David Bodamer, Executive Director, Content & User Engagement

June 18, 2015

10 Slides

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released its annual report on municipal solid waste generation. The report, Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: Facts and Figures 2013, has been renamed from previous years when it was called Municipal Waste in the United States: Facts and Figures. Waste360 took a look through the report and here are some of the key charts and tables.

According to the study, the rate of MSW discarded fell one percentage point from 2012 to 52.8 percent. The recovery rate also fell slightly to 34.3 percent in 2013 from 34.5 percent in 2013. However, the rate on combustion with energy recovery rose to 12.9 percent in 2013 from 11.7 percent in 2012.

Americans generated about 254.1 million tons of waste and recycled and composted more than 87 million tons.

On a per capita basis, the amount of waste generated per American per day rose slightly to 4.40 pounds in 2013 from 4.38 pounds in 2012. In 2013, Americans recycled and composted about 1.51 pounds per day, but the composition changed slightly with composting increasing and recycling decreasing.

About the Author(s)

David Bodamer

Executive Director, Content & User Engagement, Waste360

David Bodamer is Executive Director of Content & User Engagement for Waste360 and NREI. Bodamer joined Waste360 in January 2014. He has been with NREI since September 2011 and has been covering the commercial real estate sector since 1999 for Retail Traffic, Commercial Property News and Shopping Centers Today. He also previously worked for Civil Engineering magazine. His writings on real estate have also appeared in REP. and the Wall Street Journal’s online real estate news site. He has won multiple awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors and is a past finalist for a Jesse H. Neal Award. 

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