Of the estimated 251 million tons of consumer solid waste generated each year in the U.S., approximately 32.5 percent of the trash is recycled or composted, 12.5 percent is burned and the remaining 55 percent is buried in landfills. U.S. polluters legally dumped more than 175 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals into our air and water in 1996 alone -- more than a cup of cancer-causing chemical for every man, woman, and child in America Every year we (the U.S.) generate around 14 million tons of food waste which is 106 pounds of food waste per person. 570,000 tons of this is composted for a 4.1% recovery rate. The rest, or 13.4 million tons is incinerated or landfilled and occupies 6.3 million cubic yards of landfilled MSW Disposable diapers last centuries in landfills. An average baby will go through 8,000 of them! Somewhere between 500 and 800 million scrap tires are in scrap tire piles across the US. Each passenger car tire contains 7 gallons of oil. Each year Americans throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam cups. Even 500 years from now, the foam coffee cup you used this morning will be sitting in a landfill Americans throw away enough disposable plates and cups to give the world a picnic 6 times a year Americans dump the equivalent of more than 21 million shopping bags full of food into landfills every year Source: U.S. EPA See for Yourself! MSW LANDFILL FAST FACTS

Source: Our World  The Container Recycling Institute (CRI) estimates that the 36 billion aluminum cans landfilled last year had a scrap value of more than $600 million. Over the past twenty years we've scrapped aluminum cans worth over $12 billion on today's market. Some day we may be mining our landfills for the resources we've buried.

IT’S ALL ABOUT $ FOOTING THE BILL Proposed Gregory Canyon Landfill in San Diego County California: At $815 million, isn't it time to dump the dump? (Source: National Resources Defense Council) See story at: Large-scale municipal landfills are a relatively new invention. The first modern sanitary landfill was created in Fresno, California in Today there are thousands of active landfills all over the United States. Each American creates approximately 4.4 pounds of trash every day, and a majority of it ends up being buried in a landfill somewhere. We pay for all those landfills through our property taxes. A typical landfill costs $20 million or more to build, plus millions of dollars per year to operate. In most cases, all of that money comes from local taxpayers. nts_for_dumps_trou.html In most cases, building landfills is the responsibility of the local government. Once the environmental impact study is completed, permits must be obtained from the local, state and federal governments. The cost of building a landfill varies according to location, application fees and engineering cost. A MSW landfill in Kentucky will run approximately $500,000 to $1 million for the application and design engineer cost (alone), but this fee doesn’t include the construction of the landfill liner. That will cost $75,000 per acre. Generally, the money is raised from taxes or municipal bonds. So, it's possible (likely!) that funding for the landfill could come from taxpayers' pockets. But the upside to using public funding is local approval is required in order to continue with the construction of the landfill. (Source: Earth911: landfills/ ) landfills/

IT’S ALL ABOUT $ FOOTING THE BILL Northhampton, MA What Can the City Do When the Municipal Landfill’s Largest Customer Stops Hauling In Trash and Starts Its Own Waste Transfer Station? Reduce Prices and Hope Business Picks Up. HEADLINE: City Slashes Landfill Fees To Lure Back Commercial Haulers In 2008, 23 percent of the 49,000 tons of garbage dumped at the city landfill was hauled there by Duseau Trucking, according to city documents. In that year, Duseau brought 11,436 tons of waste to the facility, enriching the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund by about $750,000. The Northampton Board of Public Works (BPW) voted on Wednesday to give Department of Public Works top brass discretion to ratchet down tipping fees at the Northampton landfill to as low as $60 a ton, a potential cut of 17.2 percent. Most refuse haulers now pay $72.50 per ton at the Northampton landfill, among the highest fees in the region, City Engineer James Laurila told the BPW on Wednesday. Other facilities charge closer to $60 a ton. In 2010, the Northampton landfill was already experiencing a decline in tipping. While the facility is permitted to accept 50,000 tons of solid waste annually, last year that number was closer to 46,000 tons.. The gates to the city's regional landfill will be closed for good sometime in 2012 SYNTENA has an alternative to help local municipalities like Northhampton, MA Source: Northhampton Media.com

Waste-to-energy plants based on gasification are high-efficiency power plants that utilize municipal solid waste as their fuel rather than conventional sources of energy...(These) plants recover the thermal energy contained in the garbage in highly efficient boilers that generate steam that can then be sold directly to industrial customers, or used on-site to drive turbines for electricity production. The recovery of energy from solid wastes offers several benefits which include:  Substantial reduction in the total quantity of waste depending upon the waste composition and the adopted technology.  Significant reduction in environmental pollution.  Improvement in the quality of residual waste.  Reduction in the demand for land for waste disposal.  Reduction in transport cost, as garbage is not required to be carried to a faraway place for dumping.  Improved commercial viability of the waste disposal project from the sale of energy/products. Source: AltEnergyMag: TOMORROW’S RENEWABLE ENERGY TODAY