What to do wtih all the trash?

I've been thinking a lot lately about what can we do about all the trash that we produce. I'm not just talking about the Americans, cause holy cow we produce a lot of trash, but I'm talking world-wide. Australia is looking at reconfiguring their carbon pricing scheme for a cap & trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The one big problem they are having is with the landfills and the large amounts of methane that they produce. In the US there are a couple of places that are using the methane for electricity. The S.C.Johnson Company actually uses methane from a local landfill near one of their plants to power some portions of their factory. pretty cool. And there are a few other areas in the US where they are attempting to use the methane from landfills for energy, whether it be electricity or fuel for cars. While that is a great idea for the landfills that already exist, what are we going to do about the trash that we are still throwing out. Recycling is a great way to reduce our waste stream, but there are people that don't recycle anything. Take my neighbors for instance. They recycle NOTHING, not one little piece of paper. Just cause they don't feel like it. I'm not sure if maybe some confusion is the reason behind the lack of effort or just because they are lazy in that area. There are people in our neighborhood that put out at least 3 huge bags of grass a week. ugh,  horrible space waster in a landfill. Me, I recycle EVERYTHING. Everything that can be put in that can, goes. We even "recycle" our food waste, grass and leaves. Otherwise known as composting. It makes our garden grow :)  This is yet another area where I feel completely inadequate. I have ideas on how to improve recycling, but it won't work unless people are willing to change. one idea I had for existing landfills is to go and find the stuff that is recyclable within the landfills. I'm sure there are billions of tons of newspapers in the landfills, dating back to the turn of century. oh, that would be 1900, not 2000 :) Forgot what century I was in there for a minute. Anyway. And the plastic and glass that could be found from before we figured out how to recycle. Holy jackpot batman!! Someone needs to figure out a way to tap that resource. The number of permitted landfills is decreasing in the US. We are running out of places to put our trash, so what are we going to do with it? If we are able to use the resources within the landfills then there will be space to put more crap.  Plastic is a petroleum product. Can you imagine how much we could save if we were able to tap into the waste stream and tap the landfills for that resource? So now all I have to do is figure out a way to get the "stuff" out of the landfill efficiently. I guess once the price is right this will be something one of the big companies think of all on their own. Right now it's just cheaper to throw everything away and make new. sigh, people just don't get it, do they?