Generally after we put our trash out beside the curb so it can be picked up by a sanitation truck, we usually will not give it another thought. In the past, our trash bags were usually filled with everything that we have thrown out for the past few days, even the things that could easily be separated for recycling.
There are more of us today that will take the time to separate plastic, paper, glass, metals, and toxic trash into separate containers so they can be recycled and put where they belong. This is becoming normal for many household and many places are demanding that it be done. Yet there are still so many others that do not take the time and make the effort to recycle.
We really should think about where the rest of the millions ands millions of tons of garbage that we produce in this country does end up. It is not a pretty picture when you see where it goes and it certainly does not produce a pretty result. Landfills are everywhere and they are filled with all kinds of things that cause terrible long lasting damage to the ground and the water underneath.
There are certain places that are reaping the results of how hazardous these landfills can be. Nearby residents have developed cancers and other ailments directly associated with drinking the ground water that was contaminated over time due to toxic substances found in landfills.
Before the 1970's, landfills were not monitored nearly as closely as the most of them are today. These old landfills are causing so much destruction to ground water. Many people do not even realize that their ground water is contaminated. These landfills were filled with toxic elements from paint cans, motor oils, insecticides, and other things that are not allowed to be put into landfills today. Today landfills are required to have liners and water filtration systems that help reduce the risk of contaminated ground water.
Old industrial dump sites, private landfills, and forgotten town dumps are slowly being found and tested for contaminated ground water, but this is a very time consuming and costly procedure. Many of these old landfill sites are now overgrown with bush and trees and some younger generations do not even know they are there.
Cleaning up all of the careless messes that we have made will undoubtedly take many years and in the meantime we are responsible to see that this sort of pollution does not happen on our watch. Recycling as many things as we can and making sure that anything toxic does not end up in our landfills is essential to the future safety of groundwater everywhere.
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