There are plenty of issues in the country of Jamaica, but there are three very important environmental issues that need to be addresses and get help with, not only are these issues bad for our environment but information technology is also taking place in one of these issue that are playing a huge role in our environment. The first issue that needs to be addresses is deforestation, Jamaica is a beautiful country with tropical forests and wide lands but now half of their trees are nearly gone due to the need of wood for fuel and agriculture productions. To make things worst they are not even planting new trees after being cut down which is not good for our environment. This leads to my second most important issue which is air pollution, the less trees the more pollutions is being increased. Trees can absorb CO2 in air and with the cut down of trees there will be more CO2 in the atmosphere then there was before. My third and last major issue is waste, there is plenty of waste being distributed in the water and beneath us dug up in the ground. The problem with waste is that their dumping in areas that are causing more harm, one of these wastes are things like information technologies, such as old computers, old TV’s and other worned down technology being dumped in Jamaica’s land. These 3 major issues need to be decreased and stopped before it’s too late.
Deforestation is a world wide problem but in Jamaica there trees are decreasing dramatically. Many of Jamaica’s beautiful forests are being destroyed for other human resources. This becomes very harmful to the country because of the natural ecosystems that sustain the wild life and the wetlands that make Jamaica such a popular sightseeing country. The more humans come to visit the country the more they have to keep building new industries which is causing a big impact to the environment. According to the World Rainforest Movement more than 75% of original forests has been lost and it’s all due to making more room for agriculture. Not only is it causing more agriculture to be developed but it’s also affecting animals that live in the forest. The less trees the less animals there will be and many will either become an endangered species or worst they will become extinct. Deforestation is taking away the homes of many species. Jamaica has more than 400 different types of species living in forests and with the cut down of trees nearly half of those species either migrated or extinct. Some of these species only exist in Jamaica and no other country in the world which shows how much deforestation is taking a toll in the environment as well as the wildlife.
Like I said before trees absorb the CO2 admissions from motor vehicle and industrial activity which is a good thing because it’s reducing the size of air pollution in the atmosphere but with so many trees being cut down the CO2 is increasingly astonishingly. We know that cars and industry’s cause pollution but so do fires and an increase in population. Forest fires are very common in Jamaica, they either start by human activity or by lightning. With forests being burned to the ground they cause a lot of co2 into the air creating an enormous amount of smoke around the area, which is not only bad for the environment but for the people as well. The CO2 admissions are becoming harder to decrease because there is too much of it being exposed which can cause Jamaica to have bad weather. Air pollution causes our ecosystem to have unusual weather, either extremely high temperature of very low temperature then what the average should be.
Another way to release air pollution is the dumping of waste in various areas in Jamaica. The smoke and dust from the waste particles cause air pollution. The biggest dumping site in Jamaica is the Riverton City Dump which has tons of solid waste and as well e-waste like computers, old cell phones, and other used technology. These information technologies are causing a detriment to our environment and health. The only thing you can do with such hard ware is to burn it but with so much burning of plastic and other hard materials this will cause an enormous amount of air pollution. Even though technology can help in so many ways with internet access, saving paper, emails and other resources these information technologies will be bad in the long run with newer technology being made. We need to figure out a way to reuse these old software’s, like phones and computer too put them into the new technology being made. There will never be an end to e-waste with so much advanced technology.
The major issue in dumping e-waste in Jamaica is the level of toxic materials that are in these information technologies. Many computers, TVs and cell phone have chemicals like lead, barium, cadmium and mercury that are extremely hazardous when they are being disposed of. Why are these toxic materials so hazardous? Well cadmium is very dangerous when you breathe it in, it messes up your lungs and there for you have trouble breathing. Lead is also unsafe for people because if a child or an adult happens to swallow it, the lead will begin to attack the nervous system and have major problems within your body. Problems like brain damage, stomach ache, blood anemia and muscle weakness. Which is why E-waste is very harmful to humans it can kill us and even the surrounding that it is dumped on.
Usually big countries like the United States and Europe like to dump e-waste in smaller developed countries like Jamaica. Which is not good because even though Jamaica is smaller than the US and Europe they still need to figure out a way to dispose of e-waste in an environmental friendly way. The government of Jamaica decided to create a policy and an industry to recycle e-waste and manage the issue. Andrew Holness who is the minister of education proclaimed that these future industries should fix these old computers and make them useful for schools that don’t have computers. That way they can improve the education of children in low income school. This is a great idea to recycle e-waste and make it helpful for the environment and for the schools as well.
Jamaica is a beautiful country with many environmental issues that need to be helped with. Human activity has made these problems happen and the reason deforestation, air pollution and e-waste exist. Information technology has currently made the environment worst with so much e-waste causing harmful impacts to the environment, animals and humans. If these three big environmental issues keep increasing their will be major damage in our lives and the ecosystem. The only way to stop deforestation is to minimize the amount of trees being cut down every year and replant more than three trees for every tree being cut down in Jamaica. To decrease air pollution we should have less agriculture being built and have less cars driving around. It’s not much but it can help a lot and make a big difference. For e-waste we should recycle and reuse these old information technologies before they create hazardous waste and become dangerous for people and the environment. Technology has grown astonishingly every year and the only way to keep information technologies around is by recycling and not have any dumping sites in Jamaica.