U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds (2020)

Re:U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, ... by Causality1 on Sunday August 01, 2021 @04:29PM (#28029606)

You could restrict yourself to dry lake beds that don't flood in winter, which are nearly as lifeless as Mars, and still have enough landfill area for centuries of waste.

The average American produces 3.5 pounds of trash per day at an average one third of a gram per cubic centimeter. Assuming that holds steady, and we use a normal landfill depth of 400 feet, and the US population doubles over the next century, we need a landfill area of 250 square miles to cover us for the next hundred years.

Compared to available land that's tiny.

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Re:U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, ... by edoceo on Sunday August 01, 2021 @05:56PM (#28030470)

Using standard units:

- 1589g of trash per day!

- 4767 cm3 to store it (3cm3/gram)

- 130 m3 per lifetime (75yr)

- 300,000,000 lifetimes.

- 78 km3 storage allocated

- 39 km3 required

~~We're gonna need a bigger boat.~~

Neat!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, ... by yesenadam on Sunday August 01, 2021 @06:33PM (#28030814)

> - 39,000,000,000 km3 required

I think something went very wrong there!

4767 x 75 x 365 = I get 130,500,000 cm³/person/lifetime. You got 130,000,000,000,000,000.

There are 10¹⁵ cubic centimetres in a cubic kilometre, not 10⁶. I think all your numbers are for m³, not km³, a factor of a billion out, so your final figure should be 39 km³.

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Re:U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, ... by edoceo on Sunday August 01, 2021 @07:00PM (#28031027)

Thanks, I've edited (working from mobile, some copy paste issues with long numbers). I think it's right now? (How do you get the <sup>3</sup>?)

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Re:U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, ... by loa_in_ on Sunday August 01, 2021 @07:12PM (#28031142)

should be 39km2 not km3

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