More than any other single event, the seemingly endless wandering of the garbage barge Mobro 4000 symbolizes the frustrating situation we find ourselves in. The barge, laden with refuse from the town of Islip on Long Island, New York, set sail on March 22,1987, and roamed for 55 days from port to port down the Atlantic seaboard, along the coast of Central America, and into the Caribbean in search of a place that would accept its smelly load. None would. Eventually, after having traveled more than 9,600 kilometers, the barge returned to New York, where the waste was finally incinerated and the ashes placed in a landfill. A garbage crisis is at hand. The situation has not improved since the Mobro incident. As a society we are generating far too much waste, especially in North America. At the same time, places to dispose of it are becoming limited. The public and politicians have recognized the inherent dangers of existing landfills and are refusing to build new ones—or, as in the case of the Mobro, they are refusing to accept any more waste than is necessary. How did we get into such a mess? The first recorded regulations to control municipal waste were implemented during the Minoan civilization, which flourished in Crete from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Solid wastes from the capital, Knossos, were placed in large pits and covered with layers of earth at intervals (Wilson, 1977). This basic method of landfilling has remained relatively unchanged right up to the present day. In Athens, by 500 B.C. it was required that garbage be disposed of at least 1.5 kilometers from the city walls. Each household was responsible for collecting its own garbage and taking it to the disposal site. The first garbage collection service was established during the period of the Roman Empire. Householders tossed their refuse into the streets, and then it was shoveled onto horse-drawn carts and transported to an open pit, often located within the community. The bodies of dead animals (and sometimes people) were buried in pits outside the towns to spare inhabitants their odor.