Waste

Sunday

June 11, 2023

The waste disposal racket

The conceit that today’s US householder has never been better served, nor had more choices, has been put about for many years. The evidence often suggests otherwise. It’s a peculiar feature of our times that we’re constantly reminded how our “consumer experience” has so improved, and yet actually endure it as having worsened. Anyone who’s spent forty minutes on hold listening to the canned strains of Barry Manilow while being intermittently assured how truly vital their call is, and that the next available representative will be with them shortly, may know what I mean.

Monday

November 25, 2019

James Adams

How tech is trying to solve America’s trash pile-up

Households in America produce 254 tons of trash annually and only 34 percent is recycled. Every person creates 1,316 pounds of trash destined the landfill, about the weight of a grizzly bear. America represents 4 percent of the world’s population yet produces 12 percent of the world’s waste and Germany recycles around twice as much as the US. The statistics tell one story. A different tale is that recycling programs across the country are failing as companies struggle to make money and the amount of waste that ends up as landfill is growing every year. It’s a depressing story of failed ambition confronted by market realities that has left the mountains of trash growing as a monument to American excess and unchecked environmental pollution.