Society and Health- Environmental Issues

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WASTE

Facts and figues:

  • UK produces 434 million tonnes of waste a year.
  • Babies nappies make up around 2% of average household rubbish.
  • An estimated 17.5 billion plastic bags are given away by supermarkets each year, thats around 290 per person on average.

Waste Hierarchy

At the top of the hierarchy, is the most desirable ways to deal with rubbish, the hierarchy consists of from top to bottom:

  • Reduce
  • Reuse
  • Recover
  • Recycle
  • Compost
  • Recover energy
  • Disposal

Where does our waste go?

A vast majority of britains waste is diposed in landfill sites, in fact 72% is put into a landfill site which are unsitely to most people around them. 9% of waste is incinerated, which puts pollution into the environment. To solve the problem we need to use a range of recycling processes, these are : reduce, reuse, and recycle.

  • Reduce - only buy what is needed, choose products with less packaging, reduce the amount of junk mail recieved, buy refill packs so you dont keep buying containers.
  • Reusing - give unwanted items to charity, sell good through newspapers or the internet, set computer settings to print on both sides, repair appliances, refurbish old furniture, reuse jars, pass on pcs to others, buy productsthat can alwasy be reused e.g. recharable batteries, take own shopping bags
  • Food wastage - leftover cake can be made into a trifle, leftover meat can be made into a sheperds pie, leftover chicken can be put in currys, leftover potatoe can be mashed into fish cakes, fallen apples can be put into crumbles.

The recycling processes available

  • Buy already recycled products
  • EPR laws have been put in place, whic ensures that companies have to collect products from houses if they're unwanted.
  • Recycle plastic bottles
  • Recycle papers, magazines and card
  • Make the most of any kerbside collections.
  • Go to recycling banks ifkerb side collection is not available.
  • Save aliminum cans
  • Find of fatcs about where to recycle and how to do it best off local authorities
  • Composting kitchen and garden waste.

SUSTAINING OUR ENVIRONMENT

Recycling products can have many great advatages, some of these are:

  • Prolongs the life of landfill sites
  • Boosts the economy - creates jobs for people, reduces importsof raw materials, and saves money spent on landfill sites.
  • It can protect animal habitats and wildlife
  • Generates money - for goverment and for fundraising groups.
  • Recycling paper can protect the trees bt allowing old forests to grow back.

Factors affecting the quality of our environment

The factors that influence the quality of our environment include:

  • Global warming
  • Ozone depleation
  • Acid rain
  • Deforestation
  • Fisheries depleation

GLOBAL WARMING

  • Global warming is an increase in the average temperature of the earths atmosphere.
  • One of the main greenhouse gases produced by humans activities is carbon dioxide.
  • Methane gas is created when organic waste breaks down, it has the potential to be explosive, and is a massive contribution of global warming.
  • Since the industrial revolution, we have been producing more carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels.
  • Changes in the world climate could

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