Trash Facts
The average American produces this many pounds of garbage per day.
What is 4.9 pounds?
Programs that help reduce landfill waste and are supported by environmentally-conscious people.
What are formal recycling programs?
Garbage burned in these plants is called this type of waste.
What is Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)?
Items like batteries, clothing, ceramics, and fluorescent bulbs are removed from MSW because they contain these metals.
What are lead, cadmium, and mercury?
The U.S. agency that regulates pollution from WTE plants.
What is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)?
Nearly this many tons of waste are produced each year in the U.S.
What is 300 million tons?
Food scraps and uneaten produce that should not be thrown into the trash.
What is compost?
About this many pounds out of every 100 pounds of MSW can fuel energy-producing machines.
What is 85 pounds?
Burning garbage produces this that can be harmful to the environment.
What is pollution?
Devices like these are used to remove harmful particles from gases produced by burning waste.
What are scrubbers and filters?
Despite individual reductions, this continues to grow in the U.S.
What is total waste generation?
The public must increase commitment to these to prevent needless waste.
What are recycling and composting?
Burning MSW creates this that is used to make electricity.
What is steam?
MSW must be burned at very high temperatures in WTE plants to break it into these.
What are simpler and less dangerous compounds?
Scrubbers work by doing this to the plant’s gases.
What is spraying chemicals to make them less acidic?
Local and state governments ask these questions about garbage management.
What are “How do we stop generating waste? What do we do with it? How do we dispose of dangerous waste safely?”
Some products are considered this because they are currently hard to recycle.
What are non-recyclable products?
These plants help solve two problems: overcrowded landfills and reliance on this.
What is fossil fuels?
Removing dangerous items before burning is important, but these plants must also avoid creating this.
What are new environmental problems?
High temperatures used in burning help reduce these in the waste.
What are dangerous compounds?