The Future of Waste Management

A significant percentage of all waste that exists in the U.S. is generated before consumers even see the items that will eventually be disposed of. Some estimates indicate that curbside trash and recycling make up only 3% of overall waste. If that is true, efforts to encourage consumers to reduce their consumption—or educate them to recycle correctly—may be unhelpful in actually reducing waste.

Experts such as Josh Lepawsky, a professor at Memorial University, caution that a true circular economy—where meaningful quantities of trash can be converted back into usable materials or energy—is improbable. “No recycling plant can be run solely off of the excess heat of another such recycling plant,” writes Lepawsky in a recent article published on Slate.com.

Landfilled waste can be, and frequently is, transformed into energy. And the innovative technologies that are used to recycle plastics are constantly improving. However, there is a limit to managing the ever-increasing wastestreams that are bound for the landfill. 

“A landfill might concentrate materials and the energy they embody into a compact location. But it simply cannot contain the energy necessary to excavate, reprocess all the materials the company wants, and separate out the materials it doesn’t,” Lepawsky explained.

The second law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be continually recycled without reducing its density or quality, he added. To repurpose landfill materials into products requires energy input. Waste-to-energy methods like incineration can increase carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants.

At best, Lepawsky wrote, “landfills temporarily sequester some of the cast-offs of industrial production and consumption.”

The solution, he suggested, will involve reinventing the systems that make daily life possible for humans. One part of the solution is to increase efficiency—enable production that requires less energy and/or materials.

“We also need to reduce the material complexity and toxicity of the products we make and use,” he added. “Doing so would make them easier to take apart and reuse the materials of which they’re made.”

The waste management industry is based on a model of treatment, disposal, and incineration. It does not focus on reduction of waste; it takes for granted that existing wastestreams will continue and even expand. Growth like this may eventually cause the system to collapse, Lepawsky cautioned.

Management of waste will certainly look different in the future. It may even evolve drastically over the next five or ten years. Lepawsky concluded his article with some ideas about what the future of waste management might look like: “Imagine a world in which more of the things we need and want for everyday lives are borrowed, not bought. Where more of those things are made mostly where we live, work, and play.”