Earth's Garbage Crisis

Earth's Garbage Crisis
Author: Christiane Dorion
Publisher: Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2007-01-12
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780836877533

Describes how large amounts of garbage are created today, how to recycle effectively, and why it is important to reduce or eliminate garbage.

Trashing the Planet

Trashing the Planet
Author: Stuart A. Kallen
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books ™
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2017-08-01
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1512467960

On a global scale, humans create around 2.6 trillion pounds of waste every year. None of this trash is harmless—landfills and dumps leak toxic chemicals into soil and groundwater, while incinerators release toxic gases and particles into the air. What can we do to keep garbage from swallowing up Earth? Reducing, reusing, recycling, and upcycling are some of the answers. Learn more about the work of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Ocean Cleanup Array, the zero waste movement, and the many other government, business, research, and youth efforts working to solve our planet's garbage crisis.

Trashing the Planet

Trashing the Planet
Author: Stuart A. Kallen
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2018
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1512413143

Globally, humans produce 1.3 billion tons of garbage every year. Discover the causes and proposed solutions for the global garbage glut, examining pollution on land, in the ocean, in the air, and in space.

The Garbage Crisis

The Garbage Crisis
Author: Randika Jayasinghe
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
Total Pages: 157
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1608458733

This book will focus on "Waste Management," a serious global issue and engineers' responsibility towards finding better solutions for its sustainable management. Solid waste management is one of the major environmental burdens in both developed and developing countries alike. An alarming rate of solid waste generation trends can be seen as a result of globalization, industrialization, and rapid economic development. However, low-income and marginalized sectors in society suffer most from the unfavorable conditions deriving from poor waste management. Solid waste management is not a mere technical challenge. The environmental impact, socio-economic, cultural, institutional, legal, and political aspects are fundamental in planning, designing, and maintaining a sustainable waste management system in any country. Engineers have a major role to play in designing proper systems that integrate stakeholders, waste system elements, and sustainability aspects of waste management. This book is part of a focused collection from a project on Engineering and Education for Social and Environmental Justice. It takes an explicitly social and environmental justice stance on waste and attempts to assess the social impact of waste management on those who are also the most economically vulnerable and least powerful in the society. We hope that this book will assist our readers to think critically and understand the framework of socially and environmentally just waste management. Table of Contents: Introduction / Towards a Just Politics of Waste Management / Expertise, Indigenous People, and the Site 41 Landfill / Waste Management in the Global North / Waste Management in the Global South: A Sri Lankan Case Study / Assessing the Feasibility of Waste for Life in the Western Province of Sri Lanka

Plastic Soup

Plastic Soup
Author: Michiel Roscam Abbing
Publisher:
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2019-04
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1642830089

Plastics have transformed every aspect of our lives. Yet the very properties that make them attractive--they are cheap to make, light, and durable--spell disaster when trash makes its way into the environment. Plastic Soup: An Atlas of Ocean Pollution is a beautifully-illustrated survey of the plastics clogging our seas, their impacts on wildlife and people around the world, and inspirational initiatives designed to tackle the problem. With striking photography and graphics, Plastic Soup brings plastic pollution to brilliant life for readers. According to some estimates, if we continue on our current path, the oceans will contain more plastic than fish by the year 2050. Created to inform and inspire readers, Plastic Soup is a critical tool in the fight to reverse this trend.

Thicker Than Water

Thicker Than Water
Author: Erica Cirino
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2021-10-07
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1642831387

Much of what you’ve heard about plastic pollution may be wrong. Instead of a great island of trash, the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of manmade debris spread over hundreds of miles of sea—more like a soup than a floating garbage dump. Recycling is more complicated than we were taught: less than nine percent of the plastic we create is reused, and the majority ends up in the ocean. And plastic pollution isn’t confined to the open ocean: it’s in much of the air we breathe and the food we eat. In Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, journalist Erica Cirino brings readers on a globe-hopping journey to meet the scientists and activists telling the real story of the plastic crisis. From the deck of a plastic-hunting sailboat with a disabled engine, to the labs doing cutting-edge research on microplastics and the chemicals we ingest, Cirino paints a full picture of how plastic pollution is threatening wildlife and human health. Thicker Than Water reveals that the plastic crisis is also a tale of environmental injustice, as poorer nations take in a larger share of the world’s trash, and manufacturing chemicals threaten predominantly Black and low-income communities. There is some hope on the horizon, with new laws banning single-use items and technological innovations to replace plastic in our lives. But Cirino shows that we can only fix the problem if we face its full scope and begin to repair our throwaway culture. Thicker Than Water is an eloquent call to reexamine the systems churning out waves of plastic waste.

Plastics and the Environment

Plastics and the Environment
Author: R. M. Harrison
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2018-11-20
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1788012410

This book reviews the role of plastics in society and examines the environmental impact of different types of plastics.

Plastic Planet

Plastic Planet
Author: Georgia Amson-Bradshaw
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2020-11-26
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1445181614

Plastic Planet offers young readers the perfect, non-alarmist introduction to Earth's plastic crisis Plastic pollution is now found in every environment on Earth, from the deepest oceans to the driest deserts and the most remote ice sheets. Plastic Planet offers readers aged 8 and up a look at plastic through the ages, exploring what it is, how it's made and how we have become so dependent on it in a single-use, disposable world. It highlights the social inequality of plastic pollution and explores how plastic has become a widespread and dangerous pollutant that is inextricably linked to climate change. The book looks ahead to possible solutions to our plastic crisis, from global changes such as changing people's mindsets, to innovations such as compostable plastics, to practical solutions such as recycling and bottle return schemes.