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The Beginning of the Industrial Revolution
During the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, waste in great amounts was only being introduced. Factories were being built near rivers so all the waste would just be dropped into the river. -
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Urban Waste or Trash Timespan
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People used to dispose of garbage by feeding pigs!
"Piggeries" were created. This is when the waste that wasn't being used would be dumped into farms and used as food for pigs. After the death of 1,000 pigs, a law was made that the waste had to be cooked before given. -
Boom of Trash
After incidents of being closed down due to harmful smokes, incinerators came back to their highest. More than 300 incinerators were working from the United States to Canada. -
The Idea of Landfills
Before the mid 1900's people got rid of their trash by discarding it into bodies of water or just by placing it in a dump. But, then the thought of landfills was developed. This was more environmentally- friendly. -
The Supreme Court and their Regulation
The Supreme Court prohibited urban waste or trash to be dumped into oceans. People would start being fined if seen hurting the environment with disposing the wrong way. -
Waste at the End of World War II
Urban trash was found in huge quantities in Germany after the Second World War, and many scientists became worried. Diseases, viruses, and bacteria would easily spread, and Germany quickly took action. -
Food being bought by families causes trash to increase
Many stores started to come out with more types of a product. People had more choices to choose from and started to buy more. But, how these products were disposed of weren't right. -
Clean Air Act is passed which causes urban trash or waste to increase.
People were supposed to change the heating of their house by making it gas or electricity powered. As a result, the waste isn't allowed to be burned, so more packages of food and food itself is being kept as garbage which led to a growth of trash. -
Solid Waste Disposal Act
America is introduced to this Act because researchers started to see in research projects and other studies, that severe waste problems were occurring and that waste wasn't going to decrease anytime soon. -
Resource and Recovery Act
In the United States, this act helped clean up approximately 40,000 known wastes. It was also created to help stop the transportation, treatment, and generation of hazardous wastes from damaging humans and animals. -
Reuse, Recycle, Resource Reduction started to help Urban Waste
The three R's were waste management alternatives created to decrease amount of trash. Before the 1980's, amounts of solid waste in cities decreased from 90% to 45% because of reusing, recycling, and resource reductions. -
The Waste Reduction and Prevention Act
This act was passed in Manitoba minimize the mass of solid wastes across the whole province. Many programs to help out have started there since. -
The EPA said to watch out because landfills will not be able to be filled up forever.
The EPA said that it was impossible for landfills to keep increasing in size, and that the government must act more into getting rid of waste. Other eco-friendly routes must be taken. -
Success of the U.S.
In the last years of the 19th Century, America reached its goal of a 25% recycling rate. Cleaning the Earth from waste was on its way to recovery. -
The Urban Waste Water Directive 91/271/EEC was created
This was a document passed to properly have towns and cities dispose of their urban waste and for treatments systems to decrease the amount of trash in industrial areas. -
New York City closes Landfill
The landfill was taking in about 12,000 tons of trash a day from not only the city, but Toronto and other areas nearby. This was one of the biggest landfills in the world! -
Yard wastes being banned from landfills.
Yard wastes were banned in half the states in America and more landfills had composting facilities to decrease the volume the waste was taking up. -
Recycling programs.
Over 10,000 cities had recycling programs, which is when cities collect the waste and throw out it out for you. -
All the urban waste transformed into electricity!
The United States found another solution for the issue of landfills being overloaded. Waste being burned to create energy is a brilliant idea! Not only is getting rid of trash, but it is benefiting humans by fulfilling their needs of electricity. -
Recycling rates increased
Compared to the 1970's where America had a recycling rate of 6.6%, in 2010 it went up about 5 times resulting as a rate of 34.1%. Even though the total amount of waste was also doubled, recycling what we used and reusing it is also very important.
