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MSW Waste Recovery is Making a Difference
Waste from homes and businesses comprises the MSW produced in the United States and in 2012 that waste amounted to about 251 million tons. On a daily basis, each of us generated about 4.38 pounds of trash in 2012, which while coming down from a high of 4.69 pounds in 2005, was well above the 2.68 pounds recorded in 1960. However, when factoring waste recovery via composting, recycling, and combustion for energy into the equation, the net per capita discard rate to landfills was 2.36 pounds per day, which is actually lower than the 1990 per capita rate of 3.19 pounds per day.
The two top ways to divert waste from landfills are recycling and composting (at 65.3 and 21.3 million tons respectively), totaling almost 87 million tons of trash in 2012. But which wastes are most often recycled or composted?
Comparing individual “waste streams generated” to “waste streams recovered” in 2012, it’s easy to see where opportunities for improvement may be found:
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Another way to look at waste is by product, something that may also lend itself to making purchasing decisions that line up with waste reduction goals, as well as to gain a better understanding of what products are most recycled and recyclable.
The following table shows how the EPA defines product categories as well as comparing how well each category fared in recycling and composting overall:
Within some product categories, there are also specific waste streams that warrant attention. For example, within the containers and packaging category, more than 76% of paper packaging and 72% of steel packaging were recovered while plastics lagged behind at only about 14%. In addition, individual products also are ranked for recovery (measured by percentage of generation) as follows:
1) Lead-acid batteries – 96%
2) Corrugated boxes – 91%
3) Steel cans – 71%
4) Newspapers/mechanical papers – 70%
5) Major appliances – 64%
6) Aluminum cans – 55%
7) Tires – 45%
8) Mixed paper – 43%
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The easiest way to make sense of the numbers is when they are applied to real-world emission reductions. For example, according to the EPA, in 2012 our 87 million tons of recycled or composted waste provided an annual benefit of more than 168 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2E) emissions reduced, comparable to the annual GHG emissions from more than 33 million passenger vehicles. Broken down by material type, here are some of the individual GHG benefits realized by MSW waste recovery:
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