Solid waste management practices and developments

This paper discusses a survey of solid waste management practices in the United States during Fall 1990 as carried out by the author. The survey supplements over 20 years of experience with on-site visits from coast to coast to examine facilities and conduct interviews with people involved in solid waste management. The survey was further complemented by spending much of the first six months of 1991 in Europe to examine other approaches to solid waste management against which U.S. practices could be evaluated. This paper represents the interpretation of only one person regarding what he has seen and heard. Not every significant region or site could be examined and those sites visited may not represent trends completely; however, by visiting many facilities and individuals, patterns evolved as summarized herein. Still, individuals in a given area often had contradictory opinions and the author notes that there could be different interpretations.