The table below shows the amount of waste production (in millions of tons) in six

different countries over a twenty-year period.

The table illustrates the waste production in six different countries over a twenty-year period.

Overall, the amount of waste production in most of the countries increased continually, except for
Korean. While the US always had the highest production of waste, that of Ireland rise dramatically
during the period shown.

As the table shown, in 1980, the US had the highest amount of waste with 131 million tons, followed by
Japan with the figure being significantly lower, 28 million tons. Meanwhile, the amount of waste
production in Poland and Portugal is only under 5 million tons with 4 and 2 million tons respectively.
Ireland had the lowest amount of waste at 0.6 million tons.

In the following years, Ireland witnessed an enormous growth in the amount of waste and reached the
peaked of 5 million tons equaling to that of Portugal in 2000. Similarly, the amount of th US increased
gradually and reached the highest point at 192 million tons, followed by that of Japan with 53 million
tons at the end of the period, nearly doubling that of Japan in 1980. Meanwhile, the waste production of
Poland rose slightly from 4 to 6.6 million tons. In contrast, the amount of waste production in Korea
declined to 19 million tons in 2000, half the figure for 1990.