History of Garbage
A Columbia University professor, dumpster diving into NYC Sanitation Department records, has found a number of counterintuitive things about the amount of garbage we’ve been throwing out of the past century.
In particular, garbage collected per person peaked in 1940 at over 2000 pounds per person, compared to the current 928 pounds per person in our disposable age. New York’s garbage per person has remained more or less steady for the past twenty years, in fact. The composition of the garbage has also grown progressively more organic, i.e., compostable. Further, the heyday of recycling wasn’t the 1970s, but the 1890s Gilded Age, when mandatory garbage sorting was first set into law.
A major force behind garbage quantities is the market. In recent years, our disposable containers and wrappers have gotten progressively lighter as manufacturers have tried to save materials and shipping costs. This lightening has actually offset the increased use of containers and wrappers.