Environmental Film

I chose to watch the documentary Trashed, which was released in 2007, so it is a little outdated, but I think it's still relevant. The documentary describes how the garbage business works in America. I learned so many things from this documentary that I never knew. For example, many states import garbage from other places to make money on the landfills that they are creating. There have been many incidents where the public has protested because the state is creating more landfills in places that the citizens find appalling in order to take on the garbage from other states.

This is the site of a proposed landfill in Indiana in 2005. The school that is near it is barely far enough away to fulfill the requirements and the public is very opposed to building another landfill here, especially so close to the school.

Another big point that the film makes is how much waste Americans produce and the ways we dispose of it. In many places there is no recycling or reusing allowed. There is only garbage trucks and if someone wanted to recycle they would have to drive quite a distance to find a place where that is available. It also talked about how certain landfills don't allow people to search in them for things that can be reused. To me this is just ridiculous. Why would the company not want to let people find things that they could reuse. If it is a matter of money, then they still wouldn't have an argument because these people would be making more room in the landfill for more trash anyway. This means that the companies are just against reusing, which is utterly insane.

One thing that the film brought up that I found intriguing and made me wonder why it's not very popular is the use of methane gas, created by landfills, for energy. If we took the methane from these landfills and used it in a way that didn't harm the environment, in fact it would be helping it by not using other (more harmful) methods of providing energy, and making money in the long run it would help everyone. Using the methane that the landfills create while the land is unusable because of the waiting time after the garbage is buried is a great idea. I think that if more people knew about this that it would be more popular and probably another form of alternative energy, at least until the landfill problem is fixed, and it will help the environment along the way.

Overall, I think that this film is very educational and I got a lot of good information from it. If anyone is curious and would like to watch it it is available on YouTube.