1989
“The volume of garbage keeps growing,” Newsweek reported, “up by 80 percent since 1960, expected to mount an additional 20 percent by 2000. Not including sludge and construction wastes, Americans collectively toss out 160 million tons each year—enough to spread 30 stories high over 1,000 football fields, enough to fill a bumper-to-bumper convoy of garbage trucks halfway to the moon.” Fears grew as new landfills had to open—no one wants a landfill in their neighborhood. By 2017, Americans produced 267.8 million tons of garbage, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.