Sweden, one of the happiest countries in the world , generates about million tonnes of waste a year, the 15th most of the countries for which data is available. But only a small fraction of that — about 2. The rest is mostly medical and hazardous waste. Though Sweden is among the countries producing the most waste, largely due to the large amount of construction waste, the nation has made improvements in recycling this waste.
This kind of waste has been prioritized in the national waste plan and in its waste prevention program. Armenia produces relatively little municipal waste, with nearly , tons in It also ranks among the countries producing the least amount of agricultural and construction waste. Of the nearly 48 million tons of total waste the country produces, Armenia does not have processing plants or specialized sites to treat and bury waste, partly explaining its waste problem.
Its first solid waste landfill has been in the making since Just about 3. Almost half of it is burned, a trend that has only been improving over the last several years.
Recycling has also been increasing because it's a highly advocated method of waste management in the country and in Europe in general. The housing sector in Finland, one of the richest countries in the world, has been growing due to low mortgage rates and expanding urban areas, resulting in an increased demand for new buildings, especially with small apartments in centrally located zones.
Estonia, a rising tourism destination where tourists sometimes outnumber locals , produces a total amount of nearly 31 million metric tons of garbage, and a third of that is hazardous waste. The country generates more than 35 times the EU average of hazardous waste per capita, with almost all of it coming from the oil shale sector.
Ash and other waste from combusting and refining ends up in landfill, polluting the air with toxic substances. The country has set regulations for discharging of hazardous waste with taxes imposed if such waste is dumped into water, but payment of these taxes is not strictly enforced, resulting in weak incentive for companies to reduce their environmental footprint, according to the OECD.
House hunting? The housing market is about to shift in a bad way for buyers. The United States, with the third-largest population of all countries, produced the most municipal solid waste in the world — million tonnes of MSW was generated in By contrast, second-place China generated million tonnes of MSW in Adding to this total the World Bank's special waste categories of industrial, medical, E waste, hazardous, and agricultural waste, the U.
While the U. Plastic microbeads are estimated to be one million times more toxic than the seawater around it. Products containing microbeads can release , tiny beads with just one squeeze. Of that , , tonnes float on the surface. Between 4. One garbage truck of plastic is discarded into our oceans every minute. Approximately 5, items of marine plastic pollution have been found per mile of beach in the UK.
Plastic has been found as far as 11km deep , contaminating the most remote places on Earth. Plastic in the sea is predicted to increase tenfold by Yearly, up to It escapes from landfill sites, floats down our drains, ends up in rivers and makes its way into our oceans.
A lot of plastic waste is invisible to the naked eye, it collects in ocean gyres, where marine life feeds. The impact this has on the ecosystem, marine life and humans are potentially irreversible. The patch is , square miles or 1. It contains 8 trillion bits of plastic, weighing more than 80, tonnes. This trash vortex is a collection of two distinct patches connected by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. There are 5 major ocean gyres which accumulate millions of pieces of plastic; our wildlife feed in these grounds.
Two patches are connected to create one large vortex comprised of 1. Along with large items of plastic being ingested and entangling wildlife, the plastic debris in the patch blocks plankton and algae from receiving any sunlight. Plankton and algae produce nutrients for other creatures from carbon and sunlight if their existence is threatened the entire food web may change.
Over 1 million seabirds and , marine mammals are killed by ocean plastic every year. How many animals die from ocean plastic pollution? While the true figure may not be known, we can estimate over , marine mammals and over 1 million seabirds are killed by ocean plastic every year. With so many animals mistaking plastic items and particles for food, or becoming entangled, the impact of plastic waste on marine life has become a global crisis.
Animals consuming plastic can starve to death as the plastic fills their stomach preventing them from eating proper food, rupturing their organs or blocking food from traveling to the intestine.
In one case in the Philippines a curvier beaker whale was found vomiting blood with over 88 pounds of plastic in its belly. Its body started to destroy itself from the inside due to the plastic waste. Plastic pollution facts show it is ridding the world of m arine species, with over on the edge of extinction, including Hawaiian monk seals and loggerhead sea turtles.
Along with larger mammals even the tiniest organisms can be impacted by toxic microplastics which in turn make their way up the food chain. Your typical clothes wash will produce around , microplastic fibers. The US discards 2 billion razors and 1 billion plastic toothbrushes a year. There are numerous reasons for ocean pollution, including toxic chemicals, nuclear waste and oil spillages, but plastic waste is high on that list.
Sewer overflows, beach visitors leaving rubbish, insufficient waste management, construction, and illegal dumping all contribute to the vast sum of plastics entering our oceans. More than 1 million plastic bag s end up in the trash every minute. If you linked them end to end they would circle the globe 4, times. Less than 1 in 7 plastic bags are recycled. The US is responsible for around billion bags that end up in the seas.
A plastic bag is used on average for 15 minutes. It can take anything between years for a plastic bag to break up. The total generation of MSW in was This is an increase from the Per capita MSW generation increased from 4.
See Food: Material-Specific Data. Paper and paperboard products made up the largest percentage of all the materials in MSW, at Generation of paper and paperboard products declined from Generation of newspapers has been declining since , and this trend is expected to continue, partly due to decreased page size, but mainly due to the increased digitization of news.
The generation of office-type high grade papers also has been in decline, due at least partially to activities such as the increased use of the electronic transmission of reports. Paper and paperboard products have ranged between Food waste comprised the fourth largest material category, estimated at Yard trimmings comprised the next largest material category, estimated at This compares to 35 million tons The decline in yard trimmings generation since is largely due to state legislation discouraging yard trimmings disposal in landfills, including source reduction measures such as backyard composting and leaving grass trimmings on the yard.
In , plastic products generation was This was an increase of 4. Plastics generation has grown from 8. Plastics generation as a percent of total generation has varied from In , 2. The total MSW recycled was more than 69 million tons, with paper and paperboard accounting for approximately 67 percent of that amount. Metals comprised about 13 percent, while glass, plastic and wood made up between 4 and 5 percent. Measured by tonnage, the most-recycled products and materials in were corrugated boxes Collectively, these products accounted for 90 percent of total MSW recycling in Check out our Reduce, Reuse, Recycle web area for more information on recycling.
The total MSW composted was 25 million tons. This included approximately Other methods of food management were estimated for the first time in In , Food made up the largest component of MSW combusted at approximately 22 percent. Rubber, leather and textiles accounted for over 16 percent of MSW combustion.
Plastics comprised about 16 percent, and paper and paperboard made up about 12 percent. The other materials accounted for less than 10 percent each. Check out our Municipal Solid Waste Landfills page for more information, and visit our Landfills web area for information on other landfills.
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