Besides, these landfills pollute their surroundings area with lots of hazardous materials and contaminate underground water. To discover the contamination of the underground water it would be 12 years after the poisons-benzene; formaldehyde; mercury; and BCEE- have actually contaminated the land, and had sunk 24 feet into the ground contaminating about 50 million gallons of underground water. Besides, these lands could be used in more useful ways such as building schools, hospitals, or simply turning them into large green areas to purify the air. This problem is practically acute in Egypt, since we do find, even in central areas of the city, piles of garbage disposed very near to residential areas. Recycling would therefore eliminate this problem and protect the environment.
If we consider burning as an alternative, well it is not very advantageous, so often burning is done in incinerators. Incineration is the process of disposing of the "combustible" portion of the community wastes. This burning pollutes the air in the area around it. It is not the way to solve the problem of recycling because it solves one problem by creating another, which is air pollution. In this process a number of pollutants are emitted which poisons the air. Carbon dioxide and lead are byproducts of burning that most health organizations consider highly toxicating. These byproducts affect children mentally and physically. In addition, carbon dioxide is considered one of the main reasons of global warming because the molecule itself captures heat an stores it in it thus creating the green house effect. Plastics are rather toxicating when burnt, Acrylic type plastics emit HCN gas, Bromine components that are added to plastics results in the emission of HBr, which are all dangerous pollutants. Obviously burning cannot be considered an alternative and as stated in Consumer Reports, "Recycling does help to keep garbage out of landfills and incinerators, both of which pose environmental problems.
