250,000,000 Tons of Trash From 1 Country In 1 Year
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 250 million tons of municipal waste was generated in the United States in 2010. 250,000,000 tons of trash. 1 country. 1 year.
What is Municipal Waste?
Municipal waste is typical household trash. Things like soda bottles, cans, newspapers, couches, appliances, food, and lawn clippings.
Municipal Waste Generated vs Recycled
Below is a chart comparing the United States' 2010 municipal waste generation to the amount of municipal waste recycle.
Municipal Waste Materials Generated
With nearly 72 million tons,
paper and paper board dwarfs the other categories for amount of waste generated. Food scraps, yard
trimmings, and plastics each make up around 32 million tons of municipal
waste generated. About 22 million tons of the waste generated is metal
of some sort. The remaining waste is composed of 16 million tons or less
each of wood, textiles, glass, rubber and leather, miscellaneous
inorganic waste, and other waste.
Municipal Waste Materials Recycled
The good news is paper and paper board category continues to dwarf the other categories. The bad news is only a bit over half of the paper and paper board waste generated was recycled. The same goes for yard trimmings. The worse news is less than half of the waste generated in the other categories was recycled. In fact, the recycling rate for all the remaining waste materials is closer to 25% than 50%. There was so little recycling of materials from the miscellaneous inorganic waste category that there isn't even a bar for it.
What That Means
The EPA reports that, of the 250 million tons of trash generated within the United States in 2010, 85 million tons of it recycled. That means 165 million tons of trash that has to go somewhere. The chart below shows the percentage of municipal waste material from each category that remained after recycling.
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| Based on data from EPA. |
What can you do to help?
Reduce, REUSE, Recycle!The "EPA encourages practices that reduce the amount of waste needing to be
disposed of, such as waste prevention, recycling, and composting." While composting and recycling do reduce the amount of waste that has to be stored, they are still not the best options. Composting and recycling are, after all, managing already generated wasted. As the EPA says, "the most effective way to reduce waste is to not create it in the first place." Don't buy things you don't need. Reuse the things you already have instead of throwing them away and buying more. That is what you can do to help.
About the United States Environmental Protection Agency
The EPA is an agency of the United States Government that protects Americans and the environment through policies, policy enforcement, research, grants, and partnerships. Learn all about the EPA on their About EPA page.
Critique
The EPA is backed by the United States government. Its website has all sorts of professionally developed research data. Data on the EPA website is unbiased hard fact. Best of all, the data is easily and freely accessible. There's tons of data on a variety of environmental topics from a reputable source. What more could a person want?
Whoa! That's a ton of trash. This really made me think about how slack I have been in this area.
ReplyDeleteI hope I have inspired you to help out with this insane problem. If I have, please head over to the Stories of Inspiration page to share how you have been inspired.
Deletewe should all follow the example of the people of the depression era. use it up and wear it out.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely.....waste not want not.
DeleteThis is a good point. There is nothing wrong with getting something new when you need it; but, do you really need it?
DeleteI agree we should be reusing and recyling like the generations before us who had to do that for survival.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Reusing used to be mandatory for survival. Keep in mind that in many places it still is. For instance, it's not a question of "Do I want to wear the tattered clothes I found in the gutter?" It's a question of "Do I want to freeze to death this winter?"
Deleteright on!
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear what you are agreeing with and maybe even why you agree so strongly.
DeleteReality is it's hard to get people to change their behavior without some kind of incentive to do so. Making it financially advantageous to recycle would probably go a long way in getting a lot more people to make the extra effort to recycle more. Cities/counties could simply structure trash disposal rates so that it costs more to throw things in the trash than it does to recycle them.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent idea. People do need motivation to do something that takes effort/time. I read somewhere, I don't remember where, that some companies charge for deposits on things like bottles. Returning the item gets a refund on the deposit. The company then recycles returned items for a bit of money back. The company definitely wouldn't be recycling without financial incentive nor would the customers bother with keeping and returning anything.
DeletePart of the problem is the disposable world we now live in. Companies figured out that making quality products that lasted for years and years didn't drive enough sales and now most things are made to last only a bit longer than the warranty on them. And getting something repaired costs nearly as much and sometimes more than buying a new one does. So tons more stuff gets thrown away everyday.
ReplyDeleteIt would be easy to say stop buying cheap crap made in China and buy American made but unfortunately whole sectors of consumer products are no longer even made in the USA. U.S. companies that paid a living wage couldn't compete on price with Chinese sweatshops that pay 50 cents or $1 an hour.
A big part of the problem you are talking about is greed. Greed wants money now. Lots of it. And greed doesn't care where or how it gets that money. By manufacturing disposable products, today's corporations are maximizing profit at the future's expense.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely......greed makes the world go 'round. Greed is also the single biggest obstacle to progress in a great many areas. People, corporations, and industries that are making huge profits under the status quo don't want that to change...so they spend spend spend to influence elections and laws to keep things as they are and block new cleaner and more sustainable options from getting a real foothold and becoming cheaper and more viable and mainstream.
DeleteStatus quo...an evil thing. People need to learn to embrace change so it can be done away with. Things cannot get better without lots of change.
Delete