Municipal Solid Waste

From Open Source Ecology
Jump to: navigation, search

Basics

  • Often Abbreviated as MSW
  • All solid waste produced by a group/facility
  • Essentially all "trash" + recycling + solid compostables

Average Composition (USA Data Mainly)

Glass

  • ~4.2%
  • Hard to recycle, especially if not clear and/or if a precise color is desired
  • May have use as an abrasive, or as an aggrgate/composite componet

Plastics

  • ~13%
  • Assuming "other" means thermosets?
  • Spreadsheet Here
  • TLDR: Mainly PE , PP , PET , and low amounts of other "usables" (~12% ) and a decent amount thermosets/blends/degraded products (other ; ~15% )

Study A

Study B

Metals

  • ~9.4%

Paper and Similar Materials

  • ~25% of total

Organic/Yard Waste

  • A HUGE portion
  • ~35%

Misc Inorganic Waste

  • Mix of leather, textiles, other category, and the inorganic waste category from the epa page
  • ~13.1
  • Textiles may be recoverable, celluloistic would be easy, plastics/blends most likely non-recoverable?
  • E-Waste is valuable, but requires speciazl processing (is this included in the list?)
  • Leather is odd, may be compostable, probably rare?


Internal Links

External Links