Classy Industries

2748 Laconia Ave, Bronx, Ny 10469

Date: December 2, 2020

To: Mr. Otte, Professor at City College

From: Ahmad Arif, Research operator

Subject: How an average person can help keep New York clean and contribute towards stopping Global Warming!

Purpose

The purpose for my proposal is to provide ways in which an average person can help clean NYC and contribute towards stopping the Global Warming. I would like to propose some entertaining ways in which a person can achieve this.

Summary

On October 15,2020, Mr. Otte, Professor at City College asked us to make a proposal of an engineering invention that would in one way or another benefit New York City. After some digging, I understood how NYC is very polluted in multiple ways. My point of focus is mainly with the pollution that disturbs the health of the people of NYC.

I have done my research and found out what are the causes that lead to this pollution, who is responsible for this, how are we all being affected by this, how long is this process, what resources we need and lastly how will this change help us.

My study is a bit behind schedule but I expect this to be submitted on the due date and will be doing a couple of peer reviews along the way.

Introduction

On October 15,2020, Mr. Otte, Professor at City College asked us to make a proposal of an engineering invention that would in one way or another benefit New York City. The final proposal I came up for this engineering innovation was how an average person can help clean NYC and contribute towards stopping Global Warming. 

Figure[1]

Figure [1] helps us to understand how carbon emission in the last 400,000 has risen over time on earth. We can clearly see that the rate started to increase at an immense speed once the industrial age had begun in the 19th century. In the industrial age, hand tools were replaced with machinery to speed up the process time it took to build an object which then resulted in loads of CO2 and since has the method carried on of using machinery for anything and everything in the industry.

My motivation for this proposal comes from my childhood. I was a 10 year old boy living in Pakistan. We used to have movie nights once a month where the whole family used to gather up to watch a Hollywood movie. I remember this movie playing and showing us how clean and neat New York City is. It was a dream for all of us to be here. In the year of 2014 we came to NYC. To my shock the city of light did not live up to its name. I was shocked to see the amount of pollution there was in the city. Ever Since then I have wondered how I can help to clean my city where I have been living for the past 6 years. Now that I have had an opportunity to come up with a proposal I have decided to propose a booth all around NYC which helps in depositing waste by a person. This booth helps in such a way that where a person can trash their item and some impressive screen work is shown of what they saved from happening  if they had thrown it at a place where the trash doesn’t deserve. I believe it will help global warming in such a way that people get inspired by these booths all around the world because as we all know New York City carries a lot of attention as a lot of tourists come here for visits. Hopefully this will encourage them to think about this idea and slowly but surely implement this in their home countries or advise their city councils for an innovation like this. Kids are known to litter and I believe this booth can help them to stop littering which will cause a huge difference to the pollution in NYC. Another thing that the booth can do is to clean the air and also produce some clean air, while doing so it shows an animation where bad smoke is coming into the machine and how clean air is exiting. I believe, in New York City it is very important to have clean air because as reported by Nyc.gov “Health Department estimates show that each year, PM2. 5 pollution in New York City causes more than 3,000 deaths, 2,000 hospital admissions for lung and heart conditions, and approximately 6,000 emergency department visits for asthma in children and adults. This is a very disturbing report and we need to raise awareness where in this case the booth will also come handy in displaying facts about global warming. I believe this booth will be very effective as it brings entertainment to the person throwing the trash in it and it will make throwing trash at the right place more exciting. The main area of my study during this draft would be around the field of:

• Finding the cause of the pollution in NYC
• Finding a way to end this pollution
• Providing more ideas to how to improve this system
• Keeping track with the pollution once its in working order

Results of Research 

In this progress report, I will present my work in different tasks. Task 1 will show my research, Task 2 will show an understanding to the topic and Task 3 will show my status.

Task 1: Acquire a basic understanding of what and where does this pollution mainly come from into NYC.

According to SFGATE “ New York City is grappling to find solutions for its pollution problems. According to the American Lung Association, stricter soot controls could potentially save more than 3,000 lives every year in the greater New York metropolitan area. Pollution in New York City stems from sewer overflows, runoff, land pollution from plastic bottles and garbage and air pollution.” this quote here helps us to understand how in crowded areas of New York City such as Manhattan we see quite a lot of sewer overflows and land pollution due to people littering in that area. People throwing their trash where it doesn’t belong can harm many places within the city. As they said it harms the sewer flow, it harms it in such a way that the garbage such as plastic bottles and cardboard on the land ends up going into the sewers and blocking up the flow of the sewer which can cause great harm. According to New York Today “Sanitation officials said many of the photos online do not stem from poor trash pickup, but rather from illegal dumping and littering, which they said can be difficult to prevent.

In 2018, sanitation officials issued the following number of summonses:

• 284 for illegal dumping
• 536 for improper garbage disposal
• 367 for littering from a vehicle
• 829 for pedestrian littering.”

These are big numbers that add up and are a leading factor in the pollution in NYC, and keep in mind this is only the city of New York.

Task 2: Acquire a basic understanding of what all resources are needed for the booth to get into affect and other minor ways in which we can reduce carbon emissions.

Global Warming has been a great issue all over the world. It is very important to come up with new ways to conquer it. As I introduced my recycling booth it is not as easy as it sounds. It comes with many issues. First challenge that I faced was will this be cost efficient. I did my research and found out that booths are quite expensive and it might be hard to have booths all around NYC. Then i came up with this idea, why not put them in the spots where people are most excited to go around NYC. The top 3 most visited spots in NYC are Times Square, Central Park and Statue of Liberty. We place the booths which cost around 2-5 thousand per booth as per the requirements which i will list shortly, near the most visited places. This booth will have these features;

• 12 feet Booth
• 4 feet wide
• Led display that shows the process 
• Disposal pocket large enough to fit in any waste that an average person can throw into a streets corner garbage bin
• Comes with a separate 3000L storage area where plastics, metals and cardboards are being separately stored.

Other minor ways in which an average person can help keep New York clean and contribute towards stopping Global Warming are:

• Know your carbon print.
• Pull the plugs when not needed.
• Reduce water waste.
• Eat the food you buy and reduce meat as it uses 10% of US energy into growing and packaging it.
• Power your houses with renewable energy.

Task 3: My status with my proposal.

I hope after reading this proposal you are convinced that we must take action now. It is very vital we set up the booths now. We already have many health warnings going around the city for Covid-19 and New Yorkers responded quite well and listened. I believe this is the right time to advertise Global Warming and to use these booths in NYC and the world. 

In conclusion, Global Warming has been a serious issue in the world and as the famous saying goes “ Now or Never”, we must take action against it. As a New Yorker I have proposed ways in which an average person can help keep New York clean and contribute towards stopping Global Warming.

Work Cited

Kilgannon, Corey. “Talking Trash in New York, and Taking Photos of It.” The New York Times. The New York Times, August 13, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/nyregion/newyorktoday/nyc-news-trash.html. 

Odach, Robin. “Pollution in NYC.” Home Guides | SF Gate, November 17, 2020. https://homeguides.sfgate.com/pollution-nyc-79338.html.