America the Wasteful...

In Park City, each resident is provided with a recycling can for papers, plastics and the like as well as a regular garbage can.

The recycling can that is picked up every 14 days has a capacity of 95 gallons, while the smaller garbage can that is picked up weekly just holds 65 gallons.

Both offer sufficient storage for a family of four or even six, and since we compost, we could do with one fourth of that volume. If however these two cans won't suffice, it's possible to order more – as many as one wishes – and pay for the extra cost associated with regular pick-up.

Few households opt for this, except perhaps for one or two extra cans maximum in some very rare cases. So, the other day as we were walking in our neighborhood we were stunned to see 5 cans lined up for pickup in front of a residence (yep, 385 gallons!)

I knew that Americans were the biggest consumers in the world and that our GDP was made up of 70% worth of consumption, but I had not realized that we could also be the more wasteful nation on the entire planet!