WASTE TO ENERGY

from municipal solid waste
Pie chart showing percent share of major types of materials in Municipal Solid Waste.
Click to enlarge »

Municipal solid waste (MSW), often called garbage, is used to produce energy at waste-to-energy plants and at landfills in the United States. MSW contains

    biomass, or biogenic (plant or animal products), materials such as paper, cardboard, food waste, grass clippings, leaves, wood, leather products
    nonbiomass combustible materials such as plastics and other synthetic materials made from petroleum
    noncombustible materials such as glass and metals

Pie chart showing percent share of major ways Municipal Solid Waste is managed in the United States.

ut 258 million tons of MSW were generated in the United States, of which

    53% was landfilled
    35% was recycled and composted
    13% was burned for energy

Waste-to-energy plants make steam and electricity

MSW is usually burned at special waste-to-energy plants that use the heat from the fire to make steam for generating electricity or to heat buildings. In 2015, 71 waste-to-energy power plants and four other power plants burned MSW in the United States. These plants burned about 29 million tons of MSW in 2015 and generated nearly 14 billion kilowatthours of electricity. The biomass materials in the MSW that were burned in these power plants accounted for about 64% of the weight of the MSW and contributed about 51% of the energy. The remainder of the MSW was nonbiomass combustible material, mainly plastics. Many large landfills also generate electricity by using the methane gas that is produced from decomposing biomass in landfills.
Waste-to-energy is a waste management option

Producing electricity is only one reason to burn MSW. Burning waste also reduces the amount of material that would probably be buried in landfills. Burning MSW reduces the volume of waste by about 87%.