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Welcome to Your Daily Dot where Dot will share tips, advice, and stories on how we can make our world better. |
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All Dear Dot illustrations by Elissa Turnbull. |
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In this Dear Dot from the archives, a reader wonders what, exactly, happens to all the items we send to the landfill. Dot uncovers the answer. |
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Dear Dot,
I've read that methane from landfills causes even more global warming than burning fossil fuels. Is methane caused by rotting food and other organic matter? Do glass, metal, and plastic create methane in landfills? I know that it's better to recycle glass, metal, and plastic, and it’s better to compost food waste than to toss it all away. I'm just not sure why. What happens to the stuff in landfills?
–Margie, via email
Dear Margie,
Dot has a dear friend who hails from Guatemala. She founded the country’s first children’s bookstore in Guatemala City and, as part of her mission to improve literacy in her country, would load up with books to take to those who made their home in the city’s vast dump. “I remember two things,” she tells me of her trips to the dump. The first? “The horrendous smell.” She had to fight the urge to gag. But also — and perhaps even more striking — my friend remembers “the sound of kids laughing while they played tag.”
Can you imagine it, Margie? Children playing amongst the stench of garbage. Kids just being kids, no different from those who play tag on lush green lawns or beaches or in schoolyards around the world. And then these same children were given precious books that held the power to transport them to other worlds, along with assistance in learning to read them.
Beneath the feet of that community, there was plenty more happening — the decomposition and biodegradation of organic waste, material waste, textile waste, and more.
Keep reading to find out more. |
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