Mumbai is famous for its spreading sickness, pollution, inadequate landfills, and dangerous wastes. Millions of people live there, but most of them live in slums. Mumbai floods when it rains a lot, and at high tide. Garbage often clogs storm drains, and so the water builds up. There are about 100000 people living on every square mile. The city, which is made up of 7 islands, is in between 33-49 feet above sea level. Not much help at all if it floods. There are also landslides and monsoons. Mumbai once was a fishing village, but it now is refuge for tons of hazardous electronic waste that we send there. The reason is that it is much less expensive for us to get rid of waste in India then in the USA. But the waste there isn't treated properly. It isn't disposed of with the correct consideration for the environment. Most of it is dumped right into a heap. That isn't an immediate problem, if you don't count the smell and toxic fumes, and that it takes up space and is not being recycled, no. It begins to be a real problem when it disintegrates. Then, all the mercury and lead and other dangerous materials start to come out. The air becomes more toxic then it is now, and people get sick. This is a problem for us to. The chemicals come out into the air and we breathe in that air. It's not just India that is going to get sick. What about the flooding? Many of the U.S.'s big cities are built close to sea level too. In fact, Mumbai's lowest elevation point is where New York stands towards the Atlantic Ocean.
But what will help Mumbai? The slums. There are no recycling programs in Mumbai, (that i know of at least,) except for these. The slum dwellers buy stuff from junk dealers, so to speak, and companies. They clean the products up and sell them again. They reduce, reuse, recycle, and relocate the stuff. Who would of thought that?
Thought's about YOU ARE HERE by Thomas M. Kostigen
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