What happens to your trash after the truck leaves

You tie off the bag, set it at the curb, and the truck takes it away. For most people the story ends there. For the waste, a second life begins in a landfill or an open dump, and the way the world manages that second life is a growing problem. This post looks at the scale of it, using figures from named sources, including the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The world makes more waste every year
The World Bank says the world generates 2.01 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste each year and expects that figure to reach 3.40 billion tonnes by 2050. UNEP published newer numbers in its Global Waste Management Outlook 2024. According to Dawn's coverage of the report, the world produced 2.3 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste in 2023, and UNEP projects 3.8 billion tonnes by 2050.

The two organizations count differently, so their totals differ. Both point the same way. Every year brings more waste than the last, and every tonne needs a destination.

Consider what that means for a mid-sized city. Its collection crews, transfer stations, and disposal sites were built for the waste of an earlier decade. Each year the trucks carry more, and the sites fill faster than planners expected.

Not every tonne reaches a proper landfill
A well-run landfill has liners, drainage, and a system to collect gas. Much of the world's waste never meets one. The World Bank says at least 33 percent of waste is not managed in an environmentally safe way.

UNEP gives a sharper number for 2020: 38 percent, or 810 million tonnes, was uncontrolled, meaning people dumped it or burned it in the open. Dawn reports that under current practices this amount could reach 1.6 billion tonnes a year by 2050.

Picture a hillside at the edge of a fast-growing city. Trucks tip their loads onto open ground. Rain can wash whatever leaks from the pile toward the nearest stream. When the pile catches fire, the smoke settles over the neighbouring streets.

What rotting waste releases
Food scraps, yard waste, and paper break down without oxygen under the layers of a landfill, and that process produces methane. A study in Science Advances used high-resolution satellite images of Delhi, Mumbai, Lahore, and Buenos Aires. The Irish outlet Tipperary Live reports that city-level methane emissions for 2018 and 2019 were 1.4 to 2.6 times higher than earlier estimates.

Lead author Joannes Maasakkers of the Netherlands Institute for Space Research said this was the first time researchers used high-resolution satellite images to observe landfills. The same report describes landfills as the third-largest source of methane emissions globally, after oil and gas systems and agriculture.

Euan Nisbet of Royal Holloway, University of London, who was not part of the study, called for better landfill management, especially in India, where landfills often catch fire.

What the problem costs
UNEP puts the direct cost of waste management in 2020 at about $252 billion worldwide. Once hidden costs such as pollution, health, and climate effects are counted, the figure rises to $361 billion.

Dawn reports that without urgent action, UNEP expects the annual cost to reach $640.3 billion by 2050, including $443 billion in externalities. Whether you live next to a dump or a thousand kilometres from one, someone pays that bill.

Where Nexus Biofuel fits
Nexus Biofuel Inc., based in Kelowna, British Columbia, works on the part of this problem that starts before the waste reaches a dump. The company converts waste streams, including biomass and municipal solid waste, into usable energy. Its equipment is portable and economical, and it avoids incineration.

Nexus Biofuel aims to cut reliance on fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create jobs. A city or community that turns its waste into energy gives that waste a use, and sends less of it to a landfill.

Waste does not pile up in one place. It builds up in cities, farming districts, and small towns, each with its own mix of material. Equipment that is portable and economical suits places like these, because it gives them another option besides a dump or an incinerator.