Solid waste policy of the United States
[1] In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates household, industrial, manufacturing, and commercial solid and hazardous wastes under the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
[2] Effective solid waste management is a cooperative effort involving federal, state, regional, and local entities.
[2] Each state will have different methods on how to educate and control the flow of waste Solid waste means any garbage or refuse, sludge from a wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or an air pollution control facility and other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations, and from community activities.
[4] The large scope of the term "solid waste" means that it must be managed in a variety of different ways and that various levels of government employ different policy instruments in order to accomplish this task.
[5] Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage, includes all everyday thrown away items from households, commercial and institutional entities, horticulture, and road sweeping.
Thus the agricultural waste is generated at all stages of the food system including farming, storage, processing, and wholesaling.
For example, the EPA reports that a single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, equaling 20-40 people.
Treatment waste consists of sludge, byproducts, coproducts, or metal scraps resulting from a facility or plant.
Examples of byproducts include slag, fly ash, heavy ends, distillation column bottoms, etc.
RCRA Subtitle J regulated medical waste in four states (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island) and Puerto Rico, and expired on March 22, 1991.
[15][full citation needed] In 2009, U.S. residents, businesses, and institutions produced more than 243 million tons of municipal solid waste, which is approximately 4.34 lbs/person/day.
[6][19] The primary sources of solid waste are residential, commercial, and industrial entities, construction and renovation sites, hospitals, agricultural fields and animal farms, and treatment and processing plants.
[20] This section describes the common methods of solid waste disposal practiced in United States and worldwide.
Some of the main issues associated with waste are open dumping, odor, particulate matter emissions, leachate seepage from landfills, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that lead to air pollution, surface and groundwater pollution, food chain contamination, land area depletion, human health impacts, environmental degradation, and negative impacts on plant and animal life.
A deposit-refund bill named National Beverage Container Reuse and Recycling Act was introduced by the House of Representatives in 1994 but never became federal law.
[25] Under the RCRA, the EPA issues permits to ensure the safe treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous wastes.
[27] Performance standards dictate maximum levels of emissions that may be released in the process of waste management and disposal.
The EPA has established a number of partnerships with businesses and organizations, industries, states, local governments, tribes, and other entities to reduce and effectively manage waste.
Entities may enter into these partnerships because of a variety of expected benefits, including costs savings and improved public image.
In another example, EPA and state and tribal representatives jointly developed a framework for industrial waste management aimed to establish a common set of guidelines.
In this way, the government is working to educate its citizens in order to reduce the amount of waste and ensure its proper disposal in a non coercive manner.
This website is also a good source for people looking for instructions on how to properly dispose of items such as compact fluorescent bulbs or electronics.
[34] In a second phase, the Resource Recovery Act of 1970 emphasized reclaiming energy and materials from solid waste instead of dumping.
In a third phase, the federal government started playing more active regulatory role, with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976.
[34] RCRA instituted the first federal permitting program for hazardous waste and it also made open dumping illegal.
RCRA focuses only on active and future facilities and does not address abandoned or historical sites which are managed under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 - commonly known as Superfund.
Municipalities also may adopt approaches of converting waste to energy through methods such as generating electricity from landfill gas.
In addition to these issues, policy has to address the short term and long-term economic, environmental, and social costs and benefits, funding methods, and roles of various stakeholders.
