The table provides a comparison of six different countries in terms of how much waste they produced (in millions of tonnes) over the past two decades.
It is clear that there were varying degrees of increase in the amount of waste produced in nearly all countries, whereas a clear downward trend can be seen only in the rate of waste production in Korea.
The US produced the highest amount of waste, at 131 million tonnes in 1980. The second-biggest producer of waste among the given six nations was Japan, with 26 million tonnes. At 4 and 2 million tonnes, the respective figures were for Poland and Portugal, and they both saw a mere increase in 2000. Additionally, Ireland, which started with 0.6 million tonnes, experienced growth in waste production, stood at 5.
However, the US continued to lead the ranking in 2000, producing 192 million tonnes, while a remarkable rise to 53 million tonnes was seen in the waste production rates of Japan over the 20-year period.
