MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT AND DISPOSAL - Environmentally Conscious Materials Handling - page 155

Municipal Solid Waste Management, 1960 to 2006

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Year

Combustion with energy recovery †

Discards to landfill, other disposal

Recovery for recycling Recovery for composting*

Figure 5.5 The MSW management trend in the United States (U.S. EPA 2007)
* Composting of yard trimmings, food scraps and other MSW organic material. Does not include
backyard composting. (Neg. = Less than 5,000 tons or 0.05 percent)
† Includes combustion of MSW in mass burn or refuse-derived fuel form, and combustion with
energy recovery of source separated materials in MSW (e.g. wood pallets and tire-derived fuel).
‡ Discards after recovery minus combustion with energy recovery. Discards include combustion
without energy recovery. Details may not add to totals due to rounding.

rates as follows: Asia 1.2 to 2.0; Europe 2.0 to 3.5; Africa 1.5; North America
3.5; and South America 1.4 lbs/person/day. Furthermore, the characteristics of
the MSW generated are also different. In the industrialized world, biodegradable
material hardly reaches 50 percent of total generated household waste, while it
usually between 60 to 80 percent in the Third World countries. Landfills are still
viewed as the best waste disposal options in developing countries.
A comparative analysis of household waste in Stuttgart, Germany, and Kumasi,
Ghana (Ketibuah et al. 2004), showed a distinctive contrast between a developed
(Germany) and developing country (Ghana). Stuttgart is a typical city in a devel-
oped country where information and accurate data on MSW are documented,
and as a result, it is easier to plan the collection and treatment of MSW. The
MSW generation is about 1 kg per person per day, with a recycling rate of 38
percent. Incineration is the most used disposal method. Kumasi (Ghana) is a
typical city in a developing country where there is no accurate documentation of
MSW data, making it difficult to plan the collection and treatment of MSW for
the years ahead. The daily waste generated per capita is estimated to be 0.6 kg.