Comprehensive cost of traditional landfill

Each of us throws a lot of rubbish every day. Do you know where all this rubbish has gone? They are usually sent to landfills and then to landfills.

The cost of landfill is high, and the cost of treating one ton of garbage is about RMB from 200 yuan to 300 yuan. The daily garbage output in Beijing alone is10.2 million tons. At present, there are more than 700 garbage dumps with an area of more than 36 square meters in the Fifth Ring Road of Beijing, with an area of more than 5 million square meters, increasing at a rate of 3-5% every year. People consume a lot of resources, mass production and consumption, resulting in a lot of waste.

The reason for the increase of garbage is the improvement of people's living standards and the increase of various consumption. According to statistics, 1979, the national urban garbage removal capacity was more than 25 million tons, and 1. 16 tons in 1996, four times that of 1979.

How much land does it take to turn such a large amount of garbage into a landfill? Asuwei Landfill, which covers an area of 60 hectares and has a daily handling capacity of 2,000 tons, can only handle one-sixth of the garbage in Beijing, and 1 1 year will be full. Abandoned landfills are no longer cultivated land, and living quarters cannot be built.

At present, another garbage disposal method widely used in western countries is incineration. Although the garbage burned at high temperature will not occupy a lot of land, it not only has high cost, but also increases the risk of secondary pollution. Dioxin, a highly toxic carcinogen that makes people talk about "evil" color change, is one of the main gas components produced after garbage incineration.

In addition, both landfill and incineration are a waste of resources. We constantly turn the limited earth resources into garbage, bury or burn them. Where will our descendants live?

Can't we do something about the garbage? In fact, there is a way, and this is garbage sorting. Garbage classification is to put garbage into the source, and make it become a resource again through sorting, cleaning and recycling.

The benefits of garbage sorting are obvious. After sorting, the garbage is sent to the factory instead of landfill, which not only saves land, but also avoids the pollution caused by landfill or incineration, and can also turn waste into treasure.

Garbage sorting is no stranger to thrifty people in China. Perhaps you still remember the scene of waste recycling in the 1950s and 1960s: toothpaste peels were kept for recycling, orange peels were used for pharmacy, and biological wastes were used for composting, waste cloth ends, ink bottles and so on. All these can be recycled, which not only avoids the pollution of garbage, but also provides raw materials for industry and agriculture.

In the United States, which is known as a big country of garbage production, garbage classification has gradually penetrated into citizens' lives. Walking on the street, you can see all kinds of colorful classified trash cans everywhere.

The government provides various conveniences for garbage sorting. In addition to setting up classified garbage bins on both sides of the street, each community regularly sends special personnel to clear and transport the classified garbage of each household.

Residents also expressed great support for the government's garbage sorting work. This is not only reflected in their familiarity with garbage classification knowledge; Moreover, the garbage sorting payment here is as natural as drinking clean tap water.

As an industry, garbage recycling has developed rapidly. In many developed countries, recycling industry plays an increasingly important role in the national industrial structure. Take Baltimore, Washington and Richmond as examples. In the past, it cost $40 to recycle 1 ton of garbage. After sorting, these recycled garbage created 5 100 jobs in 1995. In the United States, these three cities are only a small area, and their garbage recycling not only saves the cost of garbage disposal, but also creates a wealth of 500 million US dollars.

Garbage sorting is not only a fashion in developed countries like the United States, but also a trend in many developing countries. In Brazil, many communities carry out garbage sorting, and the mayor regards the sorting trash can at the main entrance of the city hall as the glory of the city. In more than 20 beaches nearby, sorting garbage bins is more like a beautiful landscape.

In some areas of the Philippines, villagers spontaneously organized themselves to clean their living environment, and garbage sorting was the main content of this movement.

Regardless of poor countries or rich countries, garbage sorting is becoming a worldwide trend. However, China, once a world leader in this field, almost lost this good tradition.

Others learned to pick up from us, but we learned to throw from others. When our life is better, we will not be stingy with the few cents we get back from selling garbage, but would rather throw them away as garbage. The traditional virtues of the Chinese nation, such as thrift and waste utilization, seem to have been praised? R disaster? Plant a machine and try to build a flash ship?

Each of us is a garbage maker. Isn't the garbage mountain all piled by our family?

We are also victims of garbage. Should we and our descendants bear the consequences of these garbage mountains devouring resources and polluting the environment?

We should be the managers of garbage pollution, and each of us can overcome garbage pollution through garbage classification.

1996 65438+February 15, residents in Dacheng Lane, Xicheng District, Beijing began to sort garbage with the help of the NGO Global Village. The original sorting bucket was purchased by members of the family Committee with the year-end bonus saved. The sorted garbage shall be removed by the vendors and enterprises contacted by the Family Committee. Day after day, year after year, the residents never stopped.

As a small kindling of folk garbage sorting, the actions of residents in Mahayana Lane aroused the enthusiasm of many citizens. Since 1997, some universities, primary and secondary schools and some retired people in Beijing have tried garbage sorting one after another. With the help of China Youth Daily's intimate sister and a female doctor who returned from studying in Germany, the children of "Hand in Hand Global Village" also started a school with the recovered money.

The behavior of citizens and children has attracted the attention of relevant government departments. Xuanwu District Environmental Sanitation Bureau took the lead in starting the pilot work of waste sorting and recycling system in Xuanwu District in the autumn of 1997. Xuanwu District Civilization Office actively cooperates with the streets and the non-governmental organization Global Village.

1On April 23rd, 999, the Gong Jian Li Nan community in Baizhifang, Xuanwu District was as lively as a festival, and the first garbage sorting and recycling system in China was officially launched. From this day on, residents will change the way of garbage mixing and divide it into three categories: organic, inorganic and waste soil. The government sanitation department will change the way of mixed transportation and classify it for cleaning, sorting and recycling. It means that the old tradition that has been lost for many years here has finally been picked up.

In this battle between man and garbage, people turned garbage from enemies into friends. Someone once compared garbage to a misplaced resource. Let's take a look at the renewable resources sorting station in Xuanwu District. What kind of use will garbage have once it returns to its proper place?

Coke bottles, plastic bags and disposable plastic lunch boxes that we throw away every day belong to polymer organic matter. If buried underground, it will not rot for 200 years even if 100 years. It will also harden the soil, reduce soil fertility, and even make the soil lose its farming ability. In our life, we often throw away all kinds of waste plastics. Waste plastics can also be made into buttons, pen containers and other supplies after treatment. Waste plastics are also good raw materials for oil refining. Some people have vividly compared them to "secondary oil fields". 1 ton of waste plastics can recover at least 600 kilograms of gasoline and diesel.

In the recycling station, we saw all kinds of waste paper sent here, including these humble little pieces of paper ... We know that good paper is made of wood. One ton of waste paper can be recycled into 700 kilograms of good paper, which can cut down less 17 trees and reduce water pollution in pulp production.

However, because the recycling rate of waste paper in China is still very low, only about 20%, we import a lot of waste paper every year. In 1996 alone, we imported 6.5438+0.37 million tons of waste paper. You may still remember the sensational "foreign garbage" incident in the 1980s, in which a ship of foreign garbage was mixed in under the banner of imported waste paper.

The foreign garbage was driven away, but it left a reflection. Why do you want to import waste paper from other countries as raw materials for papermaking? Why not recycle waste paper to the maximum extent, but let them be buried or burned in the garbage dump? The forest resources in China are only 1/4 of the world average, and the rivers and lakes in China have been seriously polluted by early sewage discharge. If everyone throws away half a kilogram of waste paper every week, then Beijing alone will throw away more than 6,000 tons of waste paper every week.

China has a historical tradition of recycling waste products. In the past, recycling waste products may only be a last resort because of the economic downturn. In today's increasingly affluent society, recycling waste paper is our conscious awareness and action to protect the environment. Because we clearly know that we recycle not only pieces of waste paper, but also forests and rivers where our children and grandchildren can live.

Garbage is garbage only when it is mixed together. Once sorted and recycled, they are all treasures. Even the used batteries called mini killers can turn waste into treasure. In this humble photo studio, we saw such a waste battery recycling box. Batteries used in our life usually contain toxic heavy metals, such as mercury or cadmium. If these heavy metals are left underground, they can easily enter the groundwater through the leaching of rainwater.

This kind of pollution is difficult to eliminate. The biological half-life is about 30 years, which means that you can only excrete half of it in 30 years. So this is particularly harmful to people. Waste batteries contain a variety of useful metal minerals, and their recycling value is very high.

It is precisely because of the serious harm and special recycling value of waste batteries that many countries prohibit them from being mixed with garbage. Japanese communities have this kind of yellow bucket, which separates button cell from others.

Since 1997, some citizens and students in Beijing have begun to voluntarily put in and collect waste batteries. Young volunteers from Renmin University also helped a chain store in Beijing set up a recycling bin for used batteries.

As a positive response to the citizens' movement, Beijing Environmental Sanitation Bureau set up a special collection point for used batteries to collect and treat them harmlessly.

Do you know what biological waste is? Biological waste is kitchen waste, such as leftover lettuce, eggshell skin, picked cabbage leaves, etc. What can these seemingly insignificant wastes do? In fact, they can be used to make high-quality organic fertilizers. Like this big nano-dream biological waste processor in Huaibai community, biological waste can be dried and crushed to make efficient organic fertilizer. Residents can use it to grow flowers and grass.

Compared with fertilizer food, vegetables grown with them are safe and healthy, and are quite popular in supermarkets. Biological waste usually accounts for 40% of the total waste. If all of them can be turned into organic fertilizers, it can not only save land for landfill, but also save vehicles and energy for transporting them and prevent them from breeding mosquitoes, flies and bacteria. Experts discussed and suggested that the government should install bio-waste processors in all communities and set up workshops to deal with bio-waste in newly-built communities.

At that time, we can see that garbage sorting has created a society without garbage and a society with recycling resources, and all this only requires us to lift a finger.