Reply With Quote
I don't believe that number.
http://www.wisegeek.com/how-much-gar...n-one-year.htm
I'm doing a project on how to make garbage collection more efficient and ran across this little tidbit while researching online.According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American produces about 4.4 pounds (2 kg) of garbage a day, or a total of 29 pounds (13 kg) per week and 1,600 pounds (726 kg) a year. This only takes into consideration the average household member and does not count industrial waste or commercial trash. If this sounds like a staggering number, you would be surprised to know that Americans are not the number one producers of garbage in the world. In Mexico, the average household produces 30 percent more garbage than in America.
I don't believe that number.
Ya I thought that was nuts. I sure as don't produce that much but then again I'm not as much of a slob as most.
They must have been including reccyleables.
Maybe a week, but a day?
No ing way.
Those numbers sound about right. Consumption in this nation is pretty god damn high and you may not personally fill a bag with that much garbage throughout the day but the nation as a whole does. You visit businesses which generate trash throughout the day and you use government and public services that do so as well. It all adds up.
However, I call bull that Mexico is more and if it IS more by household then thats because household sizes in Mexico are larger than in the United States. There is no way its higher per capita.
The EPA says that we produce 243 million tons of solid waste a year in the United States.
243 million / 300 million people = .81 tons of garbage per person per year. A ton is 2000 lbs so that's 1620 llbs per year per person. Divide that by 365 and you get 4.4 lbs per day per person.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/en...ste-per-capita
Per capita figures on that page are pretty close to what I had. They are in Kg so you have to multiply by about 2.2 in order to get the lbs equivilant. Mexico is about half of the US so in order to be 30% above household size would need to be about 3 times the size of the US. I guess thats possible but I think its unlikely.
Yeah did some searching on household size. Avg in Mexico is 3.9 while in the US its 2.6 so I have no idea how that link you put came up with their stat but it would look to be incredibly off.
Mexico produces 43% of the garbage the US does so in order to be 30% above per household they would definitely need to have households 3x the size of the United States.
130/43 = 3.02
They're not even 2 times bigger.
Yeah, but they said, "the average American". They didn't say "average per American". I don't know anyone that produces near 4.4 pounds per day. I don't know enough to know who or where but something is skewing the data.
Nothing is skewing the data. I just showed you how they came up with it.
I see.
The sum total of everything divided by everyone. That does not match with the OP, which states "the average American produces about 4.4 pounds (2 kg) of garbage a day." this implies in our household. These numbers include variables that no individual is responsible for.
Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling,
and Disposal in the United States:
Facts and Figures for 2009
No . Big difference with the terminology, but lib s don't care.
So the OP's link poorly words something and somehow its now liberal's fault?
ing classic.
I promise you that you generate more garbage than you think you do. You simply don't account for the garbage generated by your daily activities but rather just what you ac ulate yourself. Now whether or not you generate that amount, more, or less I cannot tell you but in general most people don't recycle or only recycle a tiny amount of what they actually have a hand in generating.
Aren't you using a double standard here? You are saying (I think) the US numbers are based on per capita, but that Mexico's are per household?
David Robinson probably uses 10x more than anyone else because he has a garbage leak he wasn't aware of.
I have no idea where the article got the Mexian data.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/en...ste-per-capita
No, I'm saying that the article is FOS. They used the household metric which is fairly useless unless the household sizes are the same which they are not. I don't think Mexico is above in either catagory regardless of what the article says because the numbers do not add up. Mexico generates about 40% of the waste per person that we do here and the their household size isn't big enough to make up for that and still be 30% above the US average.
Anyway you measure the numbers you can't make it seem that Mexico generates more solid waste than the United States.
Maybe I do generate more than I would estimate. But it is nowhere near 4.4 pounds. Even you include a good hardy stool, it's not even close.
I promise you that you generate more garbage than you think you do. You simply don't account for the garbage generated by your daily activities but rather just what you ac ulate yourself. Now whether or not you generate that amount, more, or less I cannot tell you but in general most people don't recycle or only recycle a tiny amount of what they actually have a hand in generating.
How do you know? Who do you think is generating all the trash in this country if not the average American, then?
I know how heavy 4.4 pounds is. I lift it every time I take a leak.
ha ha. But seriously, I know I don't generate that much trash. It's not even worth the trouble for me to record a week's worth of my activity.
I'm not sure if you're being serious or not. Do you agree that the "the average American" is different than "per capita"?
Mathwise, it's pretty easy. The average American is x years old, x color, eats x, etc.
The average American does not genreate 4.4 pounds of trash. I don't know who does. Maybe it's all the babies and all the really old people throwing away 10 pounds of diapers a day.
Something extremely simple for residential neighborhoods with the 64-gal provided containers for mechanized pickup:
Every even month, the containers go on the even side of the street, and same for odd month.
This means the truck only has to make one circuit through the area, rather than up and down each street, cutting noise and fuel consumption and maybe number of trucks way down.
If you really wanna be freaked out, look at the pounds of sugar per USA capita over the last several decades.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
