(Click on the links to see related graphs)

In 2010, about 153 billion aluminum cans, and glass and plastic bottles that could have been recycled, instead ended up as litter or in a landfill. Amazingly, that’s 62 billion more containers than we wasted annually at the start of the new millennium, and 75 billion more than we wasted in 1996.  See how wasting has risen from 1996 to 2003, overall and by material. Without serious societal and institutional changes, this trend will undoubtedly continue.

This increase in wasting is driven in part by increasing population and increasing per capita beverage consumption, but it is also due to falling recycling rates. 

What are the effects of all this waste?

Economic Impacts Environmental Impacts