Title: For Air Pollution, Trash Is a Burning Problem | Climate Central
Headings: For Air Pollution, Trash Is a Burning Problem
For Air Pollution, Trash Is a Burning Problem
‘First Best Guess’
What’s in the Emissions
Just a Starting Point

Content: Credit: Ted Christian
Like most residents of developed nations who hadn’t traveled broadly in the developing world, the sight of smoldering rubbish piles, which contain anything from food waste to plastics to electronics, came as a surprise to Wiedinmyer, who works at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
“It’s just not something that I’ve been exposed to,” she told Climate Central. In the U.S., “we have waste management. We have people who pick up trash and take it away.” Ghana, Nepal, Mexico and other developing countries often lack the tax bases and infrastructure needed to put such systems into place. So residents and governments often burn piles of their trash in the open; removing the garbage from the land but transferring it to the skies. Some 40 percent of the world’s waste may be dealt with in this way. RELATED
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