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FYI
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Municipal solid waste disposal:
disposal, in this term, refers specifically to landfilling.
Municipal solid waste generation:
this term refers to solid waste (trash, garbage) created through various activities that enters the solid waste stream and is either disposed in a landfill, recycled, composted, or combusted.
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Source: TNRCC, MSW Management in Texas:
Status Report [1997], 8.
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The question of what to do with human trash—recycle, reduce, dump, incinerate has been of concern to every society.
In the late nineteenth century the first systematic, municipally run waste-collection system was put in place in the United States. The system started in New York City where, under the
direction of the Street Cleaning Commission, 1,000 men clad in white, known as the "Apostles of Cleanliness," transported trash from the streets to dumps and incinerators.* By 1910 most municipalities across the country had established some system of waste collection and disposal. Today, the Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality oversees municipal waste procedures and strategies in Texas.
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TRENDS IN MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE GENERATION IN THE U.S., 1960-2000
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YEAR
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MILLIONS OF TONS
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PER CAPITA (LBS/PERSON/DAY)
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1960
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88.1
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2.7
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1970
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121.0
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3.3
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1980
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151.6
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3.7
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1990
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205.2
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4.5
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2000
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232.0
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4.5
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Source: EPA Office of Solid Waste,
Municipal Solid Waste
www.epa.gov/epa/gov/epaoswer/nonhw/mncpl
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Over the past twenty years, a substantial body of state and federal legislation regulating the disposal of industrial, hazardous, and municipal solid waste (MSW) has been developed. Before that time,
solid waste management depended on the judgment and decisions of individuals or local departments of health and sanitation. No distinction
was made between industrial and municipal solid waste—each was handled and disposed of in the same manner, mainly through incineration, landfilling, or disposing into rivers and streams. Far-reaching federal regulations governing the disposal of
nonhazardous and hazardous waste went into effect in 1976. In what seems to be a natural evolution of environmental law, federal waste
legislation fell in place right on the heels of national water- and air-pollution control legislation. Concern for human health and the
environment was the impetus for the enactment of the major federal legislation—the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA).
During the crafting of the 1976 act, Congress had the opportunity both to regulate disposal methods and to reduce the
generation of waste by regulating production and products. Though several bills were introduced to minimize waste by regulating product contents
, consumer product packaging, and manufacturing processes, these bills did not pass. At
that time, for both solid waste and hazardous waste, Congress opted to regulate waste disposal rather than encourage source reduction.*
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GENERATION, MATERIALS RECOVERY, COMPOSTING,AND DISCARDS OF
MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE IN THE U.S., 1960-1998
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Note:Composting of yard trimmings and food wastes. Does not include mixed MSW
composting or backyard composting.
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Source: EPA, Characterization of Municipal Solid Waste in the
United States, 1999 Update
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There are numerous reasons to be concerned with waste. It is costly to dispose of, and the generation of
large amounts of wastes impacts the environment. Domestic and industrial discharges of waste contaminate air, land, and water with pollutants and
toxics that can harm human health and animal and plant life. According to environmental lawyer and author Paul Wilson, "the biosphere is disrupted by the
sheer volume of our wastes—and also by the fact that many of those wastes are compounds that biosphere systems cannot absorb and recycle."*
Moreover, the more waste that is disposed of rather than recycled, the more raw materials, like trees, must
be consumed in making new products. Though not all scientists agree, many, like Paul Ehrlich, have concluded that human activity is changing the planet's
basic chemistry at an increasing rate, as seen in the depletion of fossil fuels and natural resources, global warming, greenhouse gases, destruction of natural
ecosystems, and biodiversity. For these scientists, "human beings and the natural world are on a collision course" that can be prevented only if the people in
industrialized nations greatly reduce their over consumption, for only then will there be a reduction of pressures on resources and the global environment.*
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