How Junk Removal Affects Communities

The United States is at the center of the global waste crisis. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the country produces up to 292.4 million tons of waste per year, which amounts to 4.9 pounds per person per day. That said, there is a need to create sustainable solutions to combat the existing waste problem that harms communities and the environment. 

Maryville University highlights how sustainability means managing resources without depleting them for future generations. This is a concept that goes beyond natural resources because it also takes into account people’s social and economic needs. When made sustainable, junk removal can be a key solution to the crisis and exert influence beyond the environment. For local communities, it can ignite an eco-friendly culture of support and interpersonal care.

The waste removal ways that can affect communities

Sustainable junk removal is not as simple as hauling away clutter and old items. It is a collaboration between professional removal services, homeowners, and property managers to minimize the environmental impact of the junk through proper disposal, segregation, and recycling. Today, we’ll discuss three ways junk removal can affect communities:

1. It helps reduce landfill waste

When people dispose of their unwanted items, they often throw them in the trash. If this trash is not handled correctly, it can end up in landfills, where it will stay for years until it has decomposed. Landfills release astonishing methane levels, a potent chemical contributing to 20% of the global greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change. Diverting waste from landfills is an important part of sustainable junk removal.

Hiring a sustainable junk removal service ensures that your old furniture or appliances go somewhere other than landfills—whether it’s recycling facilities or donation centers. When communities practice sustainable junk removal, there will be a considerably lower volume of trash in local landfills and fewer pollutants in the atmosphere that could harm the environment.

2. It improves the health of communities

Unsustainable waste disposal methods pose health hazards to local communities. Incinerators, for instance, are considered a threat to public health as burning releases pollutants such as particulate matter, metals, acids, and an innumerable amount of substances of unknown toxicity. These chemicals could harm communities and lead to diseases such as asthma and lung cancer. Landfills, on the other hand, can cause an uptick in health issues for nearby residents.

A feature by CNN found that residents from Staten Island, home of the defunct Fresh Kills landfill, suffered from certain cancers at slightly or moderately higher rates than those from other boroughs. With sustainable junk removal, the waste management process becomes more sustainable and will lessen negative impacts on community members’ physical health and wellness.

3. It supports a circular economy

The circular economy concept emphasizes cutting out activities that impact human health and natural systems. Sustainable junk removal supports a circular economy because it ensures resources are reused and repurposed instead of contributing to a wasteful environmental footprint. Here at Junk Removal Advice, we featured furniture pickup as a way to eliminate old furnishings while getting a chance to donate them to local charities that support community members in need.

This kind of sustainable junk removal is at the heart of the circular economy movement, which looks at the flow of resources through an ecosystem and considers how they can be reused or recycled to extract more value from products for the benefit of the entire community.

Junk removal is an integral part of sustainable waste management for local communities. It helps keep our environment clean and allows us to reuse or properly dispose of items that would otherwise be discarded as trash. It also reduces the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills and incinerators, which helps make our planet a cleaner and safer place.

Article written by Raine James