Landfills
It has long been believed that the largest entity brought upon the Earth by humankind is the Pyramid of the Sun, constructed in Mexico around the start of the Christian era. The mammoth structure commands nearly thirty million cubic feet of space. In contrast, however, is the Durham Road Landfill, outside San Francisco, which occupies over seventy million cubic feet of the biosphere. It is a sad monument, indeed, to the excesses of modern society [Gore 151]. One might assume such a monstrous mound of garbage is the largest thing ever produced by human hands. Unhappily, this is not the case. The Fresh Kills Landfill, located on Staten Island, is the largest landfill in the world. It sports ...
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creek) was originally a tidal marsh. In 1948, New York City planner Robert Moses developed a highly praised project to deposit municipal garbage in the swamp until the level of the land was above sea level. A study of the area predicted the marsh would be filled by the year 1968. He then planned to develop the area, building houses and attracting light industry. Mayor Impelliteri issued a report titled "The Fresh Kills Landfill Project" in 1951. The report stated, in part, that the enterprise "cannot fail to affect constructively a wide area around it." The report ended by stating, "It is at once practical and idealistic" [Rathje 4]. One must appreciate the irony in the fact that Robert Moses was, in his day, considered a leading conservationist. His major accomplishments include asphalt parking lots throughout the New York metro area, paved roads in and out of city parks, and development of Jones Beach, now the most polluted, dirty, overcrowded piece of shoreline in the ...
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and either shipped to liquid waste disposal points or re-introduced into the upper layers of garbage, to resume the cycle. Unfortunately, most have no such pumping system [Miller 527].
Until the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency by Nixon in 1970, there were virtually no regulations governing the construction, operation, and closure of . As a result, 85 percent of all extant in this country are unlined. Many are located in close proximity to aquifers or other groundwater features, or near geologically unstable sites. Many older are leaching toxins into our water supply at this very moment, with no way to stop them. For example, the Fresh Kills landfill leaks an ...
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Landfills. (2006, October 28). Retrieved November 28, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Landfills/54687
"Landfills." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 28 Oct. 2006. Web. 28 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Landfills/54687>
"Landfills." Essayworld.com. October 28, 2006. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Landfills/54687.
"Landfills." Essayworld.com. October 28, 2006. Accessed November 28, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Landfills/54687.
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