At CSUMB, one of the required courses of the environmental studies plan includes ENSTU 300: Critical Thinking and Communication in Environmental Studies. This course required us to develop a policy analysis paper on the topic of our choosing. I decided to focus my topic on landfill gases which involved extensive scientific and policy research on methane emission. Not only did this policy paper involve extensive scientific and policy research but also identifying and conducting interviews with various stakeholder and come up with a reasonable recommendation with the information that was gathered. I chose to focus my paper on landfill gases because I was interested in the impact of something that we do not tend to think about. During the beginning of this course, I had become interested in people living a trash-free lifestyle. It got me to think about the impact that I have on landfills and what is being done to minimize our impact.

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Something that was new to me in developing this paper was the little interest that people have on landfills. Through endless research and insightful interviews, there is little to talk about landfill gases. Most of the policy that is directed to landfills is formed at a local level. Living in Monterey County I am lucky to have a waste management district that really cares about how waste is discarded. 

 

 

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