15 Oct 2020

We all throw away an incredible amount of items every single day, from food waste to recyclable items. According to the RTS, the United States throws away more garbage than any other country in the whole world, averaging nearly 40 million tons of municipal food waste per year.

But have you ever stopped to think about where all that waste goes after you have thrown it in the garbage or dumpster?

When you throw away garbage at home and take out the trash, this is not the end of the story for food waste, household items, and other perishable items. The same can be said for dumpster garbage, as once you have thrown it in the dumpster, the rental company will come to take it somewhere else.

Your trash can go to many different places, depending on how you choose to dispose of it and the waste management systems in your area.

How Do We Get Rid Of Trash?

There are many ways you can choose to get rid of trash.

Depending on the kind of waste you’re getting rid of, you probably have separate waste management systems in place. For example, some kinds of waste will just need to be thrown in the trash, or you may need to recycle if you’re throwing away items like glass, plastic, or aluminum. You may even have a compost pile.

Recycling rates can differ based on your state, so the items you can recycle may vary based on these factors.

Solid waste, hazardous items, and other kinds of trash have separate waste management systems you need to use to dispose of these responsibly.

If you are working on a large home clear out project, then your regular trash can will not cut it. Renting a dumpster is a great option for something like this. If you’ve never rented a dumpster before, the process is simple. A waste disposal company will provide you with a larger container you can dump the garbage in. Then, it will be taken to landfills by the rental company.

Landfills are the most popular destination for solid waste. In most states, this kind of waste management trumps any other by a wide margin.

Most of the waste in the United States goes to dump trash sites, but this is not the only option.

Where Happens to Trash You Throw Away?

If you’re wondering what happens to your trash when you throw it away, it’s first taken away by the Department of Public Works. But where does it go then? Usually, waste is taken to landfills, however, some waste can also be taken to composting or recycling centers, or waste-to-energy plants.

Any solid waste, materials, or other kinds of garbage go into the waste bin, but has to go a long way before it reaches its final destination. These include:

1) Transfer Stations

This is the first place your waste will go, and it’s only a temporary location for most municipal solid waste – a transfer station is where garbage trucks can drop off their load. The solid waste is then compacted and prepared for its next stop. The compacted solid waste is added to larger trucks for transfer.

2) Material Recovery Facilities

Here, the waste stream is separated into useful or recyclable materials before being moved on.

There are two kinds of material recovery facilities in the United States: clean and dirty.

In clean MRFs, recyclables that have already been organized by homes and businesses are sorted into useful materials. This is where waste-to-energy projects and the like can take place, as certain materials can be transformed into energy.

In dirty MRFs, reusable materials are separated and processed from the trash. This is a part of the waste management process that requires a lot of manual labor. In some state-of-the-art MRFs, technologies are used to separate these materials from the million tons of municipal solid waste. These types of technologies include magnets, shredders, and current separators, all of which can be used to find ferrous and non-ferrous metals and waste.

Where Does Trash End Up?

After the trash has been organized, it is taken to one of the following sites where it will be dumped, recycled, or used in waste-to-energy projects.

Landfills

The vast majority of waste that comes from homes in the United States is sent to landfills. Landfills are home to the million tons of waste that is not burned, recycled, or composted.

There are more than 3,000 active landfills in the US, and over 50% of all trash ends up in these locations. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food is the largest component, with plastics and paper following.

A landfill is a piece of land that has been holed out specifically for trash and waste to be dumped in it. Landfills process several thousand tons of municipal solid waste a year.

Waste that ends up in a landfill will only be stored, not broken down. This is because landfills are made up of layers, each lined with clay, and are covered in flexible plastic to keep the waste underground. Landfills also feature drains and pipes in each layer that collects the contaminated fluid created by garbage.

Once a layer is full of waste, it will be topped with another layer of plastic, and soil will be added to the top.

While waste in a landfill will decompose over time, this is one of the slowest processes as landfills are oxygen-free environments. Furthermore, landfills emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, which are harmful to the environment.

You can also get landfills for hazardous waste.

Organic Waste and Recycling Facilities

There are two types of recycling centers. While most of the waste in the US goes to landfill, approximately 35% of municipal solid waste ends up in either a recycling facility or composters. Both of these facilities share the goal of trying to reuse as much waste as possible into new products.

These two facilities focus on different aspects of waste, as recycling centers commonly deal with materials like glass, paper products, plastics, and aluminum. You’ll most likely find glass bottles, glass jars, plastic bottles, food packaging, food containers, and other materials in this type of recycling center.

Composting centers deal with uneaten food scraps and agricultural waste, which makes compost.

Recycling has started to slow down in recent years, as most people tend to throw trash in their usual can, which is something a lot of major cities in the US are trying to combat with new recycling initiatives.

Incinerators

These large industrial furnaces are designed to burn municipal solid waste, and deal with around 12.8% of all waste in the country. Waste-to-energy facilities burn trash and garbage, turning it into gas byproducts that can be used to generate heat and electricity. 

The furnaces used in these facilities need to burn at a constant 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit to burn all kinds of waste, creating surplus heat. This makes it one of the most effective forms of reducing the original volume of waste, as it can reduce all forms of material by 95% and generate electricity while its at it. This will dramatically decrease the amount of landfill space that is needed for all waste.

Anaerobic Digesters

Anaerobic digestion is another form of waste-to-energy conversion. It is a biological process that uses microorganisms to turn organic materials and yard trimmings into energy and fertilizer, giving them a second purpose.

The process takes place in large tanks that are known as anaerobic digesters. They are most commonly found on farms where organic matter is plentiful.

There are also wastewater treatment plants, which use natural resources to produce energy for the local power grid. Wastewater facilities use organics-rich sewage.

The waste-to-energy process is in high demand and is an effective way of recycling materials that would otherwise go to landfill.

What Is The Future of Trash?

The way we do things is constantly changing and the same can be said for our waste management processes.

At the moment, the majority of the waste we throw away will end up in landfill, which comes with a lot of negative impacts on the environment. While this is the current process for waste disposal, recent data has predicted to change throughout the 21st century, as many municipalities engage in landfill diversion – the process of diverting waste from landfills and disposing of it in a different way.

Recycling facilities and waste-to-energy centers are becoming more cost-effective as time goes on. This is happening at the same time that many cities around the country are setting zero waste goals to combat greenhouse gases. One thing we know for sure is that the future of waste will likely have more of a focus on recycling processes to give materials a second life.

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