Sustainable waste management means using material resources efficiently to cut down on the amount of waste we produce, recycling as much as possible, recapturing as much energy as possible from the remainder, and disposing of what’s left in an environmentally responsible manner.

Recycling: Part of the answer, but not all

Recycling is a vital part of a sustainable waste solution because it has the potential to significantly reduce our waste stream and reuse valuable resources. Energy-from-Waste (EfW) facilities, also known as waste-to-energy (WTE), complement recycling efforts. In fact, in the United States municipalities that have EfW facilities typically have a higher recycling rate (33% recycling with EfW vs. 28% without).  This is in part because EfW facilities recover and recycle metal from waste.  Covanta facilities recover and recycle over 360,000 tons of ferrous metal annually, which is enough to build 275,000 hybrid cars each year. Advanced countries around the world recycle between 25% and 50%.  Given technical and economic limitations, it is simply not practicle to recycle all waste.  The best thing to do with the waste remaining after recycling is to convert it into electricity using modern EfW facilities.   

Landfills:  A problematic solution

Currently, over 50% of the United States waste is disposed of in landfills annually.  At the present rate in the U. S. alone, 3,500 acres (13.7 square kilometers, equivalent to four NYC Central Parks) are lost annually to landfills, and this number will continue to rise to keep pace with our ever-increasing production of trash.

Landfills also release the potent greenhouse gas methane from decomposing trash and carbon emissions from the transportation methods used in the long-distance shipping of trash to open sites.  Many communities are currently dealing with leakage from closed landfills, and high levels of methane emissions often make landfills dangerous and difficult places to redevelop.