Moving from Solid Waste Disposal to Materials Management in the United States

SUMMARY: The desire for less waste and more sustainable use of resources has resulted in the U.S. EPA’s Resource Conservation Challenge. This initiative is directed towards helping the U.S. transition from waste disposal towards materials management. Understanding the potential environmental and economic tradeoffs requires the use of life-cycle analysis and full cost accounting. Using the Municipal Solid Waste Decision Support Tool (MSW-DST), nine scenarios were evaluated to compare the life-cycle environmental tradeoffs and costs for a range of technologies for a medium-size U.S. community. The MSW-DST can be used to identify more sustainable use of resources, which helps meet goals set forth in the Resource Conservation Challenge.