Recycling and Trash

If we are to live sustainably on this earth we need to think beyond our carbon footprint and try to reduce our wasting of the Earth’s natural resources and our own resources. In 2009, Americans generated about 243 million tons of trash and recycled and composted 33.8% of this trash (or 82 million tons) mostly through curb side recycling services. On average, Americans recycled and composted 1.46 pounds of our individual waste generation of 4.34 pounds per person per day. According to Scott MacDonald, Recycling Program Manager of the Prince William County Landfill, we in Prince William County Virginia generate 5.65 pounds of trash per person per day and only recycle about 32%. Much of this trash could have been reused or recycled or in many instances not purchased in the first place.

We need to reduce our waste. Our trash, or municipal solid waste as it is more properly called, is made up the things we buy and then throw away. Our household and commercial waste includes paper (magazines, newspapers, advertising, computer print outs) packaging, food scraps, grass clippings, sofas, computers, old tires, broken electronics and appliances, old clothes, broken dishes, and old appliances. Municipal solid waste does not include industrial, hazardous, or construction waste (except small builder or homeowner construction waste). As the population grows we have been generating more and more waste, but we have also increased the waste generated per person from an average of 2.68 pounds per person in 1960 to the current level of 4.34 pounds per person, a 61% increase. The peak average per person trash generation was in 2000 when the United States generated on average 4.72 pounds of trash per person. It is to be noted that the recycling rate went from 0% in 1960 to almost 34% in 2009. The EPA and lots of other groups has a list of suggestions to reduce the amount of trash that we produce, read it, some of the suggestions are simple painless steps, others will save you money. See what changes you can make.

The EPA estimates that residential waste (including waste from apartment houses) to be 55% to 65% of total trash generation. Waste from commercial and institutional locations, such as schools, hospitals, and businesses, accounted for 35% to 45% of total waste. Mr. MacDonald could only speculate why the trash generation per person in Prince William County exceeded the national averages. He thought it might be because we are an affluent community, but there could be demographic or cultural causes that produces the higher generation rate here. Whatever the reason, we need to improve both in total trash generation and the percentage of trash recycled. We need to move away from the disposable, single serving container behaviors and reduce, reuse and recycle. Really.

More than 77% of the typical waste can be recycled. According to the EPA the municipal solid waste typically consists of 28% Paper and paperboard, 28% is yard trimmings and food scraps (which can all be composed and really should not be buried in the landfill), 12% Plastics, 9% Metals; 8% rubber, leather, and textiles, 7% Wood, 5% glass and 4% Other miscellaneous wastes. Mr. MacDonald believes that the make up of the Prince William municipal solid waste is probably very similar to the national averages, but no analysis has ever been done.

The Prince William Landfill on Dumfries Road provides areas for depositing reusable items like clothing, furniture and functioning (and non functioning) appliances. In the front area of the landfill are Tire Recycling containers for disposing of used tires. These tires are ground up and used as cover for the land filling operation. There are also Scrap Metal Recycling containers for recycling metal items such as appliances, auto parts, bicycles, swing sets, mowers (with all the fluids removed), metal pipe, metal fixtures, metal siding, chain, microwave ovens, sheet metal, tire rims, chain link fencing, cable, and other similar metal items. Recovered metal is often sent overseas where the manufacturing of such items actually takes place. Refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners and other Freon containing appliances must be placed in a special designated area so that the Freon can be removed and properly disposed of or recycled depending on the age and type of the coolant fluid. There is an area for bottles and cans, mixed paper, newspapers, magazines, corrugated cardboard, and Special Waste Recycling for hazardous household waste requiring special handling (motor oil, oil filters, anti-freeze, car batteries, florescent light bulbs and household batteries). There is an area for Yard Waste/Brush containers for grass and leaves and brush recycling these materials will be turned into mulch or compost. Finally, there is a great place to leave items that still have usable life like used furniture, the Too Good to Waste Place. This is a great way to give away household items. Of course there is a regular Trash Disposal area with large containers for disposing of non-recyclable waste.

Many residents have trash pick up service with curb side recycling. The curb side recycling is also call single stream recycling because all recyclable waste is mixed together in one collection container at the curb. In some places the newspapers are separately recycled (and my husband still likes to separate the newspapers). The commingled recycling is then hauled away to a recycling center (not the landfill) that is equipped to process and separate recycling that is single streamed. The materials are then sorted by the type of recyclables. In Prince William, Fairfax, and Loudoun counties the recyclables are hauled from our curbs to a Waste Management single stream recycling facility in the region where the recyclables are separated and processed. As Waste Management has expanded its capabilities more and more types of materials are now acceptable. Waste Management has expanded it capabilities and shortly your trash collector will be able to collect newspapers, magazines and catalogs as well as other types of paper, paperboard packaging, cardboard, plastic containers #1 through #7 narrow neck and wide mouth containers and tubs, metal food and beverage cans, spray cans (no hazardous substances), aluminum foil wrap and pie pans with food residue removed and balled up. Milk, juice and soup cartons (without the plastic caps and straws) and glass bottles and jars. The expansion in items acceptable for recycling should be in place shortly and we can all expand our recycling.

Landfills a History

Historically trash had just been “tossed” out of our living areas. In cities trash and human waste was simply thrown into the streets or outside the gates. As cities became more populated and disease spread mankind came to the realization that throwing waste into the streets was contributing to the spread of devastating disease outbreaks and making cities centers of filth and disease. Bubonic Plague, Cholera, and Typhoid fever were just a few of the diseases spread by filth that harbored rats, and contaminated water supplies. It was not uncommon for European city dwellers to throw their trash and human wastes out of the window to decompose in the street. During the 1800’s the connection between disease, sewage, trash and filth was discovered. Though there was tremendous resistance most famously in France, by the late 1800’s cities created garbage collection and disposal systems using horse-drawn carts to collect garbage and dispose of it in open dumps, incinerators, or at sea. According to records at the U.S. EPA, in New York City in 1916 the garbage collection took in 4.6 pounds of garbage per person per day.

During the first half of the 20th century when garbage was routinely collected incineration was a common method of disposal. Many apartment buildings were constructed with garbage incinerators in the basements and trash shoot systems. In the early 20th century garbage, incinerator ash, and dirt were used to fill in swamps and the low lying wetlands near cities which allowed the contamination of groundwater.  When I was with the EPA I sampled the filled areas adjacent to NYC in New Jersey. "The precursor to the modern landfill was first tried in California in 1935. Trash was thrown into a hole in the ground that was periodically covered with dirt. In 1959 the American Society of Civil Engineers first published guidelines for a “sanitary landfill” that suggested compacting waste and covering it with a layer of soil each day to reduce odors and control rodents. Even at this point landfills were designed by excavating a hole or trench, filling the excavation with trash, and covering the trash with soil. "In most instances, the waste was placed directly on the underlying soils without a barrier or containment layer (liner) that prevented water percolating through the waste and picking up contaminants know as leachate from moving out of the landfill and contaminating groundwater.

The Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 (SWDA)  created the office of solid waste. In 1976, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) expanded the federal government’s role in managing waste disposal. RCRA divided wastes into hazardous and solid waste categories, and began the process of developing standards for sanitary landfills and closing or upgrading existing dumps to meet the sanitary landfill standards. (The Office of Solid Waste was transferred to the US EPA in 1974. I met my husband when the Office of Hazardous Waste was combined with the Office of Solid Waste where I worked in shortly thereafter.)

In 1979, EPA developed the first set of criteria for sanitary landfills that included standards for locating new landfills and operational standards for existing landfills to reduce disease vectors and increase protection of surface and groundwater. RCRA was amended in 1984 to require EPA to assess and revise the sanitary landfill requirements. Finally, in 1991, EPA established new federal standards for municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills that updated location and operation standards and added design standards, groundwater monitoring requirements, corrective action requirements for known environmental releases, closure and post-closure care requirements, and financial assurance requirements to ensure that there would always be adequate funding to maintain closed landfills. During my environmental career, landfills changed from little more than holes in the ground to highly engineered, state-of the-art containment systems requiring large capital expenditures.

Modern landfills are specifically designed to protect human health and the environment by controlling water and air emissions. Modern landfills are built as a series of cells. The cells include liners of plastic membranes and watertight clay on the bottom and the leachate collection systems to prevent groundwater contamination. Liners prevent leachate and methane and CO2 gas migration out of the landfill while directing liquids to the leachate collection system. Liner systems are typically constructed with layers of low permeability, natural materials (compacted clay) and/or synthetic materials (high-density polyethylene). The leachate collection system removes the liquid contained in the liner. A typical leachate collection system may consist of (from bottom to top) a perforated leachate collection pipe placed in a drainage layer (gravel). The leachate is collected, filtered, typically tested and sent on to waste water treatment either on or off site. At the end of each day, the waste is covered with six inches of soil or an alternative daily cover (foam, tarps, ground tires, incinerator ash, compost) to control the spread of disease through birds and rodents, odors, fires, and blowing litter.

Virginia has roughly 60 solid waste landfills still in operation there are closed landfills required to be monitored and maintained according to regulation. There are 134 counties and cities in Virginia, so solid waste management has become a regional operation. In 1993, the General Assembly mandated in a law known as "HB 1205" that existing landfills that did not meet the new regulations must be closed and could not maintain their grandfathered status. Old landfills would be permitted to continue accepting waste until their existing facilities were filled, but no horizontal expansion of old landfills would be permitted and the older landfills must then be caped and monitored. All new cells, at old or new landfills, would have to meet stricter requirements for liners, clay caps, leachate collection systems, gas release/collection systems, and monitoring. Older landfills would have to be stabilized to prevent contamination of groundwater.