Sanitary Landfills

I chose the subject of landfills after reading the incredible story of the garbage barge Mobro 4000. In 1987, this barge became an international joke when it was forced to float up and down the Atlantic Ocean for about six months in search of some place to unload its cargo: several thousand tons of garbage. The cargo of the Mobro 4000 was first rejected by New York, then all the states south of New York on the eastern seaboard, and eventually Mexico, the Bahamas, and Belize. The cargo was eventually reduced to several hundred tons of ash and dumped in New York. This bizarre tale is evidence that America is running out of sanitary landfill sites.

Like most issues, the landfill crisis probably has two different opposing viewpoints. Environmental experts are likely to contend that America's cavalier attitude toward c

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ying to frame my topic and pose questions, I decided on the narrower topic of environmental justice in the siting of landfills. Awareness of environmental justice has developed only recently in the environmental movement. For decades, a sort of environmental elite had functioned in the green movement. Most environmentalists were concerned mainly about abstract issues like the preservation of clean air and wilderness areas, or the elimination of chemical hazards. Many of these environmentalists did not realize that it was their privileged positions in society that enabled them to have the time and resources to work on ecological concerns. When it came to helping disadvantaged people solve environmental problems in their communities, the average environmentalist resisted because such assistance was deemed too political. Slowly, the green movement is beginning to realize that the inclusion of people of color in the movement benefits the entire human race. The need for environmental justice has come to light because studies by organizations like Greenpeace and poverty law groups show that communities inhabited by African-Americans, Latinos, Native-Americans, and the poor have been disproportionately affected by the siting of u
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Approximate Word count = 1901
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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