Once we have taken out the trash, we often forget that it all has to go somewhere. But not many of us know exactly where it goes, nor do we usually think about it.
The Life Cycle of Garbage shows what happens to your trash once it leaves your home, to give you an idea of where it ends up and how much of it there really is.
The Life Cycle of Garbage begins in your home
Your kitchen trash can fills up …
So you take the garbage bag out to your curbside trash container …
And the garbage man comes to empty it …
What happens to all your trash once the garbage man takes it away?
Typically it goes to a Transfer Station …
A transfer station is where local trash is taken and dumped before it is transferred to its final destination. The final destination could be:
A Landfill …
where the waste is buried and left to decompose, a process which takes hundreds of years even for biodegradable materials …
An Incinerator …
where the garbage is burned and turns into ash and heat, sometimes used to generate energy (called waste-to-energy) …
Or a Recycling Center …
where it will be transferred to a manufacturing plant so these materials can be used to make new products!
Or In the Ocean …
If waste is not correctly managed, it can end up harming the environment and polluting our air and water.
Illegally dumped trash and litter can end up:
Littering our Communities …
This is why it is so important that we put our trash into the proper containers and recycle as much as we can. Garbage does not simply disappear once it leaves our homes, it all ends up somewhere and has an impact on every single person in some way.
Small actions can have a huge impact.
“As it appears in … full read/full credit/more pictures”
This Thanksgiving, No Place for Refugees at the American Table
Posted on Nov 18, 2015 By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
In the wake of the horrific attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, there has been a crushing backlash against refugees from the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. As Americans prepare for one of the most popular national holidays, Thanksgiving, which commemorates the support and nourishment provided by the indigenous people to English refugees seeking a better life free from religious persecution, a wave of xenophobia is sweeping the country.
In the U.S. Congress, no less than six separate bills have been put forward to block any federal funding to resettle refugees from Syria or Iraq and to empower states to deny entry into their “territory.”
Imagine if all of a sudden we had 50 “statelets” creating their own border checkpoints, stopping all travelers, looking for anyone suspicious, i.e., any and all Syrians.
So far, 31 state governors have essentially demanded this.
Republican Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback issued an executive order forbidding any agency of state government from cooperating in any way with Syrian refugee support efforts. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have called for a pause in the Syrian refugee program, with the support of Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.
(all so called Chrstians)
It has been almost 400 years since that first, fateful Thanksgiving feast in Massachusetts.
Xenophobic policies like those threatening to shut out refugees from these wars, if allowed to stand, should serve as a shameful centerpiece at every Thanksgiving table this year.
The world was shocked when Paris was attacked by extremist on the evening of November 13 and the attacks in Beirut the day before. Humanity weeps for those we have lost in these tragic events, but it we need to look at why this keeps happening.
Russell Brand has published a video of what he thinks we need to do to end terrorism.
His ideas are great.
We must come to the understanding that we are all connected and that we share this planet with each other.
Violence is never the solution to violence, that will only fuel the flames.
If we show nothing but love to each other that will take the power away from the brutality that humans are capable of.
It is time for us to rid ourselves of these wars and unite as one on this planet. When the history of man has reached its closure will it be ridden with acts of hatred .… or will it be the story of a logical and understanding species?
~~Russell Brand Gives The Solutions To Terrorism~~
It’s Time To Wake Up
~~Published on Nov 17, 2015~~
We’ve written about Russell Brand several times on our website, and that’s because he is one celebrity, on an ever-growing list of stars, who is using his tremendous reach in an effort to effect positive change in the world, as well as raise awareness about several key issues that are currently facing our planet.
Israeli settlements are Israeli civilian communities built on lands occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and in the Golan Heights. Settlements previously existed in the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip until Israel evacuated the Sinai settlements following the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace agreement and from the Gaza Strip in 2005 under Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan.
Israel dismantled 18 settlements in the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, and all 21 in the Gaza Strip and 4 in the West Bank in 2005, but continues to both expand its settlements and settle new areas in the West Bank, despite pressure to desist from the international community.
The international community considers the settlements in occupied territory to be illegal,and the United Nations has repeatedly upheld the view that Israel’s construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and communities in the Golan Heights, the latter of which has been annexed by Israel, are also considered settlements by the international community, which does not recognize Israel’s annexations of these territories. The International Court of Justice also says these settlements are illegal in a 2004 advisory opinion.
In April 2012, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, in response to moves by Israel to legalize Israeli outposts, reiterated that all settlement activity is illegal, and
“runs contrary to Israel’s obligations under the Road Map and repeated Quartet calls for the parties to refrain from provocations.”
Similar criticism was advanced by the EU and the US. Israel disputes the position of the international community and the legal arguments that were used to declare the settlements illegal.
In the Occupied West Bank, half a million Israelis live in over a hundred settlements built on Palestinian land. The government of Israel says it has a right to build these settlements; the rest of the world disagrees. Find out why Israelis choose to live on occupied land, how they affect Palestinians, and why, despite international condemnation, the settlements continue to grow.
Refugees of the Syrian Civil War, widely referred to as the Syrian refugees, are Syrian nationals, who have fled Syria with the escalation of the Syrian Civil War.
To escape the violence, more than four million Syrian refugees have fled the country to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, while thousands also ended up in more distant countries of the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf, North Africa and Europe. As of February 2015, Turkey has become the world’s biggest refugee hosting country with 2.1 million Syrian refugees and had spent more than US$6 billion on direct assistance to refugees.
To understand the sheer scale of the Syrian refugee situation, here’s a picture of a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.
~~GRAPHIC SOURCE~~
Racists in Europe are anti-refugee because they think the Syrians will do to the Europeans what the European immigrants did to the Native Americans and Palestinians.
Syrian refugees are choking to death and drowning trying to escape the unspeakable horrors they have faced and yet all some people can say is, “Europe needs to do something and stop the influx of immigrants.”
Yes, it was their choice to take the ride, but not because they were criminals, but because they were chasing hope to live like any human being would.
Have you ever visited a refugee camp?
You sit in an air-conditioned room reading about this on your laptop/phone and say things like, “Wasn’t this an episode of The Wire?”
Try to imagine being one of them.
Locked in the truck, helpless, people dying around you.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”
More than 350,000 refugees have arrived in the 28 nation EU this year. There were 626,000 applications for asylum in 2014. This is in addition to the two million that Turkey has taken in.
Europe is “ground zero” for the refugee crisis.
Frontex, the agency in charge of guarding the EU border, estimates that about 340,000 migrants have tried to sneak into Europe in 2015 so far, almost three times as many as in 2014. Along with the surge in numbers, the demographics of the travelers have also changed.
These days, the bulk of them are Syrians fleeing violence at home, Afghans escaping their own ongoing civil war, Roma from Kosovo looking to avoid discrimination, and Eritreans fleeing a dictatorship comparable to the one in North Korea. Whereas in 2014, the bulk of refugees came to Europe through Italy from Libya and Tunisia, now more people arrive in Greece after crossing Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Macedonia and Hungary have also seen a surge in traffic.
Although the reason for this shift remains uncertain, it seems likely that reports of frequent drownings on the long journey from northern Africa to Italy, and the increasingly volatile situation in Libya, have convinced many refugees to try their luck over land. (Kaelin)
Most of these are fleeing the civil war in Syria, but many others are also fleeing conflicts in Iraq, Nigeria, Somolia, and Sudan.
~~GALLERY~~
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Five issues have recently brought the issue to the forefront of media attention
ONE: a growing number of people have drowned attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea with the support of smugglers in boats. The humanitarian plight was highlighted by photos of a fully-clothed three-year old boy who drowned and whose body washed ashore. Photos of the dead boy laying on a beach were widely distributed across the Internet.
TWO: many refuges who had made their way into Hungary (Hungary is the primary entry point in the EU for refugees) became stranded at the Keleti train station when Hungarian authorities were not letting trains pass to Austria because the refugees hadn’t registered.
THREE: the situation between police and the refugees has turned violent.
FOUR: 71 people were found dead in a smuggler’s truck Southeast of Vienna on August 27th.
FIFTH: there are daily complications from the flow of refugees.
I must say that I wasn’t totally informed about this situation until the picture of the three year old flashed through the internet.
I had heard rumblings about refugees crossing and drowning in the Mediterranean Sea but wasn’t really following the events in that corner of the world.
I’m looking into it now.
What I see is nothing short than massive human suffering caused by conflict, war and major disregard for human rights.
I’ve read that these refugees are victims of US-NATO led wars.
WARS!! INVASION!! GREED!! PROFIT!!
Where is humanity heading?
This senseless violence must stop.
This is the perfect example of “what touches one, touches all”.
As these refugees “move” from home, so many other countries are “affected” as they either ignore the issue or try their hand at compassion.
It Is What It Is 