Waste Management In The United States
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Waste Management In The United States
As a nation, Americans generate more waste than any other nation in the world, officially with of municipal solid waste (MSW) per person per day, with another study estimating per capita per day. Fifty five percent of this waste is contributed as residential garbage, while the remaining forty five percent of waste in the U.S.'s ‘waste stream' comes from manufacturing, retailing, and commercial trade in the U.S. economy. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, Nevada produces the most waste at "early per person per day". Approximately 90% of all waste produced by Nevadans ends up in landfills. "Wasteful" states Michigan, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Oregon as well as Washington also dominated the list's 5-year period. Definitions Waste may be defined differently in legislation and regulations of the federal government or individual states. Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations dealing with protection of the environment contains at least four different definiti ...
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Generation Of Products In US Solid Waste, 1960-2014
A generation refers to all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It can also be described as, "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children." In kinship terminology, it is a structural term designating the parent-child relationship. It is known as biogenesis, reproduction, or procreation in the biological sciences. ''Generation'' is also often used synonymously with ''cohort'' in social science; under this formulation it means "people within a delineated population who experience the same significant events within a given period of time". Generations in this sense of birth cohort, also known as "social generations", are widely used in popular culture, and have been the basis for sociological analysis. Serious analysis of generations began in the nineteenth century, emerging from an increasing awareness of the possibility of pe ...
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Recycled
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the properties it had in its original state. It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. It can also prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reducing energy use, air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution (from landfilling). Recycling is a key component of modern waste reduction and is the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" waste hierarchy. It promotes environmental sustainability by removing raw material input and redirecting waste output in the economic system. There are some ISO standards related to recycling, such as ISO 15270:2008 for plastics waste and ISO 14001:2015 for enviro ...
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Waste By Country
Waste, unwanted or unusable material, varies in type and quantity in different countries. Developed nations Developed countries produce more waste per capita because they have higher levels of resource consumption, consumption. There are higher proportions of plastic waste, plastics, scrap metal, metals, and paper waste, paper in the municipal solid waste stream and there are higher labour costs."Solid Waste Management." 2005. United Nations Environment Programme. Chapter III: Waste Quantities and Characteristics, 31-38. . As countries continue developing, there is a reduction in biological solid waste and ash.Diaz, L. et al. ''Solid Waste Management, Volume 2.'' UNEP/Earthprint, 2006. Per capita waste generation in OECD countries has increased by 14% since 1990, and 35% since 1980."Improving Recycling Markets." OECD Environment Program. Paris: OECD, 2006. Waste generation generally grows at a rate slightly lower than GDP in these countries. Developed countries consume more than 6 ...
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San Francisco Mandatory Recycling And Composting Ordinance
The San Francisco Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance (No. 100-09) is a local municipal ordinance requiring all persons located in San Francisco to separate their recyclables, compostables and landfilled trash and to participate in recycling and composting programs. Passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2009, it became the first local municipal ordinance in the United States to universally require source separation of all organic material, including food residuals. History Early 1900s The roots of San Francisco's recycling and composting program can be traced back to the formation of the Scavengers Protective Union in 1879, when loose federations of scavengers began. Most were Italian immigrants from one region of Italy and they hauled municipal waste in horse-drawn wagons and hand separated valuable discards for resale. The scavengers made a living from materials similar to those salvaged in recycling programs today such as wood, metals, glass, rags, yar ...
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Recycling In The United States
There is no national law in the United States that mandates recycling. State and local governments often introduce their own recycling requirements. In 2014, the recycling/composting rate for municipal solid waste in the US was 34.6%. A number of U.S. states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont have passed laws that establish deposits or refund values on beverage containers while other jurisdictions rely on recycling goals or landfill bans of recyclable materials. National legislation On a national level, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversees a variety of waste issues under the mandate of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. These include regulation of hazardous wastes, landfill regulations, and setting recycling goals. The Department of Commerce is also responsible for helping to develop markets for recycled goods. State and local legislation More specific recyc ...
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Hazardous Waste In The United States
Under United States environmental policy, hazardous waste is a waste (usually a solid waste) that has the potential to: * cause, or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible, or incapacitating reversible illness; or * pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, or disposed of, or otherwise managed. Under the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), a facility that treats, stores or disposes of hazardous waste must obtain a permit for doing so. Generators of and transporters of hazardous waste must meet specific requirements for handling, managing, and tracking waste. Through RCRA, Congress directed EPA to issue regulations for the management of hazardous waste. EPA developed strict requirements for all aspects of hazardous waste management including the treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. In addition to these federal req ...
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Environmental Regulations
Environmental law is a collective term encompassing aspects of the law that provide protection to the environment. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the management of specific natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries. Other areas, such as environmental impact assessment, may not fit neatly into either category, but are nonetheless important components of environmental law. History Early examples of legal enactments designed to consciously preserve the environment, for its own sake or human enjoyment, are found throughout history. In the common law, the primary protection was found in the law of nuisance, but this only allowed for private actions for damages or injunctions if there was harm to land. Thus, smells emanating from pigsties, strict liability against dumping rubbish, or damage from exploding dams. Private enforcement, however, was limited and found to be woefully in ...
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Material Recovery
A materials recovery facility, materials reclamation facility, materials recycling facility or Multi re-use facility (MRF, pronounced "murf") is a specialized plant that receives, separates and prepares recyclable materials for marketing to end-user manufacturers. Generally, there are two different types: clean and dirty materials recovery facilities. Industry and locations In the United States, there are over 300 materials recovery facilities. The total market size is estimated at $6.6B as of 2019. As of 2016, the top 75 were headed by Sims Municipal Recycling out of Brooklyn, New York. Waste Management operated 95 MRF facilities total, with 26 in the top 75. ReCommunity operated 6 in the top 75. Republic Services operated 6 in the top 75. Waste Connections operated 4 in the top 75. Business economics In 2018, a survey in the Northeast United States found that the processing cost per ton was $82, versus a value of around $45 per ton. Composition of the ton included 28% mi ...
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China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ...
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Global Waste Trade
The global waste trade is the international trade of waste between countries for further treatment, disposal, or recycling. Toxic or hazardous wastes are often imported by developing countries from developed countries. The World Bank Report ''What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management'', describes the amount of solid waste produced in a given country. Specifically, countries which produce more solid waste are more economically developed and more industrialized. The report explains that "Generally, the higher the economic development and rate of urbanization, the greater the amount of solid waste produced." Therefore, countries in the Global North, which are more economically developed and urbanized, produce more solid waste than Global South countries. Current international trade flows of waste follow a pattern of waste being produced in the Global North and being exported to and disposed of in the Global South. Multiple factors affect which countries produce was ...
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Landfills
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, refuse was simply left in piles or thrown into pits; in archeology this is known as a midden. Some landfill sites are used for waste management purposes, such as temporary storage, consolidation and transfer, or for various stages of processing waste material, such as sorting, treatment, or recycling. Unless they are stabilized, landfills may undergo severe shaking or soil liquefaction of the ground during an earthquake. Once full, the area over a landfill site may be reclaimed for other uses. Operations Operators of well-run landfills for non-hazardous waste meet predefined specifications by applying techniques to: # confine waste to as small an area as ...
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Recycling
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the properties it had in its original state. It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. It can also prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reducing energy use, air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution (from landfilling). Recycling is a key component of modern waste reduction and is the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" waste hierarchy. It promotes environmental sustainability by removing raw material input and redirecting waste output in the economic system. There are some ISO standards related to recycling, such as ISO 15270:2008 for plastics waste and ISO 14001:2015 for enviro ...
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