A Note About Trash, And Cities

Trash facts:

• Americans throw away about 5 pounds of trash per year.
• They recycle about 1.5 of those 5 pounds
• Decomposing trash gives off large quantities of methane, which in some places, is fed into a system that uses it to create electricity.
• Paint thinner, nail polish, batteries, transmission fluid and motor oil are toxic in landfills (and groundwater if the chemicals are not contained).

--from "This is Paradise" by Jeanne Marie Laskas, GQ Magazine May 2009

Published in the New York Times just a few days ago, "Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash":
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10patch.html?_r=1&ref=science

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"Around a billion people--almost half of the developing world's urban population--live in slums"
--from "The Megacity" by George Packer, published in The New Yorker, November 13, 2006

A slum, according to the UN definition, is a place where people live with any one of the following conditions:

1. Inadequate access to safe water
2. Inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure
3. Poor structural quality of housing
4. Overcrowding
5. Insecure residential status