The European Union is running out of landfill space and faces a looming trash problem. All member nations have been directed to reduce landfill-bound trash 35 percent of 1995 levels by 2020, but many nations have slim chances of meeting that target; Italy, Spain, Greece, and Britain currently send more than 60 percent of their rubbish to landfills. Hopefully, E.U. trash laggards will look to the example of Hamburg, Germany: the city sent the majority of its garbage to landfills until 2000, when it decided to invest in top-notch recycling programs and low-polluting incinerators. Today, Hamburg produces less garbage than it did 10 years ago, despite population growth. The city recently agreed to a short-term deal to take 700 tons of garbage a day from Naples, Italy, where the streets are overflowing with refuse that the mafia-controlled trash industry has elected not to pick up.
