Ken LaCorte

Humans made things.

They put effort into things.

And for us to toss those away before using up its full value, there's a little bit of guilt in that.

And the other thing is the wrong notion that America and first world countries don't have places to put their trash.

Now, a lot of this stemmed from, I think it was the late 70s, might have been a little later than that.

There was a trash barge that had left New York City and it couldn't find its final destination.

And it was a little barge with tons and tons of trash.

And it was kind of like one of those big media stories of the day where they tracked where it was.

And it sparked a lot of feeling that we don't have places to throw things away.

And the reality is America handles its trash in a wonderful way.

I don't know if you've ever looked into how huge both recycling, but also just landfills work.

I mean, they fill up areas.

The space isn't all that crazy.

One study said by the year 3000,

If you got a place that was 100 yards deep, you could have a 35-mile square that could hold every piece of trash between now and the year 3000 in one area.

And when you actually look at some of these landfills, they're kind of modern marvels.

They have seepage things underneath them so things don't get into the water supply.

They lay pipeline that will get the methane from the trash as it's decomposing, and that actually powers the vehicles that pile the trash on it and the backhoes that take care of those things.

So I think that's where the guilt is.

Who likes wasting stuff?