You Trashy!Kelly Maxwell

&Sherif Mabrouk

But what does it mean? Wastes are materials that are not prime products

for which the generator has no further use in terms of their own purposes of production, transformation or consumption, and of which their wants to dispose. Wastes may be generated during the extraction of raw materials, the processing of raw materials into intermediate and final products, the consumption of final products, and other human activities. Residuals recycled or reused at the place of generation are excluded.

United Nations Statistics Division

Waste Comes In All Shapes and Sizes

municipal solid waste

construction waste and demolition waste

institutional waste, commercial waste, and industrial waste

medical waste

hazardous waste, radioactive waste, and electronic waste

biodegradable waste

White trash

Betcha didn’t know! The state of California spends about million dollars sending

plastic bags to landfill each year, and another million dollars to remove littered bags from streets.

The estimated billion holiday cards sold each year in the U.S. could fill a football field stories high.

miles of ribbon are thrown away each year, enough to tie a bow around the Earth.

The EPA (in report summarized above) estimates that    million  desktops and    million laptops were discarded in 2007.  That’s over    computers discarded per day!

In 2008, the average amount of waste generated by each person in America per day was 4.5 pounds. 1.1 pounds of that was recycled, and .4 pounds, including yard waste, was sent to composting. In total, 24.3% of waste was recycled, 8.9% was composted, and 66.8% was sent to a landfill or incinerated.

258.5

2.6

10

38,000

29.9

12112,000

Landfill pollution

Exciting New Programs

Zero Waste

Landfill Gas

Landfill Mining

Terracycle

Waste Hierarchy

What Should You Do For Now?

ReduceReuseRecycle

Throw it away