what happens to our trash

what happens to our trash

Have you ever looked inside a garbage can? Hold your nose! It might be stinky. There are all kinds of things in there! It is all stuff people have thrown away. It's trash. A lot of what people throw away is paper and cardboard. Some of it is plastic-bottles, packages, and even toys. People throw away TVs and bicycles. Metal cans and glass bottles. Furniture and clothing. Food scraps, grass clippings, and oily rags. Some of it is so gooey and grimy, it's hard to tell what it is. What do you throw away?

In the United States, we make a lot of trash. We make more than any other country. We make almost five pounds per person every day. Most of our trash goes to a landfill. Landfills are areas set aside for storing trash. Big cities usually have at least one.

Putting waste into a landfill is different than just placing it in piles and leaving it. That would smell bad and be unsafe. It would attract animals and flies. It could make people sick. Landfills are made to keep people safe from the trash. Landfills have clay and plastic layers. This helps keep harmful liquids from leaking away. The trash gets covered with dirt each day.

When trash sits in a landfill, it makes gases. Pipes at the landfill capture the gases, keeping them from polluting the air. One kind of gas the pipes capture is called methane. People burn the methane to make electricity for their houses, schools, and office buildings.