I am appalled at the sizes of trash cans that our neighbors fill. Around here (rural, so unlimited room for landfills, wheeeeee!) trash is a flat rate, you can have as much as you want. We generally produce one trash bag a week, and half that is probably kids art projects.
One thing I don't understand is people who say they have zero trash because they either compost or recycle everything. And I am saying that is a fairly zealous composer/recycler myself. But there is ONE facility that recycles #5 plastic east of the Mississippi in the US. And guess what, it isn't in my city. In fact our "recycling" company does single stream recycling but ends up throwing away the vast majority of it- they only actually recycle clean, dry corrugated cardboard out of all the paper that gets thrown in the recycle bin, for example. And a small fraction of the corrugated cardboard that gets recycled ends up still be clean and dry by the time it goes on a truck ride with all the other crap thrown in the recycle bin. So, um, yay for you that you threw all that stuff in the recycle bin, hope it makes you feel better, but you didn't save the planet.
I am currently trying to pound "reduce, don't recycle" into my childrens' heads.