The table compares the number of waste productions allocated in six countries over the years 1980, 1990, and 2000.
Overall, there was an increase in the amount of waste production in the US and Japan. It is readily apparent that Korea was the only country having the ability to reduce its waste by 2000. Despite this, the United States generally had the highest figures over the period.
Regarding the United States, it experienced a significant increase in waste generation, escalating from 131 in 1980 to 192 millions of tons. Conversely, the countries such as Ireland, Japan, Korea, Poland, and Portugal combined produced less waste than the US over the time frame.
Turning next to Japan, Japan witnessed an upward trend in waste production, falling steadily from 28 to 53 million tons in 2000. Similarly, Poland’s and Portugal’s figures went up exponentially over the three-year period to 6.6 and 5 million metric tons, respectively. Whereas the trend in Ireland was a sudden increase of eightfold, ending at 5 million metric tons at the end of the period. By contrast, Korea cut its waste output by 12 million metric tons through the period.