I can't remember the source, but I think it relates to misinformation that 80s/90s kids were taught - that we were running out of landfill space. My understanding is that landfills don't use much land per capita and that their environmental impact really isn't bad in terms of poisoning ground water and such.

My beef is that (at least the general US population) isn't aware of what the resources required to produce packaging vs. the packaged item are. Probably the plastic packing on that 1/2 pound of bacon has a small carbon footprint compared to the meat inside, but I can only guess.