BioCycle magazine’s 15th Nationwide Survey, the “State of Garbage In America,” reports that Americans recycled 28.5 percent of their waste, or 110.4 million tons.

By comparison, 64 percent — 248.6 million tons — of waste still is thrown away in landfills, with the remainder, 7.4 percent or 28.9 million tons, burned, mostly in waste-to-energy plants.

The 2006 “State of Garbage In America Report,” released on Earth Day, is conducted by BioCycle, Journal of Composting & Organics Recycling (The JG Press, Inc., Emmaus, PA), and the Earth Engineering Center of Columbia University in New York City. The State of Garbage survey team requested data on municipal solid waste management from officials in all 50 states for calendar year 2004. Statistical highlights include:

· The national recycling rate increased from 26.7 percent in the 2004 BioCycle/EEC survey (2002 data) to 28.5 percent in the 2006 survey;

· The nation produced 387.9 million tons of garbage in 2004;

· Americans generate 1.3 tons/person/year of municipal solid waste*;

· States with the highest recycling rates (>40 percent) include: Oregon: 45.8 percent; Minnesota: 43.2 percent; New York: 43.0 percent; Tennessee: 42.2 percent; Washington: 40.5 percent;

· Regionally, the West leads in recycling — 38 percent — followed by the Mid-Atlantic (33 percent), and Great Lakes (31 percent).

· Texas leads the nation in remaining landfill space — 1.1 billion tons of capacity, Massachusetts is running out, with 2.3 million tons of capacity left;

· Thirty-nine states indicated that landfill capacity is being added in their state; nine said it was not; and

· There are close to 3,500 facilities in the U.S. composting leaves, grass clippings, and/or tree trimmings.

*Municipal solid waste includes the residential and commercial waste stream. Industrial and agricultural wastes are excluded in the BioCycle/EEC definition, as is construction and demolition debris, which many states count in their MSW stream and in reported recycled tonnages.

BioCycle first surveyed states about municipal solid waste management in 1989 (1988 data), as public officials and private industry perceived a landfill disposal shortage.

“At that time, Americans were recycling 8 percent of the waste they generated, and throwing 84 percent away,” recalls Nora Goldstein, Executive Editor of BioCycle. “There were almost 8,000 landfills in this country. But it was widely predicted that due to more restrictive landfill regulations, that many of the nation’s landfills would be closing in the near future, and that we had no choice but to get recycling and composting into high gear.”

Indeed, many landfills did close. The 2006 BioCycle/Earth Engineering Center survey found a total of 1,654 municipal solid waste landfills in the U.S. And indeed, an extensive network of recycling and composting facilities opened across the country. The number of curbside recycling programs jumped from less than 1,000 in 1988 to over 9,000 by the end of the 1990s.

There are currently about 7,700 curbside recycling programs in the U.S.

“While the recycling and composting infrastructure grew dramatically throughout the 1990s, so did this country’s disposal capacity,” adds Goldstein. “Many small, local landfills closed, but were replaced with extremely large regional ‘megafills’. In many parts of this country, there is plenty of capacity to continue throwing away materials that can be recycled and composted. For example, waste stream studies have found that close to 60 percent of what is thrown away could be recovered, including paper, beverage containers, food waste and wood.”

To see where Pennsylvania ranks and for more information, visit the 2006 State of Garbage in America report webpage.

4/28/2006