Plenty of Trash to Burn

I , along with all my peers, would like to give a helping hand to keep our environment afloat. I want to be able to make a difference, without feeling like I’m going out of my way, and I believe this is key. To be completely sustainable, is to pick up trash off the ground without being told, or to turn off the running faucet like a reflex. We must all do our share, but do it without even realizing it, and that is essential. As a daughter of Mother Earth, we should protect and take care of her by showing respect to the ground we walk on.
For my sustainability challenge, I will individually do small things to make an impact, and minimize my ecological footprint. I can do so, by not quitting cigarettes, but by simply picking up all my cigarette filters. Or , I can turn off my computer before I go to sleep at night. All these things require very minimal energy, yet over time, they will make a difference.
Something that I will not do to “save the environment” however, is to recycle. Lately, I have been curious to know what really happens to our wastes after we put them in our trash bins, and set them at the end of our driveways, and decided to do some research. I managed to stumble upon an article online at http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/10/07/china-plenty-of-trash-to-burn/, with the title being China: Plenty of Trash to Burn. In this article, they explained the large trash-burning landfills in China that produce many harmful dioxins and pollutants that could be more harmful to the environment then beneficial. These incinerators that are meant to burn our trash are producing many harmful emissions, leaving many of the locals in the dark.