The Need for Sustainable Waste Management Solutions

Poor Waste Management Methods

In 2008, the United States produced an estimated 250 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW). That’s about 4.5 pounds per person per day. About 31% of that waste consisted of packaging and containers. Food, yard waste, and other organic throwaways accounted for another 26%. Newspapers, magazines, and other non-durable goods made up 24% of the total, while durable goods such as kitchen appliances and tires accounted for 18%. Most of the garbage – approximately 54% -- wound up in landfills. Another 33% was recycled, and just 13% was converted to energy. The sources of MSW were 55-65% residential with 35-45% coming from schools and commercial locations. (November 2009 EPA Report)

Currently, over 50% of the United States waste—more than 130 million tons per year—is disposed of in landfills. At the present rate, 3,500 acres (13.7 square kilometers, equivalent to four NYC Central Parks) are lost annually to landfills, and this number will continue to rise to keep pace with our ever-increasing production of trash. Key problems with landfills include:

1. the release of the potent greenhouse gas methane from decomposing trash;
2. harmful emissions and resource drain from transportation used to haul trash to landfills;
3. costly clean-up of toxic leakage from closed landfills; and
4. the danger and difficulty of landfill redevelopment due to high levels of methane emissions and toxic leakage into the ground water.

While incineration with energy capture is sometimes used on a large scale by municipalities and industry, incineration is still a controversial method of waste disposal due to the potential of harmful emissions of gaseous pollutants and a low efficiency rate for energy capture.

High Energy Costs

Within the energy profession, a number of groups are grappling with the challenge of "Peak Oil." The efforts of Al Gore and others have raised awareness of the threat of global warming, while this inevitable endpoint is quietly flying under the radar. And, both global warming and Peak Oil have just begun to drive a change in our energy consumption. In the near term, declining production of oil will impact certain countries more than others. Cantarell, the largest field in the western hemisphere, is declining rapidly. Without imports, the USA's domestic oil reserves would be exhausted in three years at the current rate of consumption.

Technology is advancing on harvesting liquid fuel substitutes (tar sands, coal-to-liquids, oil shale, surprisingly even ethanol and biodiesel) but energy from these sources currently comes at a high carbon cost. Technologists are working on ways to lessen the impact of oil-alternatives on our planet, but commercial viability of better processes is far in the future.

Nuclear power is clean, but we can’t build plants fast enough to solve the problem. It would take one new nuclear power plant every week until 2050 to fill the oil gap. By 2015 new technologies could displace only the equivalent of 4 percent of projected annual consumption.