Is it more or less intrusive to the environment to burn your household waste or put it in a landfill?

Obviously excluding waste such as tires, batteries and other extremely toxic or dangerous things.



I'm thinking burning isn't so bad, even with the carbon it puts off; in balance with the effects of landfills, ocean dumping, and large incinerators.

What are the environmental pros and cons of burning your trash.



In many Coastal Island communities the policy is to burn your trash on the beach. This has been done in these areas since they were settled and do not have many major environmental problems. Your thoughts?Is it more or less intrusive to the environment to burn your household waste or put it in a landfill?In the old days they would burn the land fills. These places you talk about that burn their trash on the beach are operating under the mistaken idea that the ocean is big enough that it will just be diluted beyond being a problem. These people are WRONG. We have so many people and so much trash that we can and are ruining the oceans and the atmosphere by dumping and burning our trash. The thing to do is to reduce the amount of trash that we have to deal with. How you may ask. The answer is not an easy one, but it is a good start to buy things with minimal packaging and packaging that is environmentally friendly, things like using newspaper instead of "peanuts' to fill the empty space in boxes, buy things that do not have excess packaging, like when you buy a tiny item that is in a box and that box is in another box and that box is in a plastic wrapper and all of that is in a plastic blister pack. Another way to fight the "trash pile" is to pay a little more and buy things that will last, not cheap things that will end up in the trash in a few weeks and will have to be replaced with another one. Usually paying a bit more for the best quality item ends up being cheaper and more environmentally friendly. You can also reuse and recycle more to help shrink our trash pile. I save almost all of the boxes that I get and I use them at least one more time, often I will use a box half a dozen times before it is too raged for further use, then I will use it to start a fire in my wood stove instead of using a peice of paper that has only been used once before. The problem with recylcing these days is that they do not make it worth while for individuals to recycle seriously, one big place that this is a real problem is in the glass industry. In the lod days they would disinfect the bottles and refill them, now they have to remelt the glass and reform it into whatever the item is that is needed, this costs a lot more that cleaning and reusing. And the plastic bottles, they are simply sucky, you can't really clean and reuse them and the plastic is not the type that can just be chemically melted and reformed, they are generally shredded and pressed into a different form, they are not generally able to be used again as bottles, I do not think. We are too caught up with the thought that newers better. Myself I like to find "old" things that I can still use, I do a lot of shopping at "junk shops" and places like Salvation Army, the quality of the items is at least as good as new and they are cheaper and more environmentally friendly. I could go on and on and on about this because it is an issue that is close to my heart. In the lod days when it was possible, I would take my trash to the dump and I always came home with more stuff than I took to the dump, and it was all good stuff too. I miss the old dumps. Good luck!Is it more or less intrusive to the environment to burn your household waste or put it in a landfill?
Waste Management is now using technology that takes the methane gas the landfills give off %26amp; recycles it, turning it into power. I'd say burning is worse.Is it more or less intrusive to the environment to burn your household waste or put it in a landfill?It depends on so many variables, what's in the waste, how cleanly it can be burnt (google rocket stoves for small scales) if you can harvest the energy from the burning, what sort of pollution the landfill facilities will cause.



Ocean dumping ?:(Is it more or less intrusive to the environment to burn your household waste or put it in a landfill?
If you are burning the right things I don't see anything wrong with that. When I lived in the North West Territories that's how we had to get rid of our garbage. Is it more or less intrusive to the environment to burn your household waste or put it in a landfill?Waste today is filled with so many toxins and chemicals you could damage your own health by burning it. Styrofoam and plastics both give of toxic emissions when burned and many of the inks and dyes are bad too. It is better to try to reduce waste and recycle what you can and take the rest to the landfill.