As defined in Environmental Science "solid waste is any discarded material that is not a liquid or gas. Products have changed over the years from being reusable to being disposable which has caused a great increase in solid waste. In fact, since the 1960's each person in America has almost doubled their output of solid waste. .
There are two kinds of solid waste. One kind is wastes that are made of biodegradable materials, and the other is materials not made of biodegradable materials. "A biodegradable material is a material that can be broken down by living things into simpler chemicals that can be consumed by living things (Environmental Science)." Synthetic materials, or materials created in a laboratory, are nonbiodegradable. Plastics are a common synthetic material. Plastics are made up of mostly carbon and hydrogen, but these elements are put together differently than how they are found in nature. Microorganisms have ways to break down things in nature, but not man made things. Plastics may last for hundreds of years before they are able to start the process of being broken down.
75% of our waste comes from mining wastes, 12% comes from agricultural wastes, 9% comes from industries, and 4% comes from municipal wastes. Municipal waste is trash that people and businesses produce. 40% of our municipal waste is paper or cardboard, 18% is yard wastes, 8% are plastics, 7% is glass, 1% is aluminum, and other materials make up 19%. Even though municipal waste accounts for only 4% of all the waste produced it still is consists of about 180 million tons a year. The amount of municipal waste is increasing at a very fast amount. .
Most of our trash, 80%, is sent to landfills, which are places where garbage is dumped and covered with a layer of dirt or plastic each day. These are a lot better than the open dumps that they used to have. Open dumps produce horrible smells and were infested with rats and flies.