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How Much Garbage Does the Average Person produce in a Year?

How Much Trash Does a Person produce in a Year on average?


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The answer to this question is quite shocking. I guess I should tell you not to be too shocked because Mexico actually produces 30% more garbage (per one individual) than America. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states that on average, one person can create up to 20 pounds a week in waste material. Yearly, this adds up to 1,600 pounds of garbage per person in the household. How much garbage is that? Enough to cover the great state of Texas, not once, but TWICE! Just in case you were wondering how big Texas is, www.wikipedia.org states that its area equals 268,820 square miles!

Having a hard time trying to wrap your mind around those numbers? You have to understand that the bulk of waste in landfills is packaging, mainly paper and plastic packaging, which contributes to roughly 35% of landfill waste. The saddest part about this information is that according to www.ecomii.com, 65% of landfill components consist of organic materials. What this means is that 65% of what is in a landfill can be recycled or used in composting.

If everyone were making a genuine effort to recycle and reuse, this would greatly impact the staggering numbers that were mentioned before. It does take time and effort, but not necessarily a lot of work to recycle. Separate your plastics, papers, glass, wood, metals, and aluminums. You should also take into consideration your clothes, electronics or old furniture you may not want anymore. Just because you don’t want or need those things does not mean that their shelf life has expired. Try to contact an outreach program, churches, or other donation sites in your area or community to see what options are available to you. Those are all things that can be reused.
Oct 11th, 2012 at 5:09 AM
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