Land Pollution

A visitor from a resource-poor country would be overwhelmed by the throw-away lifestyle of most industrialized nations. Although the industrialized world comprises only 25 per cent of the world's population, it consumes more than 80 percent of the world's resources. The 75 per cent of the population living in the developing world consumes only the remainder. A typical British citizen consumes three times as much food and forty times as much fossil fuel as the average citizen in a less-developed country. This excessive consumption pattern in the industrialized world has caused not only a depletion in the world's resources but also a virtual "garbage crisis".

Disposal of solid biodegradable waste, which originates from natural products and can be broken down easily, has always been a problem. Pre-industrial societies answered the problem by taking kitchen and yard waste and composting it – placing it in a pile, then mixing and turning the refuse until it could be used as fertilizer. If this was not convenient, they would merely throw it in a bag and take it to the local dump. Unfortunately, due to the increase in amount and the variety of waste, garbage removal has become an extremely complicated process.

Industrialized countries face mountains of waste daily, and more than 80 per cent of the waste ends up in landfills. There are more than 6,600 landfills across the United States and over 1,700 in Canada, many of which are near capacity. Although "environmentally friendly" landfills – designed to protect the environment from waste that may leak out and seep into the ground water or destroy the surrounding vegetation – are becoming more popular, not all communities have the funds or the conscience to construct them. As a result, many landfills become toxic waste sites, leaking hazardous chemicals.

As the garbage piles higher, the landfill becomes so tightly compacted that almost no light or air can penetrate the depths. The trash, therefore, decomposes extremely slowly. Digs into these sites have produced legible newsprint from 40 years ago. If there is not enough ventilation to carry away methane gas produced by decomposition, fires and explosions can occur, and the surrounding ground water can become polluted. So, as overflowing landfills close down and citizens become more skeptical about the construction and controls on new ones, waste becomes more and more difficult to dispose of.

At the Schoenberg landfill in the former East Germany, on an average day more than 200 trucks carrying 40,000 tons of waste will pass through its gates, some having traveled more than 600 miles just to find a place to dump the trash. Over just 13 years, domestic and industrial toxic waste has made Schoenberg a foul-smelling "time bomb". But as dangerous and unhealthy as it is, those who operate the Schoenberg dump know that "everyone thinks it is okay to produce trash – no one wants anything to do with it afterward".

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