EPA recognizes the vital role of the nation’s municipal waste-to-energy industry. Read Statement here

The Impact of Municipal Solid Waste Management on Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the United States

Summary/Conclusion:

America’s cities are avoiding the annual release of 52 MMTCE of GHG emissions each year through the use of modern MSW management practices. The total quantity of GHG emissions from MSW management was reduced by more than a factor of 6 (from 60 to 8 MMTCE) from what it otherwise would have been, despite an almost doubling in the rate of MSW generation. This reduction is a result of several key factors:

• Increasing recycling and composting efforts from 8 to 27% resulted in savings of 4 MMTCE from avoiding use of virgin materials.
• Producing electricity in waste combustion facilities avoids 5 MMTCE that otherwise would have been produced by fossil fuel electrical energy generation and avoids 6 MMTCE of GHG emissions that would be produced if the MSW were land filled.
• There has been an increasing diversion of MSW from landfills by using recycling, composting, and waste combustion.
• Increasing landfill gas collection and energy recovery technology avoids 32 MMTCE that would otherwise have been produced by older landfills (without landfill gas control), by displacing fossil fuel consumption for that portion of sites utilizing landfill CH4 (rather than flaring the gas), and through diversion to other technologies and source reduction.

This study illustrates that there has been a positive impact on GHG emissions as a result of technology advancements in managing MSW and more integrated management strategies. Although there has been a 60% increase in MSW since 1974, more than 52 MMTCE of GHG emissions per year are being avoided based on actions taken in U.S. communities. There are additional opportunities for decreases in GHG emissions as well as improvement in other environmental co-benefits through improved materials and energy recovery from MSW management. From this study, it can be concluded that the greatest reductions in GHG emissions during the past 25 years have come from technology advancements to recover energy and recycle materials. The large reductions in GHG emissions from energy recovery and recycling result from displacing the need to produce energy from fossil sources and to produce new raw materials from virgin sources. Read Analysis US EPA, click here.

The EPA Solid Waste Management Hierarchy

Waste-to-energy is preferable to land filling

Waste-to-energy has earned distinction through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s solid waste management hierarchy, which recognizes combustion with energy recovery (as they refer to waste-to-energy) as preferable to land filling. EPA recommends that after efforts are made to reduce, reuse, and recycle, waste should be sent to waste-to-energy plants where the volume of trash will be reduced by 90%, the energy content of the waste will be recovered, and clean renewable electricity will be generated. EPA’s hierarchy reflects what EPA has stated previously—that the nation’s waste-to-energy plants produce electricity with “less environmental impact than almost any other source of electricity.”

Municipal solid waste must be managed using an integrated waste management system. IWSA encourages and supports community programs to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost waste. Communities that utilize waste-to-energy plants recycle nearly twenty percent more than communities that do not have waste-to-energy plants. In addition, the nation’s waste-to-energy plants recycle more than 700,000 tons of ferrous metals per year—enough to manufacture more than a half million new cars.

However, after waste is reduced, reused, and recycled, waste will be leftover that must be managed. That is where waste-to-energy comes in. EPA's solid waste hierarchy gives preference to waste-to-energy over landfills because waste-to-energy reduces the volume of waste by 90 percent, destroys bacteria and pollutants, prevents methane from being created, saves valuable land, recovers more energy from waste, and creates a more sustainable municipal waste management system.

 EPA's hierarchy is consistent with actions taken by the European Union, which went further by establishing a legally binding requirement to reduce land filling of biodegradable waste. The result has been increased recycling rates, higher waste-to-energy usage, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and less dependence on fossil fuels.

EPA’s Solid Waste Management Hierarchy underscores the importance of waste-to-energy as a critical component of any sustainable integrated waste management system.