11.8: Waste Management
Modern humans create much more waste than our animal counterparts and even our human predecessors. According to the EPA, the average American produces nearly 5lbs of trash per day, the majority of which is paper and food waste. Compare that with 1960 - when the average was only 2.68lbs of trash per person, per day (EPA, 2023a). Obviously the amount of garbage the U.S. is producing has increased substantially over the last 70 years. This waste is usually categorized as one of the following: municipal solid waste, special waste, or hazardous waste, with certain considerations for the disposal of each (Frumkin, 2016). But once it is removed from household or industrial trash bins, it doesn’t just disappear. What do we do with it? Do we store it somewhere? Recover it and use it to make other products? Pay another country to take it? And what is the effect of all of this refuse on the environment and the planet as a whole?