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The Town of the XXI Century
Series of reports on ecological situation in Central Asia
THE RESCUE FOR THE WORLD IS IN ITS
CLEANNESS
How to make "the enemy" become a friend?
It is necessary to know "the enemy" in person and to try to make him become a
friend. This almost Biblical truth is applicable practically to anything, which
prevents from good living. That is why in many countries pollution is considered
to be an enemy, but it is treated very attentively in an attempt to detain this
monster of civilization. Wastes are described the same way as the most precious
items, they are divided into classes and measures of fighting against them are
developed.
WASTES - ones, which are not used at the places of their origins at
industrial installations, households, transportation facilities and vehicles,
can be actually or potentially used as products in other branches of the economy
or in the course of regeneration. Harmful wastes must be neutralized, and the
unused ones are considered to be trash. Wastes can be of the following kinds:
1. Household (communal) solid wastes - substances, which are not utilized by
the households and accumulated as a result of depreciation of household
appliances and living activities. The problem of household wastes is very
important for many countries of the world. For example, American cities annually
accumulate 150 million tons of wastes and it is expected that by the year 2000
this number will increase by 20%. In Japan the amount of annually accumulated
household wastes exceeds 72 million tons. To destroy the wastes abroad people
started to build powerful garbage burning systems (more than 900 tons a day),
which at the same time produce energy. In Switzerland, for example, 75% of
garbage is burnt. And not many of these garbage burning plants produce electric
energy. The largest portion of the plants produces steam, which is later sent by
the tubes to the nearby industrial plants or apartment districts.
2. Industrial wastes - leftovers of raw materials, unfinished goods, which
are accumulated while the main products are produced or while the work is done,
and which have completely or partially lost their consumer properties. For
example, annually countries of the European community accumulate significant
amounts of wastes. Out of the total amount of wastes (in 1990 - 2,2 billion
tons) half is comprised of agricultural wastes. However, in the countries of the
European community, 50% of household wastes are dug into the ground, 33% are
burnt and 7% are turned into fertilizers, at the same time 60% percent of
industrial and 95% of agricultural wastes are intensively recycled.
3. Industrial consumption wastes - further directly unusable are written off
machines, tools, etc. They can be agricultural, construction, manufacturing,
radioactive. In recent years the amount of dangerous (toxic) wastes has
increased and this may poison or otherwise harm living creatures. This kind of
wastes is first of all represented by various unused poisonous agricultural
chemicals, industrial wastes containing cancer developing and mutation causing
substances. In the USA 41% of solid household wastes are attributed to "very
dangerous", in Hungary - 33,5%, at the same time in France - 6%, in Great
Britain - 3%, in Japan and Italy - only 0,3%. In Russia 10% of all solid
household wastes are considered to be "very dangerous". On the territory of
Russia there are, so called, chemical "traps", forgotten underground storage
places of dangerous wastes, on the top of which houses and other objects are
built. After a while the wastes remind about themselves by causing strange
diseases among the people living in those areas. Registration of such spots has
shown that there are at least 32 thousand of them in the USA, 50 thousand - in
Germany, 4000 - in the Netherlands, and even in the small Denmark there are 3200
thousand of those spots. The same traps can be represented by 85 spots of
peaceful nuclear explosions, which were carried out in Russia.
Where do the wastes come from?
What happens to wild animals and birds, when they die? Where do the leaves
fallen in autumn go, what happens to grass and fallen trees? There is one answer
to these questions: all these things gradually dissolve in order to give birth
to the new life in the eternal natural circulation. After dissolution of animal
corpses and remains of plants, they provide food and living environment for
warms, bacteria and mushrooms. Thus, all the natural organic substances come
back into the soil and provide food for new generations of living organisms.
This process is called the Biological circulation.
If we compare nature with the "factory of life", then it is possible to say
that 100% of the production cycle at the factory does not accumulate wastes. Any
side product is immediately included into the general life cycle. Manure turns
into the fertilizers for the orchard, fallen leaves turn into fertile soil, a
corpse of an animal serves as the food for warms, which are later eaten by
birds. At any course of development of human civilization it has a long way to
go to match natural UTILIZATION.
And now let us look at the other layers. Only people living in the United
States every day throw away 90 million bottles of cans from various drinks, up
to 50 million tin cans and 25 thousand television sets. The list is endless. The
organism of the nature can not digest such a mount of metal and plastic. Only a
small part of these wastes is recycled, the rest forms multi-kilometer long
garbage collectors. Specialists call these places "solid wastes ranges", but it
seems that in this case the word "cloak" is more appropriate. Hand made
mountains of garbage can be found even in uninhabited deserts and polar tundra.
How much do the garbage collection places cost the humanity? This question is
best answered by Americans, who consume one third of all things produced in the
world. To utilize at least half of the annually accumulated wastes the USA spend
as much money as they have spent on the Moon exploration program!
The unequal exchange. To have some rest we search for a clean river, a
wood, where it is possible to gather some berries and mushrooms, to plant a crop
we look for fertile lands. To get better harvests we put fertilizers into the
land, but we do it so unskillfully that the results are often right opposite -
polluted lands, poisoned water and food, which are consumed by us.
Having some rest we leave mounts of garbage, broken trees and smashed glades.
Cutting unlimited amounts of wood, we destroy habitats of birds and animals.
Without the woods rivers become dry, strong winds blow fertile soil away from
unprotected plains.
The society of consumers. People currently living on Earth a the
representatives of the society of super consumers. It has been calculated that
20 tons of raw materials are spent on each of us, but 97% of this amount go into
… wastes. The largest portion of consumption and consequently of the wastes
originates in a few developed countries. Moreover, modern economy stimulates
wastefulness.
20 years ago the best cars could run for 250 thousand kilometers, now if the
car has run for 120 thousand kilometers it is already the best candidates for a
garbage collector.
What are we throwing away? Do not be lazy and one day go to a city
garbage collecting space. The impression, which you'll get from this trip will
justify all the efforts.
Considering the large variety of garbage, the largest portion of it is
comprised by paper of all sorts and kinds and plastics - mainly packaging
materials. But if paper and cardboard are easily mixed with soil and dissolved
by bacteria, this is not the case with plastic, which is almost non-dissolvable.
Once ecologists carried out an experiment - they dug old stalking underground at
the depth of 1,5 centimeter. After seven years the stalking was absolutely
unaffected by the surrounding conditions.
There are no such substances in nature that is why they accumulate in the
form of mountains of wastes, which are not used in biological circulation.
Industrial wastes. Industrial wastes are represented by construction
garbage, soils, slags. The amounts of wastes are especially large in chemical
and raw material extracting industries. 10 to 20% of the wastes are included
into the "black list" of substances especially dangerous for health and life.
Combinations of sulphur and nirogen, mineral fertilizers, pesticides, such as
DDT, asbestos, mercury - these substances, combining form limitless numbers of
poisons, even small concentration of which can cause almost immediate death.
Naturally almost non-dissolvable combinations - heavy metals, pesticides, have
entered soil, underground waters, plants, human and animal organisms long time
ago. Until now there is a common mistake existing, which states that harmful
wastes affect only those regions, where the wastes have originated.
Unfortunately, this is not so. Winds, snow, rains, on-the-ground and underground
waters carry the poison for long distances from the place, where it originated.
It is easy to find examples of this: the most destructive accident in the
history of nuclear energy production - the accident at Chernobyl - was harmful
not only for Ukraine and Belarus, Russia and Eastern Europe. Even at the polar
circle radioactive elements were found in the organisms of deer: they fell out
of the atmosphere over tundra, poisoned the moss - the main food of the deer.
And the accident took place thousands of kilometers away from the deer pastures!
Agricultural wastes. More than half of all wastes in the countries of
the European Union originate from agriculture. Farms started to use large
quantities of fertilizers. As a result pesticides and poisons started to
accumulate on the fields. Rains and warm melting snow washed the poison into
bodies of water, and underground waters moved them for long distances.
The dark chronicle
1959 Minimata, Japan Throw of mercury into the water: 400 dead, 2000 injured
1974 Flicksboro, Great Accident at a chemical plant: 23 dead, 104 injured,
Britain 3000 evacuated
1976 Savezo, Italy Dioxine gas spill: 103 injured, 730 evacuated
1978 Manfredonia, Italy Ammonia spill at a chemical plant: 1000 evacuated
1984 Bhopal, India Pesticides spill at a chemical plant: 2500 dead, 200000
evacuated |