What is MSW?

1. What is MSW? (Municipal Solid Waste!)

2. MSW • Solid waste is any unwanted or discarded material that is not liquid or a gas • Municipal Solid Waste: The total of all the materials thrown away from homes and commercial establishments • Common terms: Trash, Refuse, Garbage • Goal of Solid Waste Management: reduce the amount of waste produced • Ideal = do not produce • Realistic?

3. We have a garbage problem? • North America produces about 1/3 of the WORLD’s solid waste with less than 5% of the worlds population! • 98.5% = mining, oil and natural gas production, agriculture, sewage sludge and industrial activities • This solid waste is produced indirectly for your goods and services • What does this mean? Mine Waste Piles

4. Product Garbage • Lets look at your computer: • Made of 700 or more materials from mines, oil wells and chemical factories • Every 0.5 kg (1 lb) of electronics = ~ 3600 kg (8000lbs) of solid and liquid waste • Large amounts of energy are also required = burning of fossil fuels

5. Remaining 1.5%?? • This is our MSW • Between 1960 and 2005, the total amount of MSW in North America each year increased 3-fold and is still rising • FACT: Each year North America generates enough MSW to fill a bumper-to-bumper convoy of garbage trucks encircling the globe almost 8 times? • Japan and most developed European countries produce about ½ as much MSW per person as NA, and most developing countries develop about ¼ to 1/10th

6. MSW in Canada and the US • Paper products and organic matter make up the largest percentage of MSW in Canada and the US • Organics = 40% • Miscellaneous = 18% • Plastic = 9% • Metal = 4% • Glass = 3%

7. Key Canadian Points • MSW produced annually per Canadian = 383 kg or 30 green garbage bags • MSW diverted (recycled and other programs) = 21% • Percentage of paper recycled = 40% • Amount of e-wastes (computers, TV’s, cell phones) discarded each year = 140 000 tonnes • In NA, only about 2% of e-waste is recycled

8. Our High-Waste Economy! • Want the stats? What do we throw away?? • Enough aluminum to rebuild the entire commercial airline fleets of both CAN and US every 3 months • Enough tires each year to encircle the planet almost 3 times • Enough disposable diapers each year that if they were linked end to end they would reach to the moon and back 7 times • About 2 billion disposable razors, 130 million cell phones, 50 million computers, and 8 million television sets each year • Discarded carpet each year that could cover PEI • About 2.5 million nonreturnable plastic bottles every HOUR • About 670 000 metric tons (1.5 billion lbs) of edible food/year • Enough office paper each year to build a wall 3.5 m (11 feet) high across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific • Some 186 billion pieces of junk mail (an average 660 per person) each year, about half of which is unopen

9. Waste in Nature? • I don’t think so!!! • Wastes of one organism become nutrients for other organisms • Human Waste? Has to go somewhere . . . • 1. Waste Management – the high waste approach • AKA: Disposal • 2. Waste Reduction – the low waste approach • AKA: Diversion

10. Waste Management • Views that waste production is an unavoidable product of economic growth • Attempt to manage resulting wastes in ways that reduce environmental harm • Methods: landfills, incineration, shipping • Basically = mixing of wastes and transferring them from one part of the environment to another

11. Waste Reduction • Recognizes that there is “no away!” • Views most solid waste as potential resources that we should be reusing, recycling, or composting • 5 R’s (In order of importance) • Rethink traditional strategies for dealing with wastes • Refuse to manufacture or purchase harmful products • Reduce packaging or other wasteful materials in products • Reuse products and buy reusable products like returnable bottles • Recycle products (including composting)