According to a report in yesterday’s L.A. Times, Americans are producing less garbage, and landfill use has plummeted in recent months. And no, it’s not because of some New Age primitivist movement, or because of that guy who only eats what he kills in the park, or because anybody actually reads AdBusters. That would be stupid. It’s because of the recession, of course.

Still, it’s kind of cool. According to the article, landfills all across California are noticing some major breaks from the norm. The Puente Hills Landfill has experienced a 30% decrease in garbage in the last six months. San Francisco’s garbage generation is at a 30-year low; and San Diego landfills are experiencing a 15-year low. If this trend is consistent for the rest of the U.S. — and it should be, since the recession is certainly nationwide — that adds up to an impressive level of waste reduction.

Now, it’s fine to say you value anticonsumerism on principle, but the proof is in the trash can. If people can’t afford to buy lots of crap, then they don’t need to throw out all the packaging it comes in, and this puts a lovely, and long-overdue slowdown on our journey to WALL-E’s backyard.

And, while I’m ranting, let me just point out that it’s not necessarily a bad thing for shopoholics to get a kick in the ass every once in a while. There’s a reason my 80-year-old grandparents are more thrifty than my 50-year-old parents: they remember the last time we as a nation had to examine the meaning of the word “essential.”

At any rate, I’m going to classify the garbage reduction as a win for now, even if it is a sign that people are losing their jobs. They’ll find new jobs eventually, and in the meantime, we get a better shot at keeping our planet alive. And this is a nice accompaniment to the reduction in gasoline sales that reduced prices, and hopefully CO₂ emissions, in the latter half of 2008. Speaking from a purely ecological standpoint: is it just me, or does this recession kind of rule?