FOR OUR ENVIRONMENT – FOOD FOR THOUGHT SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT Countries around the globe continue to generate large amounts of waste as their populations grow and their economies expand. In 2018, the World Bank estimated that waste generation will increase as much as 70%— from 2.01 billion tonnes to 3.40 billion in 2050. The amount of waste generated by urban residents in 2016 is estimated to have doubled to 1.2 kilograms per capita per day from 0.64 kilograms per capita per day 10 years ago. On a yearly basis, this equates to 1.3 billion tonnes per year in 2016, versus about 680 million tonnes per year a decade ago. WASTE GENERATION - OUTPACE POPULATION GROWTH The World Bank predicts that 3.40 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) will be produced in 2050. If the World Bank's projections are correct, waste generation will dramatically outpace population growth by more than double by 2050. Here are the five countries in the world that produce the most waste, according to the World Banks's “What a Waste” global database, last updated in September of 2018. These figures were calculated by combining the special waste and regular municipal solid waste per capita produced by each country. The total waste figure is the sum of all the waste in the latest year for which data was available in the special categories of agricultural waste, construction and demolition, e-waste, hazardous waste, industrial waste, medical waste, and the total municipal solid waste (MSW). Canada. Canada's estimated total waste generation is the largest in the entire world. It has an estimated annual waste total of 1,325,480,289 metric tons. Given Canada's population of 36.7 million, that's an estimated annual waste per capita of 36.1 metric tons.
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