:
John,
We have a massive trash problem.
Every year, Americans throw away an average of 1,788 pounds of trash per person. That's about the equivalent of every single item in a studio apartment, most of which heads straight to our landfills... where it piles on top of last year's trash.
We wanted to see exactly where all that trash was going. Our new report "Trash in America" breaks down exactly how much Americans throw away in a year and where all that stuff goes. Here's what we found.[1]
In a single year, the U.S. threw out over 265 million metric tons of trash. That's equivalent to about 726 Empire State Buildings.
So what's in all that stuff? One of the biggest chunks -- more than 28% -- came from packaging. Less than half of all plastic packaging in the U.S. is recyclable, and only a tiny fraction of that actually gets recycled.
We also found that Americans throw out about 133 billion pounds of food waste every year. In fact, if all of our wasted food came from a single farm, that farm would have to be about the size of California and New York combined.
Another big part of our waste stream is clothing. In 2018, Americans threw out 34 billion pounds of textiles -- and we continue to produce more clothes than ever.
We found that 62% of all trash either ends up being piled into our ever-expanding landfills or being burned in incinerators. Only 24% is recycled and only 9% is composted.
Tossing that amount of stuff into landfills or incinerators year after year has dangerous impacts on our planet and our health. Trash incinerators produce air pollution that contains heavy metals like mercury, which can impair brain function, and cancer-causing pollutants like dioxin, one of the most toxic substances we know of.
Contaminants from landfills can leak into nearby water sources, filling them with harmful substances like heavy metals or PFAS "forever chemicals."
And all of this contributes to the warming of our planet. Roughly 42% of our country's greenhouse gas emissions come from our waste disposal process.
If we want to cut down on the amount of waste entering our environment, threatening our communities and doing irreparable harm to our planet, we have to start at the source.
One of the biggest ways we can tackle this problem is by ending the use of unnecessary plastic, the vast majority of which never gets recycled. Some states have already made progress by passing bans on single-use plastic we don't need.
There are a lot of other solutions available to us, from urging companies to cut down on wasteful packaging to building products that are long-lasting and easy to repair.
But if we're going to live in a world that doesn't pile on top of our waste problem year after year, we have to work together to put those solutions into practice.
Thank you,
The team at U.S. PIRG Education Fund
P.S. In the year to come, we'll be working to turn these solutions to our waste problem into a reality. Will you join our work to tackle pollution in 2026 by making a donation today?
[link removed]
1. Celeste Meiffren-Swango, "Trash in America," US PIRG Education Fund, December 9, 2025.
[link removed]
-----------------------------------------------------------
Your donation will power our dedicated staff of organizers, policy experts and attorneys who drive all of our campaigns in the public interest, from banning toxic pesticides and moving us beyond plastic, to saving our antibiotics and being your consumer watchdog, to protecting our environment and our democracy. None of our work would be possible without the support of people just like you.
-----------------------------------------------------------
U.S. PIRG Education Fund
Main Office: 1543 Wazee St., Suite 460, Denver, CO 80202, (303) 801-0582
Federal Advocacy Office: 600 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, 4th Fl., Washington, DC 20003, (202) 546-9707
Member Questions or Requests: 1-800-838-6554
If you want us to stop sending you email then follow this link -- [link removed]
