Sweden is a Model of Sustainable Waste Management

Sweden has a garbage problem, but unlike the US and many other places in the world, Sweden's problem is not that there is too much trash, it is that there is too little. Thanks to Sweden's highly efficient recycling habits only four percent of the nations waste ends up in landfills.

This is in stark contrast to nations like the US where half of all waste ends up in landfills according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Americans recycled just 34 percent of their waste in 2010, and a total of 136 million tons of garbage ended up in landfills. Americans throw away nearly half of their food, costing roughly $165 billion per year, according to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council.