Recycling

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Recycling in the United States

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As population grows and access to limited resources such as land and water continue to dwindle, waste management becomes an increasingly urgent and controversial issue faced by the government and public alike. How society deals with the waste it produces can have far-reaching implications both for the well-being of future generations and the environment on which humans depend.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created a solid waste hierarchy to outline the preferred management techniques of waste. First and foremost, the EPA encourages source reduction which includes changing the packaging design of products, increasing product-life, and reducing the toxicity involved in the manufacture and completion of a product. Barring source reduction, the next best alternative for waste management is to recycle or reuse the used product and compost organic wastes. The remaining waste should be taken to a combustion facility or landfill for disposal.1

Despite the acceptance of the solid waste hierarchy, often times reduction of waste does not occur because of a lack of consumer pressure driving industry to incorporate waste-reducing innovations into their manufacturing processes or products. Indeed, sometimes even with a market incentive, companies lack the access to better, environmentally-friendly technology or the producer pressure to change. Because of this, an emerging competitive market has been created for waste-recycling technologies, the next best alternative to reduction. In 2006, the United States produced a little more than 251 million tons of municipal solid waste, 82 million tons of which was diverted from landfills for recycling. The energy savings accrued through the recycling of these materials amounted to the energy equivalent of more than 10 billion gallons of petrol.2

1. U.S. EPA. 2005 A. Municipal Solid Waste. Available: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/facts.htm

2. United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2006. Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006. Available: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/pubs/msw06.pdf