What Is Edward Humes Garbology, Our Love Affair With Trash

Topic:

This research proposal relates closely to the textbook, Garbology, Our Love Affair with Trash. Edward Humes discusses how current landfills are constructed to protect the environment from leachate in several chapters, but in Chapter 4, “The Last and Future Kingdom,” he writes about the dangers of landfills built before the 1990s (2013). Landfills built before the 1991 regulations are not required to install barriers that protect the groundwater from carcinogens. According to the American Cancer Society, prolonged exposure to carcinogens in the environment can lead to cancer ( “Known and Probable,”2017).

Chapter 4 describes the horrific consequences of pre-1991 landfills. Humes writes, “Trash, sometimes with hazardous chemical waste mixed in, had been buried carelessly all over the country for decades without installing plastic barriers and other protections now deemed essential to containing landfill pollution”( 2013 p.92). Humes describes a tragic incidence near Niagara Falls, New Jersey in the 1970s. “In the 1950s, there was a residential community near Niagara Falls in New York. The community was built on what had been at one time a toxic chemical disposal site” (Humes, 2013, p.92). This incident focuses on the importance of regulations and continuous testing of landfills

The website, www.epa.gov and archived documents retrieved from that site, describes regulations that support the facts about pre-1991 landfills and establishes credibility. Peer-review sources are used to support the logical argument that continuing and even strengthening regulations of pre-1991 landfills is a priority. Scientific journals are used to explain the dangers of pre-regulation landfills. Internet sites such as www.cancer.org and www.hazardouswasteexperts.com are used to educate and appeal to the emotions of the