Trash Generation
On average, how many pounds of trash does each U.S. resident generate per day?
Correct Answer
Americans generate about 292 million tons of trash per year, or about 4.9 pounds per person per day. Of this, 50% is placed in landfills, 24% is recycled, 12% is burned for energy, and 9% is composted. Contrary to the notion that the U.S. is running out of landfill space, even if the U.S. stopped recycling and buried all of its municipal trash for the next 100 years in a 30-foot-high landfill, it would cover only 0.06% of the nation’s land area. More realistically, the actual area in use will be an order of magnitude smaller because landfills can be more than 200 feet high, and after 30 to 50 years, landfills are often covered and used for purposes such as parks, golf courses, ski slopes, and airfields.
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Trump’s Guard Deployments
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D–MA) claims that President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C. isn’t about “public safety” but a “political stunt” because “violent crime is flat,” the “same as last year.”
