Solid Waste: The Throwaway Society “Waste not, want not.” -Benjamin Franklin

Every year, Americans throw away 10 billion tons of solid waste. Solid waste is any discarded material that is not a liquid or gas.

Many products are now designed to be used once and then thrown away. Partly as a result of this, the amount of waste thrown away each year has more than doubled since the 1960s.

A biodegradable material is a material that can be broken down by living things into simpler substances. Products made from natural materials are biodegradable.

Plastics are non-biodegradable. They can take more than 400 years to decompose.

Municipal Solid Waste is the trash produced by households and businesses. Paper is a large part of this waste. Overall, it is only 2% of the nation’s waste.

Where does our trash go? Landfills are waste-disposal sites where wastes are put in the ground and covered each day with a layer of dirt, plastic, or both.

One problem with landfills is leachate. Leachate is water that contains toxic chemicals. Think of it as a slush containing, pesticides, detergents and battery acid.

Incinerators reduce the amount of solid waste sent to landfills by burning waste. Some incinerators use the heat produced to generate steam which powers a generator. However, the waste still must go somewhere. Where does it go?