At pope's creek, on Ameri-ca's Potomac river, there's a pre-Columbian rubbish tip of oyster shells covering 30 acres, to an average depth of ten feet. Humanity has always produced waste in vast quantities; but more people, more consump-rntion and the contribution emissions from rubbish make to climate change mean that disposing of the stuff is an increasingly contentious issue.rnPeople feel that they have a natural right to throw away as much stuff as they like, just as those lucky native Americans chucked the shells from their plentiful oyster piles over their shoulders. They shouldn't. Rubbish damages the environment and is expensive to dispose of. With household waste, just as with toxic chemicals, governments need to persuade people that they should be responsible for the muck they produce.rnAmericans are the champions of trash: on average they jettison over 700kg each a year. But developing nations are catching up fast. By 2030, Indians will be producing twice as much as they are now; Chinese people three times as much.
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