The table depicts how much waste was produced in each country from 1980 to 2000.
Overall, it was immediately obvious that the amount of waste produced increased significantly in all countries over the twenty-year period. Additionally, the amount of American waste production was highest, while the opposite was true for Irish.
Over the period, there were minimal increases in Polish and Portuguese waste production levels, to 6.6 and 5 million tonnes in 2000, respectively. Meanwhile, the US figure, up 192 million tonnes to 131 million tonnes, was by far the highest in 20 years. In the end, Korea produced 31 million tonnes of waste, which continued to decline to 19 million tonnes.
However, the figures for Japan and Ireland show an upward trend in waste production. Japan’s waste production increased from 28 million tonnes in 1980 to 53 million tonnes in 2000, while Ireland saw a rise from 0.6 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes during the same period.
