What is the solid waste management hierarchy?

The four-tier solid waste management hierarchy ranks the most preferable ways to address solid waste. Source reduction or waste prevention, which includes reuse, is the best approach (tier one), followed by recycling (tier 2). Waste that cannot be prevented or recycled can be combusted with energy recovery (tier 3). Tier 4 is landfilling or incineration without energy recovery. Both of these disposal options take place according to proper regulations.

Once waste is created, recycling , which includes composting , is one of the most effective methods of reducing the amount of material in the waste stream. If waste cannot be recycled, incineration or sanitary landfilling are the next preferred methods of treatment.

Is recycling worthwhile?

Recycling is one of the best environmental success stories of the late 20th century. Recycling, which includes composting, diverted over 72 million tons of material away from landfills and incinerators in 2003, up from 34 million tons in 1990—doubling in just 10 years. Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. As a matter of fact, collecting recyclable materials is just the first step in a series of actions that generate a host of financial, environmental, and societal returns. There are several key benefits to recycling. Recycling:

• Protects and expands U.S. manufacturing jobs and increases U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace.
  
• Reduces the need for landfilling and incineration.
  
• Saves energy and prevents pollution caused by the extraction and processing of virgin materials and the manufacture of products using virgin materials.
  
• Decreases emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change .
  
• Conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals.
  
• Helps sustain the environment for future generations.

Learn more about the benefits of recycling .

Recycling not only makes sense from an environmental standpoint, but also makes good financial sense. For example, creating aluminum cans from recycled aluminum is far less energy-intensive, and less costly, than mining the raw materials and manufacturing new cans from scratch.

Because recycling is clearly good for human health, the nation's economy, and the environment, many people wonder why the federal government does not simply mandate recycling. The primary reason is that recycling is a local issue—the success and viability of recycling depends on a community's resources and structure. A community must consider the costs of a recycling program, as well as the availability of markets for its recovered materials. In some areas, not enough resources exist to make recycling an economically feasible option. State governments can assess local conditions and set appropriate recycling mandates. For information about recycling in your state, contact your EPA regional office , or your state agency .
What costs my community more—recycling or throwing trash away?

The answer to this question will vary depending on where you live, and comparing recycling program and waste disposal costs is a complex undertaking. Disposal fees for landfills, waste transfer stations, and incinerators vary across the country, but in many areas, particularly on the heavily populated East Coast, they are significant expenses. Costs and returns for recycling programs also vary greatly, depending on the local resources and demand for the recovered materials.

Recycling does cost money, but so does waste disposal. Communities must pay to collect trash and manage a landfill or incinerator and so also should expect to pay for recycling. Assessing how recycling will impact your community requires a full appraisal of the environmental and economic benefits and costs of recycling, as compared to the one-way consumption of resources from disposing of used products and packaging in landfills and incinerators. Analyzing all of these factors together will help you determine if recycling is more cost effective in your community.

The report, Anti-Recycling Myths: Commentary on Recycling is Garbage , by John F. Ruston and Richard A. Denison, Ph.D. of the Environmental Defense Fund, provides one point of view on the costs and benefits of recycling and waste disposal.

The Business and the Environment Allied for Recycling (BEAR) is conducting a value chain assessment that analyzes the costs of curbside recycling and bottle bills. The report will be available through BEAR's Web site .

If there is plenty of landfill space, then why should I recycle?

Recycling offers a host of environmental, economic, and societal benefits (see Question " Is Recycling Worthwhile? "). While landfill space is plentiful on the national level, some areas of the United States, particularly the heavily populated East Coast, have less landfill capacity and higher landfill costs.

Communities can make money and avoid high disposal costs by selling certain recyclable materials. Markets for recovered materials fluctuate, however—as markets do for all commodities—depending on a variety of economic conditions. Find more information on the value of recovered materials .

A report released by the National Recycling Coalition at the end of 2001 offers perhaps the most compelling evidence of how and why recycling makes good economic sense. Simply put, recycling creates jobs and generates valuable revenue for the United States. According to The U.S. Recycling Economic Information Study, more than 56,000 recycling and reuse establishments in the United States employ approximately 1.1 million people, generate an annual payroll of $37 billion, and gross $236 billion in annual revenues. According to the report, the number of workers in the recycling industry is comparable to the automobile and truck manufacturing industry and is significantly larger than mining and waste management and disposal industries. In addition, wages for workers in the recycling industry are notably higher than the national average for all industries, according to the report. For additional information on the economic impact of recycling, visit EPA's Jobs Through Recycling Web site .

How does recycling save energy?

Harvesting, extracting, and processing the raw materials used to manufacture new products is an energy-intensive activity. Reducing or nearly eliminating the need for these processes, therefore, achieves huge savings in energy. Recycling aluminum cans, for example, saves 95 percent of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from its virgin source, bauxite. The amount of energy saved differs by material, but almost all recycling processes achieve significant energy savings compared to production using virgin materials.

In 2000, recycling resulted in an annual energy savings of at least 660 trillion BTUs, which equals the amount of energy used in 6 million households annually. In 2005, recycling is conservatively projected to save 900 trillion BTUs, equal to the annual energy use of 9 million households.

For more information on recycling and energy reduction, check out the EPA brochure Puzzled About Recycling's Value? Look Beyond the Bin . (PDF) A white paper on the energy benefits of waste management is available at EPA's Climate and Waste Web site , under the "Publications and Tools" link.

What effects do waste prevention and recycling have on global warming?

Everyone knows that reducing waste is good for the environment because it conserves natural resources. What many people don't know is that solid waste reduction and recycling also have an impact on global climate change.

The manufacture, distribution, and use of products—as well as management of the resulting waste—all result in greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the upper atmosphere, occur naturally and help create climates that sustain life on our planet. Increased concentrations of these gases can contribute to rising global temperatures, sea level changes, and other climate changes.

Waste prevention and recycling—jointly referred to as waste reduction—help us better manage the solid waste we generate. But reducing waste is a potent strategy for reducing greenhouse gases because it can:

Reduce emissions from energy consumption. Recycling saves energy. Manufacturing goods from recycled materials typically requires less energy than producing goods from virgin materials. When people reuse goods or when products are made with less material, less energy is needed to extract, transport, and process raw materials and to manufacture products. When energy demand decreases, fewer fossil fuels are burned and less carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere.

Reduce emissions from incinerators. Recycling and waste prevention divert materials from incinerators and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions from waste combustion.

Reduce methane emissions from landfills. Waste prevention and recycling (including composting) divert organic wastes from landfills, reducing the methane that would be released if these materials decomposed in a landfill.

Increase storage of carbon in forests. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in wood in a process called "carbon sequestration." Waste prevention and recycling paper products allows more trees to remain standing in the forest, where they can continue to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

For more information about the relationship between solid waste and climate change, go to EPA's Climate Change & Waste page .

How does the U.S. municipal solid waste generation rate compare with other countries? What about recycling rates?

The United States leads the industrialized world in MSW generation, with each person in the United States currently generating on average 4.5 pounds of waste per day. Canada and the Netherlands come in second and third, with 3.75 and 3 pounds per person per day, respectively. Germany and Sweden generate the least amount of waste per capita for industrialized nations, with just under 2 pounds per person per day. The United States, however, also leads the industrialized world in recycling. The United States recycled 24 percent of its waste in 1995, the most recent year for which comparative international data is available. Switzerland and Japan came in second and third, recycling 23 percent and 20 percent of their discard stream, respectively.

More information on international waste management issues is available through the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) , an international organization that helps governments tackle the economic, social, and governance challenges of a globalized economy. The group provides information on environmental performance and outlook issues for countries around the globe, including information on waste minimization, recycling, environmental and economic sustainability, and more.

What materials are most commonly recycled in the United States through collection programs?

U.S. recycling rates for commonly recycled consumer goods in 2005 are listed below:

Newspapers: 88.9 percent
Corrugated Cardboard Boxes: 71.5 percent
Steel Cans: 62.9 percent
Yard Trimmings: 56.3 percent
Aluminum Beer and Soft Drink Cans: 44.8 percent
Scrap Tires: 35.6 percent
Magazines: 38.5 percent
Plastic Soft Drink Bottles: 34.1 percent
Plastic HDPE Milk and Water Bottles: 28.8 percent
Glass Containers: 25.3 percent

EPA's annually updated report, Municipal Solid Waste in the US: 2005 Facts and Figures , describes the national MSW stream based on data collected since 1960. The historical perspective provided is useful for establishing trends in the types of MSW generated and the ways in which it is managed.

What product is taking up the most space in US landfills?

The item most frequently encountered in MSW landfills is plain old paper—on average, it accounts for more than 40 percent of a landfill's contents. This proportion has held steady for decades and in some landfills has actually risen. Newspapers alone can take up as much as 13 percent of the space in US landfills.

Organic materials, including paper, do not easily biodegrade once they are disposed of in a landfill. Paper is many times more resistant to deterioration when compacted in a landfill than when it is in open contact with the atmosphere. Research by William Rathje, who runs the Garbage Project , has shown that, when excavated from a landfill, newspapers from the 1960s can be intact and readable.

What materials are not safe to throw in my trash?

Chances are, there are certain items or products in your house that you should not throw out in the trash. Many common household items, such as paint, cleaners, oils, batteries, and pesticides, contain hazardous components. Leftover portions of these products are called household hazardous waste (HHW). These products, if mishandled, can be dangerous to human health and the environment.

Certain types of HHW can cause physical injury to sanitation workers, contaminate septic tanks or wastewater treatment systems if poured down drains or toilets, and present hazards to children and pets if left around the house. Some communities have special programs that allow residents to dispose of HHW separately. Others allow disposal of properly prepared HHW in trash, particularly those areas that do not yet have special HHW collection programs in place. Call your local Department of Sanitation or Department of Public Works for instructions on proper disposal. Follow their instructions and also read product labels for disposal directions to reduce the risk of products exploding, igniting, leaking, mixing with other chemicals, or posing other hazards on the way to a disposal facility. Even empty containers that used to contain HHW can pose hazards because of the residual chemicals inside.

Find more information on household hazardous waste and its safe disposal.

What happens to my recyclables after I put them out at the curbside?

After you put your recyclables out on the curb, they begin a circular journey during which they are processed and manufactured into new recycled-content products, which are sold in stores to consumers, who can then repeat the process. Below is a brief summary of the three phases of the recycling loop. Detailed description .

Step 1. Collection and Processing
After recyclables are collected at the curb or from a drop-off center, haulers take them to a materials recovery facility, where they are sorted and baled.

Step 2. Manufacturing
Once they are cleaned, separated, and baled, recyclables are remanufactured into new products. Many consumer products, such as newspapers, aluminum and steel cans, plastic containers and other plastic products, and glass bottles, are now manufactured with total or partial recycled content.

Step 3. Purchasing Recycled Products
Purchasing recycled products completes the recycling loop. By "buying recycled," governments, businesses, and individual consumers each play an important role in making the recycling process a success. Learn more about recycling terminology and to find tips on identifying recycled products .

What are deposit-refund systems?

Under a deposit-refund system, certain products or containers have a special front-end surcharge, or deposit, placed on them by manufacturers. This surcharge is then refunded to the consumer when he or she returns quantities of the containers or products for recycling or proper disposal.

Historically, deposit-refund systems have been applied, primarily at the state level, to glass, aluminum, or plastic drink bottles and cans. Nine states currently have a 5-cent deposit-refund on soft-drink bottles and cans, and one state has a 10-cent deposit-refund. These systems are being expanded to include other types of products as well. For example, in some areas deposit refunds are being applied to office products, such as photocopy machine toner cartridges. States like Maine and Rhode Island have established deposit-refund systems to encourage the recycling of lead-acid/automobile batteries.

State deposit-refund systems provide an incentive to recycle and, therefore, reduce the quantity of solid waste produced. The systems also can help state regulatory agencies reach their enforcement and compliance program objectives by reducing the need for additional regulatory resources. Theoretically, any product that is currently disposable and contains materials that can be reused is a candidate for a deposit-refund system.