There are 846
landfills in New Jersey. 830 are closed
and no longer accept waste. 13 landfills are active. 3 are privately owned. New
Jersey has been the waste disposal site or New York and neighboring States
forever. These landfills are not being cleaned up, but are being used to
collect gas.
Solid Waste & Landfill Facts. About one-third of an average dump is made up of packaging
material! Every year, each American throws
out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be composted. The U.S. is the #1 trash-producing
country in the world at 1,609 pounds per person per year.
The U.S. has 3,091 active landfills and
over 10,000 old
municipal landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. However,
in the "good old days," every town (and many businesses and
factories) had its own dump.
“The cost of the packaging as a percentage of
total selling price varies significantly. Although this cost ranges from 1.4
per cent to 40 per cent, the average cost of packaging is $1 for every $11 spent. Nine per cent of the
amount spent on any product is probably the cost of its packaging.
About 300 million tons of plastic is produced globally each year. Only about 10 percent of
that is recycled. Of the plastic that
is simply trashed, an estimated seven million tons ends up in the sea each year. There, it breaks down into
smaller and smaller fragments over the years.
In 1982, Tylenol packaging became “tamper
proof. That heralded the beginning of adult-proof packaging of everything in
the US.
We need to return to paper packaging that can
be incinerated and reduce the amount of packaging used for everything.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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