Solid waste policy in the United States is aimed at developing and implementing proper mechanisms to effectively manage solid waste. For solid waste policy to be effective, inputs should come from stakeholders, including citizens, businesses, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, universities, and other research organizations. These inputs form the basis of policy frameworks that influence solid waste management decisions. 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). Effective solid waste management is a cooperative effort involving federal, state, regional, and local entities. Thus, the RCRA's Solid Waste program section D encourages the environmental departments of each state to develop comprehensive plans to manage nonhazardous industrial and municipal solid waste. Each state will have different methods on how to educate and control the flow of waste
Solid 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. Solid waste does not include solid or dissolved materials in domestic sewage, solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows, or industrial discharges. 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.
Generally, the term "solid waste" refers to non-hazardous waste, though according to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and other state regulations, "hazardous waste" is also a part of solid waste.
Non-hazardous solid wastes
Municipal 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. This includes items such as packaging, paper, cardboard, food scraps, plastic bags & containers, glass bottles, grass clippings, furniture, tires, electrical & electronic items, and metals. In 2009, United States residents generated 243 million tons of trash, down from 255 million tons in 2007. In the same period, the per capita generation of MSW lowered to 4.34 lbs/person/day from 4.63 lbs/person/day.
Agricultural and animal Agricultural wastes include primary crop residues that remain in fields after harvest and secondary processing residues generated from the harvested portions of crops during food, feed, and fiber production. This is generated during the production and distribution through decomposition of food, vegetables, or meat, removal of non-usable parts, removal of substandard products, and spoiling due to substandard packaging. Thus the agricultural waste is generated at all stages of the food system including farming, storage, processing, and wholesaling. The food scraps generated by retailers and consumers are not included in this category as these scraps enter the waste stream as municipal solid waste. Animal wastes are wastes generated from farms and feedlots, also known as Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs) or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), consisting of leftover feeds, manure and urine, wastewater, dead animals, and production operation wastes. They produce large amounts of waste in small areas. For example, the EPA reports that a single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, equaling 20-40 people. The main problems of animal waste mismanagement are environmental, especially water pollution.
Industrial Industrial waste consists of a significant amount of solid waste. EPA reported that each year United States industrial facilities generate and dispose of approximately 7.6 billion tons of industrial solid waste based on 1980s figures. This figure includes waste generated from 17 industrial manufacturers of organic chemicals, inorganic chemicals, iron and steel, plastics and resins, stone, clay, glass, concrete, pulp and paper, food, and kindred products. Industrial waste does not go into the municipal solid waste stream and therefore is landfilled or processed separately. As per EPA guidelines industrial waste management units have to consider waste characterization and minimization methods, waste constituent information factsheets, risk assessment tools, institutional mechanism/stakeholder partnership principles, safe and proper design guidelines, water (surface and ground) and air monitoring procedures, and facility pre- and post-closure recommendations.
Construction and demolition C&D waste includes debris generated during the construction, renovation, and demolition of buildings, roads, and bridges. This can be often bulky and heavy building materials consisting of concrete, building wood waste, asphalt from roads and roof shingles, drywall gypsum, metals, bricks, blocks, glass, plastics, building components like doors, windows, and fixtures, and trees, stumps, earth, and rock from construction and clearing sites. Since this often consists of bulky and heavy materials, proper waste management can improve resources. EPA estimated that 136 million tons of building-related C&D waste was generated in the United States in 1996.
Treatment Treatment waste consists of sludge, byproducts, coproducts, or metal scraps resulting from a facility or plant. Sludge is any solid, semisolid, or liquid waste generated from a municipal, commercial, or industrial wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility exclusive of the treated effluent from a wastewater treatment plant. This includes electric arc furnace dust and baghouse dusts. A byproduct is a material that is not a primary product which is not solely or separately produced in a production process whereas coproducts are intentionally produced. Byproducts need further processing to be useful whereas coproducts are highly processed and can be sold as a commodity without further processing. Examples of byproducts include slag, fly ash, heavy ends, distillation column bottoms, etc. and coproducts include metals such as lead produced during the copper refining process. Scrap metal wastes include sheet metal, wire, metal tanks and containers, scrap automobiles, and machine shop turnings that are generally nonhazardous in nature.
Medical waste Medical waste and biomedical waste consist of all waste materials generated at health care facilities including hospitals, clinics, offices of physicians, dentists, and veterinarians, blood banks, home health care facilities, funeral homes, medical research facilities, and laboratories. 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. (See Medical Waste Tracking Act.) State environmental and health agencies regulate medical waste, rather than EPA. Other federal agencies have issued safety regulations governing the handling of medical waste, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Food and Drug Administration.
Special wastes Congress designated several kinds of industrial wastes as "special wastes," which are exempt from hazardous waste handling requirements under RCRA Subtitle C, including oil and gas exploration and production wastes (such as drill cuttings, produced water, and drilling fluids), coal combustion residuals generated by electric power plants and other industries, mining waste, and cement kiln dust. See Solid Waste Disposal Amendments of 1980.
Hazardous Solid Wastes The EPA, which regulates hazardous waste under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), considers a waste hazardous waste if it is dangerous or potentially harmful to human health or the environment. Hazardous waste can be liquids, solids, gases, or sludges and can be discarded household, industrial, or commercial products such as oil, paints, certain electronics waste, cleaning fluids or pesticides, or the by-products of manufacturing processes.
Household Hazardous Wastes: This includes used and leftover household products that contain, corrosive, toxic, ignitable, or reactive constituents. Examples are medical waste, used oil, paints, cleaners, batteries, pesticides, and light bulbs/lamps. Since these contain potentially hazardous ingredients, improper disposal can lead to human health risks and environmental pollution. Proper and safe management of hazardous wastes is important in the collection, reuse, recycling, and disposal stages which are mostly facilitated by the municipalities or local governments and specified by EPA in household hazardous waste regulations. Industrial Hazardous Wastes: The primary generators of hazardous wastes in any region are industrial facilities, manufacturing and processing units, workshops and maintenance units, nuclear facilities, chemical units, etc. The following section briefly describes the four main types of industrial hazardous wastes. Listed Waste: 40CFR Part261 specifies four lists of wastes. These are: F-list: This is waste mainly generated from industrial or manufacturing processes or other different industrial sectors, also called non-specific source wastes. K-list: This is generated from specific industrial sources such as petroleum refining, wood treatment, pesticide manufacturing, inorganic pigment of chemical manufacturing, metal and coke production, and veterinary pharmaceutical industries. P-list and U-list: These are discarded or intended to be discarded commercial chemical products that have listed generic names, container residues, spill residues, or off-specification species. P-list differs from U-waste where the former is acute hazardous waste and the latter toxic waste. Universal Waste: Federal regulations have designated hazardous wastes such as batteries, pesticides, mercury-containing equipment, and light bulbs/lamps as universal wastes. This is a way to streamline them separately and control and facilitate proper collection, storage, recovery or treatment, and disposal that encourages reducing the quantity of such wastes going to landfills and incinerators and thereby increases recovery and recycling rates. Characteristic Waste: These are wastes that are defined based on their specific characteristics of ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity. Federal statute 40CFR§261 regulates these wastes. Ignitable wastes are defined by their combustion capacity under conditions when they consist of waste oils and solvents. Corrosive wastes like battery acids are characterized by their pH value – acids (pH ≤ 2) and bases (pH ≥ 12.5). Reactive wastes include lithium-sulfur batteries and explosives that can cause explosions, toxic fumes, or gases and toxic wastes that are harmful to human health or environment when inhaled or ingested or disposed. Examples of toxic wastes include mercury and lead. Mixed Waste: These are wastes that contain both radioactive and hazardous waste components making them complicated to regulate. Low Level Mixed Wastes (LLMW) are generated from sources such as industrial, hospital, and nuclear power plant facilities and also from processes such as medical diagnostic testing and research, pharmaceutical and biotechnology development, pesticide research, and nuclear power plant operations. The other two types are High Level Mixed Waste (HLW) and Mixed Trans Uranic Waste (MTRU).
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