Garbage and waste disposal is a significant and unavoidable concern in America. Approximately 80 percent of municipal solid waste—largely paper, food, yard waste, metals, plastics, and glass—is sent to landfills. The remainder is either recycled or incinerated. From 1978 to 1996, the number of operating landfills declined from approximately twenty thousand to three thousand. According to Environmental Protection Agency estimates, by the year 2008 only one-third of these will be available to accept the approximately 160 million tons of trash dumped annually.

Closures of filled landfills have increased concerns that landfill space is dwindling, particularly in populous and congested regions such as the Northeast. Furthermore, in many instances plans to construct new landfills have been thwarted by community protests and opposition. According to ReThink Paper, an environmental organization that advocates environmentally sound paper consumption, “Unfortunately, to be at all economical, landfills must be situated...