I leave it to others to write about how and why convenience—and not sustainability—motivates consumers around the world (one theory: consuming is more fun than conserving). Rather, I’ll just repeat what I noted at the beginning of this book: between 1960 and 2010, the volume of recyclables that Americans harvested from their homes rose from 5.6 million to 65 million tons. That sounds pretty good until you realize that during the same period the amount of trash generated by those same Americans rose from 81.1 million to 249.9 million tons. Americans—and the rest of the world—are consuming, and
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