Americans produce a significant amount of garbage each year, averaging 4.4 pounds per person daily. This adds up to over 1,600 pounds of trash per person annually. The large volume of garbage has serious environmental consequences, as it takes up landfill space and emits harmful chemicals when burned or decomposing. Most trash is packaging waste like food containers, but other common landfill items include office paper, diapers, plastic bags, and Styrofoam. The document calls for individuals to educate themselves on recycling and reducing waste to lessen environmental impacts.

1. Garbage and Landfills
By Jared Wolt

2. We create WAY TOO
MUCH garbage
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American* produces
about 4.4 pounds of garbage a day, or a total of 29 pounds (13 kg) per week and 1,600
pounds (726 kg) a year.
With the garbage produced in America alone, you could:
• Form a line of filled‐up garbage trucks and reach the moon
• Or cover the state of Texas two and a half times
• Or bury more than 990,000 football fields under six‐foot high (1.8 meter high) piles
of waste.
• According to WM Recycle America, LLC, Americans alone throw away enough
aluminum to duplicate the full commercial air fleet of the US.
(*In Mexico, the average household produces 30 percent more garbage than in America)
Most of the stuff that fills the landfills is packaging, especially in the form of fast‐food
containers ‐ but office paper, disposable diapers, Styrofoam inserts, and plain plastic bags
also contribute an important percentage to the total waste production of the country.
Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/how‐much‐garbage‐does‐a‐person‐create‐in‐one‐year.htm

3. Burning OUR
garbage
often puts
dangerous
chemicals in
the air and
adds to global
warming

4. Photo credit: www.boston.com
In landfills, grass won’t grow anymore and dangerous
chemicals go can go into the ground

5. EVERYDAY things cause many problems for our planet
Leather shoes take 40 years to decompose
Plastic bags take
1,000 years to
decompose
Photo source: REUTERS/Rafiqur Rahman
Photo source:
www.worldproutassembly.org
Plastic bottles NEVER, EVER decompose

6. WE CAN
Reducing Global Warming
by Recycling ...
Photo credits: www.egtrashrecycleservices.org
MUST EDUCATE ourselves
We

7. http://www.ohiou.edu/news/months/MARCH2000/135.HTML
WE CAN
volunteer to benefit OUR community

8. WE CAN Be Responsible

9. YES
WE
CAN!
Photo source: www.nrc-recycle.org/americarecycles.aspx
to Recycle, Reuse and Reduce

10. Now that
YOU KNOW
what will
YOU DO?
A presentation by Jared Wolt