What I learn in the quiz
Chicago is the first city that I visit in the United States, and I have been in here about five years. If people ask me about anything I know about Chicago, I will probably say that Chicago is as known as wind city, and that would be all. I didnt know anything about Chicago because I am not a scientist, and I dont have to know, but since my English professor gave a quiz which is requiring me to do research and get to know more about Chicago, I learned a lot from it. I cannot say that I understand Chicago so well, but I can say that I learned some knowledge about Chicago in science. For example, an easy question that where am I now. I will answer that we are in northern Illinois, at the south western tip of Lake Michigan by googling geography of Chicago. More than that, I also found that Chicago is a worthy place, and we should have an environmental awareness which is protecting our environment and saving natural resources because the treatments for reducing pollutions are complicated. Then, the reason that I am considering Chicago is a worthy place is that many valuable materials and plants can be found in Chicago area.
The 33rd and 34th question are asking for the valuable materials and plants in Chicago or around Chicago. When I researched online, I found that there are a lot. The materials including limestone, dolomite, building stone, sand, gravel, clay, silica sand, Tripoli, peat, and fluorite are all valuable and can be used in some way. Especially, building stone can be found in Chicago, and the building stone was used to build Springfield. In addition, we can also find valuable plants in Chicago. Angelica archangelica is one of them, and this plant is a medicinal plant that can be found in The University of Illinois Medical Center. For its use, it is a description that the leaf is used to treat rheumatic pain, act as a urinary antiseptic in cystitis, and regulates menstrual flow. After I finished these two questions, I suddenly feel that Chicago is such a nice place. Nevertheless, a fly in the ointment is that Chicago still has some problems of pollution. Even though we have treatment for the pollution, but it costs money, and the treatment is complicated. (Ramon, 2016) (Richard, 2016)
I came up with this idea when I was doing the research. I found that there are several pollutions in Chicago like wastewater pollution, and the treatments of the pollutions are complicated. There is a problem in the quiz that when you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water? When I saw this question, I did research online, and I got the answer that the solids go to the trunk sewer, and the waste water has to pass the wastewater treatments to purify. The wastewater treatment is necessarily needed because without the wastewater treatment, the wastewater and the solids will flow into the river and the ocean, and it becomes water pollution. I found that there are three steps of treatment to purify the wastewater, primary treatment, secondary treatment and tertiary treatment. In the first treatment, wastewater will be screened to remove large debris. After that, wastewater will be pumped to a higher elevation. Because of gravity, the scums will float to the top, and the sludge will sink to the bottom in the sedimentation tanks. After the scum and sludge removed to the digester, the secondary treatment begins. In the secondary treatment, 90 percent of the pollution will be removed. In this step, oxygen is important because it helps to grow the bacteria which are feed on the organic waste in the water. After two to eight hours, floc is generated, and the floc will be removed before the third step. The third step is the tertiary treatment which removes the remaining floc, organic and inorganic matter. In this step, the harmful bacteria are killed because chlorine was added. Then, the pollution in the wastewater is removed, and it can flow to the river. We can see that how complicated is it for the wastewater treatment. However, this is just one of the pollutions and treatments in Chicago. (Todd, 20xx)
In the quiz, it is a question that what happens to the items you recycle from your neighborhood. The answer to this question is that the items will go to the Materials Recovery Facility. Before, we didnt have recycle program yet, and all the garbage went directly to the landfill and became pollution. After people notice that some garbage can be recycled, recycle program were developed. It helps to reduce pollution and save resources. In Chicago, we have the Blue Cart Recycling Service, and they are using a single stream recycling system. The single stream recycling system is also complicated because there are several steps to complete. First of all, the recycle garbage is separate with regular garbage. The recycle garbage is collected by truck to the Materials Recovery Facility. In the recycling process, the ferrous metals are attracting first, and the remaining products including aluminum product, plastic and glass will go toward the current rotor. After the aluminum items are separated with other items, plastic materials are pushed into a bin by the scanning system. The remaining product which is the glass is collected at the end of the recycling process. Otherwise, for the last question which is asking about where the garbage goes, the answer is that the trash will go to the landfill. And yet, unfortunately, it would also become pollution. (City of Chicago, 2011-2016) (Jason, 2012)
In conclusion, it is no doubt that Chicago is a beautiful city in my mind, but it is not perfect because of the pollutions. Hence, we can make up our minds to help reducing pollution, and it is also some environmental friendly advice in the quiz that talks about how can we help to reduce pollutions. For example, to prevent wasting resources, we can use composting toilets. Composting toilet helps saving water by using little to no water, and the materials from this toilet can be used as soil amendment which is valuable and suitable. Besides, plastics can not break down in the environment, and only some plastic can be reused. Therefore, instead of using plastics, we can use reusable products. And also, We can use reused items for reducing non-reusable waste, and we can use recycled products instead of non-recycle waste. In this quiz, I learn somethings that I didnt know before about Chicago, and we should have environment awareness that we should protect our environment. Resource:
Richard C. Berg. (2016). Illinois’ Industrial Minerals. Illinois State Geological Survey. Retrieved from
http://isgs.illinois.edu/research/industrial-minerals/illinois-industrial-minerals
Ramon G. (2016). Medicinal Plant Garden in Chicago. Mrbrown Thumb.
Retrieved from
http://mrbrownthumb.blogspot.com/2008/07/medicinal-plant-garden-in-chicago.html
Todd C. (2016). Answer Geek: After You Flush. ABC New.
Retrieved from
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98681&page=1
City of Chicago. (2011-2016). About Blue Cart Recycling. City of Chicago.
Retrieved from
https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/streets/supp_info/recycling1/about_blue_cart_recycling.html#process
Jason, M. (2012). Where does our garbage go. WBEZ Chicago.
Retrieved from:
https://www.wbez.org/shows/afternoon-shift/where-does-our-garbage-go/02fbd38c-7e6c-4c4e-9dc9-0ae32c36c267