[CWJeff]

My neighbor is in his 80s and we live in what used to be a rural area before urbanization caught up. He told me there wasn't any garbage collection, they put rubish in a small bin and just dumped everything in a hole in the garden when the bin was full. They didn't use any plastic so everything would just decompose. When the hole was full they'd dig another one and that was it.

[nradov]

In rural areas they commonly composted the organic garbage and burned much of the rest. Food scraps were also fed to animals so there was generally very little food waste.

My uncle used to pick up all the food scraps from a local restaurant and feed those to his pigs. It made a mess in his pickup truck, but it was a lot cheaper than commercial pig food.

[CWJeff]

We still do it. Every kitchen waste goes to the chickens, everything that's compostable goes to a pile in the back of the garden. With two adults we have about three bags going in the recycling bin and one bag in the garbage bin per month. We still have a bit of progress to do by buying less packaged items.