The current era of wasteful consumption, which is one of the driving forces behind the global economic meltdown, is just as detrimental to the environment as it is to the economic and social wellbeing of communities. There is not only way too much consumption of products that contribute to the global environmental problems we face, but also much too much waste associated with what we consume, including the packaging that comes with most products, the way we waste water and electricity in our homes and the items we discard when we’ve finished with them. It all creates one of the big problems for governments around the world: how to safely dispose of our rubbish.

The USA, Australia and New Zealand are three of the world’s most consumption-driven nations and are, not surprisingly first, second and fourth in the world respectively in the generation of municipal waste, which comprises household and local area waste collected by councils. The USA generates 760kg of municipal waste per person per year, while Australia generates 690kg per person and New Zealand generates 635kg per person, which is the equivalent of throwing out 10 washing machines stacked on top of each other.

Is it really surprising that these countries generate so much domestic waste? The manufacturing of disposable products associated with the supposedly pleasurable things in life has become a global industry in its own right. Just think about all those takeaway food containers, the tissues and napkins, the plastic cutlery and the plastic bags your family might use on a day out. After the takeaway food and drink are consumed, the waste goes straight in the bin with no thought to where the disposables actually go.

Where does domestic waste go?

Domestic waste used to go into thin air (sort of) when it was burnt in incinerators. But the amount of pollution and dangerous gases produced by this practice led to the removal of waste incinerators from most cities and towns some time ago. These days, your waste usually ends up in landfill, hidden from view, on the edge of your city or town.

There is no more graphic illustration of our over-consuming ways than a suburban garbage dump or landfill site bursting at the seams. Piles of stinking, leaching, smoking rubbish sit with little to no chance of breaking down. Although modern landfill sites are designed to be out of sight and have less direct impact on the environment (by capturing the contaminants and gases leaching from the waste), they continue to fill up quite quickly and many cities are now running out of space to house the waste they generate.

Household waste, along with other municipal waste, generally comprises about 30 per cent of the rubbish sent to a dump or landfill site. The other two-thirds of rubbish buried is a mix of commercial, industrial, construction and demolition waste. The domestic and municipal component, for which we are all directly responsible, is broadly made up of the following:

So just under half of the items (recyclables and non-recyclables) sent to landfill don’t break down — they just sit and accumulate ... and accumulate ... and accumulate. In a disposable society, it’s no surprise that as population grows and our urban areas sprawl we are running out of places to house our waste. And I haven’t even mentioned the amount of power, resources and pollution involved in manufacturing the disposable products we throw in the bin. What a waste!