put the environment at risk that arise the need of more innovative waste management.

Figure 1: Waste-hierarchy
Source: www.wikipedia.org

Waste prevention or minimization is the most important technique because it prevents the waste before its creation, but they seem impossible for tow reasons. The first there must be waste with any form and the second number of population increase day by day. Furthermore, there are many problems if we don’t manage waste.

First, throwing waste out without treat will hurt environment in three different places land, sea and air, so it will cause pollution. Also, pollution cleanup is big problem for two reasons. The first is consumption level grow up and the second is cleanup just change the place of waste from one to another. If the Australian government remains silent with land filling, the country will end up with many problems. For example, health problems would increase among most Australian, wildlife would be hurt in which animals may not survive, and lands full of rubbish could not be used any more for agricultural uses.

Second, recycling will preserve and keep a lot of natural resources available for next generations. If we don’t reduce using natural resources and get our object with available materials a lot of natural resources will be diminished. For example, 1000 kg of paper from recycled material conserves about 7,000 US gal (26,000 L) of water, 17-31 trees and 4,000 kW·h of electricity. Milling paper from recycled paper uses 20% less energy than it does to make paper from fresh paper trees grown on tree farms at the cost of more pollution caused by additional transportation and chemical cleaning treatment.

Third, businesses would benefit from recycling. As mentioned, paper recycling could save a lot amount of money by using used paper instead of trees. Furthermore, recycling will enhance the production cycle, because only low percentage of used and consumed output would be waste. The remaining percentage would be reused as input for other products. In addition, new businesses would established as recycling companies. As a result, it would decrease the unemployment rate by opening new jobs and positions for Australian work force.

In conclusion, all people around the world realize that the pollution problem caused by waste or rubbish, and they also try to find the best solutions to protect earth's future as they can. Until now the best solution is to recycle waste as much as possible. Otherwise, It is almost impossible to reduce the amount of waste because of population increase, which results in more waste. Furthermore, there are many advantages of recycling and it will be effective in many fields. It will effect the environment by preventing or reducing pollution and protect the natural recourses. Also, it will affect the economy by making the production cost lower because of the input material. Australian government should invest more in research centers in order to achieve that goal.

References:
Newton, P., Baum, S., Bhatia, K., Brown, S., Cameron, S., Foran, B., et al.
(2001). Human settlements theme report. Department of the Environment and Heritage. Retrieved November 29, 2006, from http://www.deh.gov.au /soe/2006/publications/report/index.html
Population and environment-what’s the connection?. (2005). Australian Academy of Science. Retrieved November 29, 2006, from http://www.science.org.au /nova/087/087box01.htm
Peatling, S. (2004). Australia tops greenhouse pollution index. Sunday Morning
Herald. Retrieved November 29, 2006, from http://www.smh.com.au /articles/2004/06/18/1087245110190.html
Waste management. (2006). Retrieved October 29, 2006, from www.aad.gov.au
Miller, T. (1994). Environment Problems and Solutions. Belmont, CA. Wadsworth Publishing Company.

The Legal Drinking Age in The United States

Do you want to lose your self? Of course the answer would be “no”. All people around the world often try to avoid any thing that may cause trouble in their live such as health problems, job losing and destroying personal life. There is one thing can cause most of these troubles which is alcohol. Alcohol is really big problem in most countries and one of them is America. So, American lawmakers try to reduce alcohol problems by passing a law which is the legal age to drink alcohol is 21 years because people under this age may not make good decisions about life conditions when they are drunk. Therefore, the drinking age must remain at 21 to protect young people from health diseases, traffic accidents and academic studies.

First, alcohol will ruin on the body health. It will hurt many parts of body such as liver, brain, heart and nervous. People who under 21 years still growing up and they need good nutrition, not bad, to make their bodies healthy. Obviously, this problem will lead to another problem that is sick people because these people will be addicted to alcohol. In fact, this problem will not be personal, but all society will suffer from and big part of mind will go to these people to treat them from illness. Therefore, it is better to prevent this problem before it happened.

Second, driving under alcohol influence is seriously big problem because it can kill people in accidents. Most of accidents happen because the vision and focus for drunk people are not as usual; or they are effected by alcohol. So, people should avoid driving under alcohol influence especially people under 21 years old. Because they are still young and usually prefer crazy and speed driving. In fact, this problem will lose the society the most important thing human because human is the most important factor to build any society, so loss people means no life.

Lastly, most people who under 21 years are students. As a result, there are many reasons to keep them away from alcohol such as getting good knowledge, getting degree and to being successful academically. In fact, when most people get drunk, their attention and concentration would be very weak. So, it is hard to understand teachers' explanation. Furthermore, it is difficult to solve lessons problems because the way of thinking for people who drunk would change, and it will take longer time to do any task. As a result, these kind of students would be unsuccessful with their classes.

In conclusion, we have to admit in alcohol is a part our life and a lot of people drink it. It is impossible to neglect this truth, but we have to work to reduce the disadvantages of alcohol. One of the important steps is limit the age to drink alcohol in 21 years for many reasons. First, alcohol has bad effect on health. So by this law can protect high percentage of population from illness. Second, alcohol is direct reason to traffic accidents and sometimes may this accidents cause death. Third, alcohol will drive many student to fail in academic field, of course, this will effect on the country directly. In fact, we can observe clearly disadvantages of alcohol are more than advantages and it will hurt an any society if there is no control to protect substances. Unfortunately, the results of having alcohol would take some time to appear clearly, so we have to make good control with the source to avoid future problems.

Reference:
Alcohol abuse and your health.(n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2006, from www.bacchusgamma.org

For Once, Blame the Students

In Patrick Walsh's article "For Once, Blame the Students," he argues that emigrated students who are involve in American schools in the United States do better than American students in their classes. Also, American students don't get high grade in their classes. As a result, the parents talk into teachers for that because they think teachers don't work very well to teach their children. The author continues to say that American students are a part in this problem by avoiding classes work and trying to get out of classes which they don't like. In addition, Walsh agrees with raising admissions standards to improve students performance. He claims that parents or home have to encourage students to let them do better in their classes. Finally, the education system in the United States still very good and the evidence for that results for emigrated students. I agree with the author completely there are many American students very weak in their classes in many ways ,for example, they don’t work very well, they don't care about rules in schools and they try to be away from hard classes.

First, American students are lazy because of they usually don't do their homework. Also, they are careless about their grades because they usually don't interested in school, but in other things often it is related to fun. In fact, these problems related to life habits and personality things for example most American growing up in good situation of comfort in life and they didn't do anything seriously when they are children or teenagers, so they will take every thing easily even their classes. I believe if American students feel some responsibility in their lives, a lot of things will improve positively especially with duty.

Second, American students don't care about school rules or systems, for example, they don't join to classes that they don't like and they don't follow rules. Actually, this is a big problem because class is only the place that you can learn in. If you neglect it for sure you are going to leave everything even study skills. So, schools systems must be very clear and strict for bad students to guarantee everyone will obey and go with.

Third, American students are not active and they are not interested in school. Therefore, teachers can not do anything to give permission them become active in classes. Also, there is no craving from students to do very well in classes. Obviously, this problem depend on many factors such as parents, society, and peers, not only teachers.

In conclusion, I think American students have a lot of work to become good and active students. It doesn't come by wishes. First, they must focus on changing study habits and behavior. Then, they have to obey and respect school rules. Finally, they must motivate themselves by using any way they like to get the best result in classes. Students who don't work very well with their classes will not help themselves or the society. I believe American leaders have to treat with these problems carefully and very fast to make American students change into good students. These are public problems. American leaders have to keep education level in good way to guarantee many jobs for American and keep American knowledge moving form generation to generation.

Reference:
Welsh, P. (2006, March 7). For once, blame the student. USA Today. Retrieve
2006, October 18, from www.usatoday.com