Ode to the blue bin - America's wastestream and what we're doing about it

Continuing our 40th Anniversary of Earth Day series, here's an executive look at what happens to all of our stuff after we think that we're done with it.

We have a lot of stuff, we have a lot of trash
Along with the rise in American disposable income and wealth over the past century has come a rise in what we dispose of.  As the Environmental Protection Agency calculates it, the amount of solid waste generated in a year has gone from 88 million tons in 1960 to nearly 250 million tons today.

And it's not just because there are more Americans.  The amount of trash generated each day by an American has gone from 2.7 pounds to 4.5 pounds in the same period.  In a year, that adds up to 0.8 tons per person.

Source: EPA

Hey, you can see our trash from space!
There are two man-made constructions that you can see easily from space.  One is the Great Wall of China.  The second is the Fresh Kills landfill site on Staten Island,the repository of New York City trash since it opened in 1948.  It's 2,200 acres of fun, rising to 225 feet in some spots.  Now turned into a park, it looks rather pretty now, but I wouldn't go digging too deep.

We are running out of landfills, however, for all of our trash. From 1979 to 1995, the number of landfills dropped by 84%.  Landfills are closing at the rate of 1 per day, according to the Clean Air Council.

Source: NYC Dept of Planning

What is all this stuff?
The majority of what we throw out is made up of paper, followed by yard trimmings, food scraps, and plastics. 

Source: EPA

Seen in another way, a lot of what goes into the waste stream is -- packaging.  That's your aluminum can, your disposable grocery bag, your takeout food container. We do love convenience.  According to the Clean Air Council, Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.  Americans toss out enough paper and plastic cups, forks and spoons every year to circle the equator 300 times.

 

2.5 million plastic bottles are thrown out every hour.

And that's just the small stuff.  Every day, 20,000 American cars and 4,000 trucks and buses are disposed of.

The good news - we can recycle a lot of this, and we are doing more and more of it
 Americans now recycle about 83 million tons of discarded material a year.  This is a huge growth since the early 1980's.  About 1/3rd of waste is now headed to the recycler.

In 1980, 89% of all waste ended up in a landfill.  Today, it's only 54%.  Recycling, composting, and incineration take care of the rest.

Recycling has a huge impact on reducing energy use and emissions. The 83 million tons of waste recycled last year is equivalent to reducing 182 million metric tons from our environment, comparable to the greenhouse gas emissions from over 33 million cars. It also save the equivalent of over 10 billion gallons of gasoline.




There's still more we can do
 Awareness, recycling programs, and legislation have all helped to increase recycling rates.  However, there's still more that can be done.  While almost all auto batteries are recycled (a great example of adherence to the law), more recycling of personally used products, like cans, glass containers, and plastic containers can be done.  The following chart from the EPA shows that only 28% of glass containers are recycled, and only 48% of aluminum cans.

Every can important
According to the Clean Air Council, recycling a single aluminum can saves as much energy as if that can were half full of gasoline.

 That's equivalent to 18 oz. of gasoline, right there. 

So as you gear up for Earth Day tomorrow, please take a moment to think about your 4.5 pounds of trash, and recycle as much as you can.