ABSTRACT
This chapter has been extracted from the most recent in a series of reports released by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to characterize municipal solid waste (MSW) in the United States. This report characterizes the national municipal waste stream based on data through 2011. Identifying the components of the MSW stream is an important step toward addressing the issues associated with using it for energy generation. MSW characterizations, which analyze the quantity and composition of the waste stream, involve estimating how much MSW is generated, recycled, combusted, and disposed of in landfills. The chapter characterizes the MSW stream of the nation as a whole. EPA's Office of Solid Waste and its predecessors in the Public Health Service sponsored work in the 1960s and early 1970s to develop this methodology, which is based on production data (by weight) for the materials and products in the waste stream, with adjustments for imports, exports, and product lifetimes.
