Municipal Solid Waste

Basics

• Often Abbreviated as MSW
• All solid waste produced by a group/facility
• Essentially all "trash" + recycling + solid compostables

Average Composition (USA Data Mainly)

Glass

• ~4.2%
• Hard to recycle, especially if not clear and/or if a precise color is desired
• May have use as an abrasive, or as an aggrgate/composite componet

Plastics

• ~13%
• Assuming "other" means thermosets?
• Spreadsheet Here
• TLDR: Mainly PE , PP , PET , and low amounts of other "usables" (~12% ) and a decent amount thermosets/blends/degraded products (other ; ~15% )

Study A

• According to this source

Study B

• According to this source

Metals

• ~9.4%

Paper and Similar Materials

• ~25% of total

Organic/Yard Waste

• A HUGE portion
• ~35%

Misc Inorganic Waste

• Mix of leather, textiles, other category, and the inorganic waste category from the epa page
• ~13.1
• Textiles may be recoverable, celluloistic would be easy, plastics/blends most likely non-recoverable?
• E-Waste is valuable, but requires speciazl processing (is this included in the list?)
• Leather is odd, may be compostable, probably rare?

External Links

• The Wikipedia Page on MSW