My initial thoughts are that Georgia and New York need to do a much better job of managing their recycling programs, a lot of stuff
that I see on the Landfill side could easily be recycled in my area.
My second thought is that the first few family waste a ridiculous amount of food.
When I introduced my husband to Mustachianism 3 weeks ago, he responded by telling me that if we were going to do it, we were going full bull, and made alterations to how we deal with waste.
We already recycled paper, plastic, glass etc, and have a compost bin in our backyard but we are now using the city provided green bin (soiled paper products, meat scraps, bones, uncompostable vegetables scraps etc.). DH inspected everything the kids wanted to throw in the garbage for a week or so until he was satisfied that they knew how to separate and deal with waste. We're down to half a trash bag of landfill every two weeks, and I know that once I make up some string bags for produce, we can get the plastic recycles down too.