Throw-away culture rivals crisis of global warming

To The Daily Sun,

I recently read a book that studied and reported on a world problem that some feel is equal to global warming in importance. The book “Junkyard Planet” explores how our throw-away culture is forcing a rethinking of the consequences of that behavior.

In our rural environment, we don’t see some of the critical effects of waste disposal. That said, our town budgets are affected by waste considerations. Budget committees are faced with costs that are somewhat out of their control. The more metropolitan areas have a much higher awareness of the overall problem.

A complete solution is not available, but some efforts can and certainly should be put forth. A lot more could be done on the recycling side. Even more could be achieved with cooperation on the consumer end of the spectrum. I will present some thoughts in the following paragraphs.

We are a nation of drivers. There are millions of cars on the roads, but what happens to them as they reach the end of their useful life? Until a few years ago, it wasn’t pretty. In 1970, General Motors estimated that there were as many as 40 million abandoned automobiles in public places. One of the common uses of old car bodies was placing them in gullies to prevent erosion. About that time, the EPA began laying down some rules for the salvage business and created change almost overnight.

Recycled metals became a commodity with an assigned value. Giant crushers and shredders came into use to compact the metal. Massive piles of junk cars were reduced to compressed hunks destined to be rendered by steel mills into sheets and ingots for the automobile industry.

Alas, many of the mills processing the product were in Asia. They are buying our junk by the metric ton. It returns to us as sheet steel or toys and Toyotas. And the cycle starts all over again. This and other disposal problems cry out for a better solution. I will suggest some possible solutions in a future letter.

Bill Dawson

Northfield