This post will be dedicated to describing how trash is disposed of and wherein goes in the United States. Most solid waste ends up in a landfill. A landfill, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “a system of trash and garbage disposal in which the waste is buried between layers of earth to build up low-lying land”. But how does it get to the landfill? The first stop it makes after getting picked up by the garbage truck is a transfer station. Here your trash is compacted and prepared for transfer to its final destination of a landfill, recycling center, incinerator, or anaerobic digester. Another option is for your trash to go to a material recovery facility (MRFs) to be sorted. The useful materials are separated from the waste before it reaches its final destination. There are two types of material recovery facilities, clean and dirty. A clean facility receives recyclables that have to be presorted. A dirty facility receives recyclable items mixed with trash, which have to be sorted out.
Now to differentiate between the final destinations: landfills, recycling centers, incinerators, and anaerobic digesters. 
The most popular final destination of waste landfills. The sole purpose of a landfill is to store waste. It does not break it down in any way but instead stores waste in layers separated by clay, soil, plants, and plastic until it eventually decomposes. The second most popular final destination is recycling centers. Although they are the second most popular, they are only about half of the percentage of waste in landfills (25.8%). The purpose of recycling centers is to reuse and repurpose by turning the waste into new products. Next is incinerators, which are designed to burn waste. As discussed in my last post burning waste is extremely harmful because of the toxins it releases. And finally, anaerobic digesters are a form of waste-to-energy conversion. It uses microorganisms to turn organic materials into energy and fertilizer. Although recycling, incineration, and anaerobic digestion helps reduce waste, they are not used as frequently as they should be. The graph below shows that as of 2015, 137,700,00 tons of waste were put into landfills while only 67,770,000 tons were recycled. 
One issue that demonstrates the lack of recycling to reduce waste can be seen in my hometown of Dallas, TX. We have bulk trash that is picked up once a month. You can leave large items or brush. Some items placed on the curb may be recyclable but they are not sorted out and there is no way for citizens to sort it out beforehand. It all just goes to the same landfill. And the landfill bulk trash goes to is across the street from the recycling center. One would think the bulk trash would be able to be sorted so that a few items could make their way across the street to be recycled.
I thought the graphics you included were very helpful in explaining your post. It was interesting to learn that the places our trash go have not changed very much since the 1980s. There definitely needs to be a better system for automatically sorting possible trash before it gets put in a landfill forever.
I think everyone at some point knows the traditional recycle symbol “reduce, reuse, recycle”. However, this is the first time I have seen a depiction or graph of a Municipal Solid Waste chart. It’s surprising to me that I have never seen a graphic like this while growing up because to me, it is more informative about the topic at hand, waste, and where it goes. I believe that if people saw the actual numerical side by side of the tons of waste compared to the tons that were recycled, it will deeply resonate and even serve as a wake-up call to many.
The methods of trash or waste removal throughout the world are a great topic for discussion. In some ways, such as the use of incinerators, waste removal is negatively affecting our environment and the need to get rid of trash will only increase in the future. As a population, we really need to discuss waste prevention methods or determine a way of removing waste that is effective, and environmentally safe. From the examples you discussed, I feel like anaerobic digestion seems to be the best option to remove waste, however, I have never heard of this method of waste removal before so I do not know the negatives of this option. Overall, I found this post very informative and interesting.
I thought that your post did a great job of truly demonstrating the extent to which current practices of waste removal are so harmful to the environment and society in general. I thought that the graphic showing how the methods of waste removal have changed over time comparing incineration, recycling, composting, and landfill usage, was shocking. I certainly knew that both incineration and recycling have increased over the last few decades, but the fact that they essentially balance each other out is disturbing, especially as neither have made a dent in landfill usage. It is going to be one of the most important environmental problems of the next century to be able to eliminate waste while being able to ensure that it does not increase human carbon emissions, protecting the environment on both counts.