While household waste may seem like a minor concern compared to the waste massive corporations make every year, it’s still a crucial part of combatting climate change and the stressed environment.
We want to show you that municipal recycling is not insignificant and that making some minor changes in your house can lead to a healthier home and environment.
But how do you live a green lifestyle when it seems like everything is fighting against you? And what exactly are the different kinds of household waste you need to worry about?
If you’re interested in the different types of waste the American home makes, then keep reading.
How Much Waste Does the Average American Make?
If we were to divide the total amount of trash generated per year by each person living in the United States, the average total trash produced by a single person would be 2,071 pounds each. Let’s take a moment to let that sink in. The most up-to-date documents from the United States Environmental Protection Agency come from 2018, and they say America is generating around 292 million tons of waste each year.
This is only solid waste, mind you, and of that amount, only around 32% gets recycled. This means, for every person, the average amount of trash thrown out each year weighs the same as a grizzly bear.
As a whole, the world generates around 2.01 billion tons of solid garbage per year. So, despite having only 16% of the world’s population, well-developed and high-income countries, like America and the UK, produce around 34% of the world’s total waste.
The Five Types of Waste
The thing is, all the above information only applies to solid waste, which we’ll define in a second. There’s a lot less information available to say exactly how much of each we’re producing since it’s tricky to discern the amounts of other wastes generated by the average American home.
We can divide waste types into five categories. Let’s look at what those are.
Liquid Waste
Some of the most common examples of liquid waste are waste detergents, wash water, dirty water, organic liquids, and rainwater. Households, corporations, and industries are the most common sources of these examples of waste.
Within that scope, we can categorize liquid waste as either “point” or “non-point” source waste, depending on where it comes from. All manufactured liquids are point source wastewater. Non-point is any kind of natural liquid waste.
Solid Rubbish
Solid rubbish, arguably the most common type of waste, comprises a much wider range of items and objects, and we can divide this into four basic categories. They are:
- Plastic
- Paper/card
- Tins and metal
- Ceramics and glass
Organic Waste
Almost every household generates organic garbage. Food waste, garden refuse, and other types of organic trash are included in this kind of waste. While this is also the most highly “recycled” since a lot of it gets composted, we must still properly dispose of it if there’s no intention to compost.
Recyclable Rubbish
We can refer to all types of waste that we can convert into other usable products as recyclable rubbish. Some of the more common examples of this are things like construction waste like stone, metal, and paper, and certain items like glass and cardboard that come from the home.
Hazardous Waste
We’ll classify anything as hazardous if it’s flammable, toxic, or corrosive. The serious implication of hazardous waste is the potential for harm to both you and the environment if it’s not disposed of properly. Two primary examples of hazardous waste are chemicals and electronic trash.
The Least Common Types of Waste
Let’s start at the bottom, with some of the less common waste you’ll see coming out of your home. With that in mind, however, we should note that these are often trickier to get rid of. Let’s dive into some of the least common examples of waste you’ll find in American households.
Brick and Rubble
This is typically large, heavy stuff produced during construction and restoration projects. Home renovations and construction projects often require a large array of materials, since it’s entirely possible you’re reworking large portions of your home, yard, or structure.
We must carefully dispose of these kinds of materials, especially in older properties, since there may be traces or even large amounts of asbestos and lead paint.
Some other examples of brick and rubble waste include:
- Ceiling tiles
- Plumbing fixtures
- Insulation
- Carpeting
- Concrete
- Rocks
- Fill dirt
- Timber frames
We can recycle many of these materials, including hardcore rubble. They are often very useful in creating things like “reclaimed bricks,” but we can also crush them down into brick chips, which are great as a landscaping material.
Hazardous Substances
So we spoke briefly about what exactly hazardous waste is, but what kinds of hazardous waste actually come out of your home? You’d be surprised by some of the examples. Let’s look:
- Oil and gas tanks
- Asbestos
- Pesticides
- Fluorescent tubes and lightbulbs
- Certain paints
- Car batteries
- Some household batteries
- Energy-saving bulbs
- Cleaning Agents
- Solvents
Did you know that motor oil never actually runs out? It just gets dirty. It’s able to go through a continuous cleaning and recycling process, yet many people just throw it away. All hazardous material needs to be disposed of carefully, so find your local depot and make sure you’re getting rid of it somewhere safe.
Clothing and Textiles
We’re buying more clothes than we ever have, largely because of “fast fashion.” As a result, we’re seeing more textile waste than ever before. Every year, the EPA estimates around 17 million tons of the solid waste we throw out comes from clothes and textiles.
It’s also not just about the number of clothes we’re throwing out, but the depletion of raw materials we need to make these clothes. When there’s the option to recycle, donate, or even fix the clothes yourself, it seems like an easy problem to solve.
Unfortunately, it isn’t always that easy. Even if you wanted to recycle your clothes, only 40% of them are actually recyclable, since they make most fabrics these days out of different plastics.
The Most Common Examples of Waste
Having looked at some of the least common, it only makes sense to address what makes up the bulk of our waste. These are the things that you’ll either throw out each day, once a week or even once a month. We also wanted to address what you can do about it, so let’s take a closer look.
Electronic Devices
It’s hard to escape e-waste in the modern era, especially when we’re generating and throwing away electrical equipment of all shapes and sizes day-to-day. The problem is that these objects often have lead, cadmium, mercury, and brominated flame retardants, which are hazardous metals that are dangerous to the environment and us!
Anything powered by a battery or plug is e-waste, and it requires a specialist service to recycle it properly. For example:
- Computer parts
- Computers as a whole
- Printers
- Music players
- TVs
- Home and kitchen appliances
Glass
Glass is totally and completely 100% recyclable. It never loses its clarity or purity, and it doesn’t matter how many times we recycle it. The thing is, it can also take around a million years to decompose, which is a massive problem for full landfills. At the moment, the US is currently only recycling around 33% of its glass, which is a surprising figure, considering how prolific other countries are.
Wood
Because of its many applications, wood is the ultimate renewable resource. We can recycle it for construction or turn it into landscaping mulch. Even low-grade woods are useful since we can use them as a source of energy that’s also environmentally benign, which means it has a low impact on the environment.
Yet 8.7% of all materials in a landfill are wood. That’s around 12.14 tons of wood.
Examples of wood items include:
- Picture frames
- Wooden pallets
- Furniture
- Chipboard
- Boxes
- Floorboards
Metal
We can recycle both nonferrous and ferrous metals of all grades for future use. We can recycle these over and over, because they don’t lose their quality, no matter how many times they go through the process.
To give you a better idea of what this means – we can save enough energy to power a TV for three hours if we recycle one aluminum drink can. Yet, despite this, 30% of all steel cans don’t get recycled. In 2018, landfills still got around 10.5 million tons of steel, which represents about 7.2% of all solid waste.
It’s easily one of the most common items in our homes, and it’s the easiest thing to recycle, but it’s still one of the biggest waste generators. Other examples of waste metal include:
- Aluminum
- Bronze
- Cast iron
- Copper
- Steel
- Tin
Paper Waste
Did you know around 1 billion trees‘ worth of paper waste is discarded every year in the US? While most of what American homes are discarding is junk mail, the average home still throws away about 13,000 separate pieces of paper every year.
It is important to note that some paper items can’t be recycled, like sanitary products, wipes, used paper towels, cotton wool, stick notes, and wallpaper, but there are plenty that can. For example, you can recycle:
- Brown paper
- Clean paper
- Computer paper
- Shredded paper
- Envelopes (including ones with a window)
- Magazines
- Junk mail
- Newspapers
- Brochures
And ultimately, though it’s such an easy resource to recycle, there just isn’t enough information out there to inform people of these things. However, in areas like North America and Western Europe, people say they don’t recycle because it’s inconvenient, or simply because they don’t trust their local recycling programs.
Plastic
While plastic can have plenty of impressive use-cases, we as a society have become addicted to the convenience of single-use plastics. In the modern age, we produce around 400 million tons of plastic waste every single year, and it’s projected that we’ll hit 1,100 million tons by 2050.
That’s a number that seems unfathomable, and it truly is. Of that, 36% comes from single-use plastic, and 98% of that total number comes from fossil fuel and virgin feedstock.
Some examples of single-use plastics include:
- Water bottles
- Shampoo bottles
- Bags
- Food packaging
- Microwave dishes
- Single-use face masks
- Plastic cutlery
- Protective packaging
Check your local recycling centers and see what can and cannot be recycled, and if you don’t trust them, find ones that you do. It’s worth the effort, we promise.
Organic Waste
One of the biggest culprits of household waste is food. In fact, food waste in America has reached astronomical heights, with around 103 tons of food waste making its way all over the country in 2018. While this statistic is shocking, it’s unfortunately not surprising.
While this may not seem like a big deal, rotting food in landfills can generate a potent greenhouse gas called methane, which is 28-36x more powerful than the carbon that comes out of our car exhausts. Plus, when we waste food, we’re not only wasting the organic matter but also the energy, water, labor, and money it took to produce and ship the food.
While many people compost their organic waste, 21.9% of all waste in a landfill is still food and other organic matter.
There’s plenty we can all do to eliminate not only food waste but household waste in general. Coming together to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle doesn’t always have to be about little jars and hemp clothes (though there’s merit in these too). It’s about making conscious decisions to do better and to pay respect to the land which has already given us so much.
Be a Green Monkey and Cut Back on Household Waste
While we know that not everything can be recycled, there have to be better ways of managing the different types of waste we generate every year. Living a clean, environmentally friendly lifestyle doesn’t have to be hard, it just takes a little research and information.
We support the movement of waste management, and eliminating waste is a passion of ours. If it’s a passion of yours too, check out the rest of our blog for more lifestyle tips and eco-friendly habits.