Garbage is the waste we throw away: food scraps, broken things, used packaging, and anything else we don't need anymore. When you peel a banana and toss the peel in the trash, that's garbage. When a box gets crushed and worn out, it becomes garbage.

The word also describes something worthless or of terrible quality. If you watch a movie that's boring and badly made, you might say “that movie was garbage.” When someone tells you an obviously false story, you could respond “that's garbage” to show you don't believe it. A broken toy that can't be fixed is just garbage now.

Americans produce an enormous amount of garbage, about 4.5 pounds per person every day. Most of it goes to landfills, huge areas where garbage gets buried in the ground. Some garbage gets recycled into new products, and some gets burned for energy. Food waste, yard trimmings, and paper make up most household garbage.

The phrase garbage in, garbage out means that if you start with poor quality materials or bad information, you'll end up with poor results, like trying to build something sturdy using broken parts. And when something smells really bad, people might say it smells like garbage, since garbage sitting in the sun on a hot day creates a powerful stink.