Per capita disposal: 2008 solid waste management update [2009]

Per Capita Disposal 2008 Solid Waste Management Update

Georgia's waste reduction efforts and continued permitting of new Construction and Demolition landfills, combined with the economic downturn and influx of refugees from the Katrina disaster pushing the state's population near 10 million, has resulted in a marked lowering of Georgia's per-capita disposal rates. As more MSW landfills create special sections of their facilities to accept only C&D waste, they divert that waste stream from their MSW cells, thereby lowering the overall per-capita MSW disposal rates. When excluding out-of-state waste imports, the amount of waste entering Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) landfills fell to 6.07 lbs/person/day in FY 2008.
Since FY 1998, the per capita municipal solid waste disposal rate had grown from 6.44 lbs/person/day to about 7.5 lbs/person/day in FY 2007. But in FY 2008, Georgia's MSW landfills received 7.14 pounds of waste daily for each resident. Looking at records that exclude the amount of waste disposed from out-of-state sources, the per capita MSW disposal rate has been even lower, climbing from 6.24 lbs/person/day in FY 1998 to 6.46 lbs/person/day in FY 2007 before falling to 6.07 lbs/person/day in FY 2008.
As shown in the Per Capita Daily Waste Disposal graph, there is more than one way to track per-capita disposal rates. In FY 2008, 16,226,612 tons of waste entered Construction/Demolition and MSW landfills in the Georgia. When looking at the reported total amounts of waste disposed, the per capita waste disposal rate fell to 9.18 lbs/person/day in FY 2008, down from 10.17 lbs/person/day in FY 2007. This figure represents all waste entering MSW and C&D landfills, including out-ofstate sources. It includes residential waste, sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants, some industrial waste, construction debris, commercial and business waste, and waste brought here from other states. It does not include waste sent to incinerators or composting operations.
Per-Capita Daily Waste Disposal
12

10

8

6

4

2

0 1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

Total Waste

MSW

2004

2005

2006

Georgia MSW

C&D

2007

2008

B-1 Revised July 31, 2009

Per Capita Disposal 2008 Update

Looking at the disposal rate at MSW landfills only, including waste disposed from out-of-state sources, the per capita disposal rate has hovered at about 7.5 pounds per person per day in recent years before dropping in FY 2008. It should be noted that these rates reflect all waste entering a MSW landfill as reported to the EPD, not just MSW. According to a 2001 study, about two-thirds of the waste disposed in MSW landfills is actually MSW. Based upon this estimate, the FY 2008 per capita MSW disposal rate, excluding waste imported into the state, is approximately 4.04 lbs/person/day.
Imported waste has grown ten-fold, from representing 0.1/lb/person/day in 1998 (less than 200,000 tons) to 1.07 lbs/person/day in FY 2008 (nearly 1.9 million tons.)

Fiscal Year
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Population
7,844,792

Georgia Waste Disposal Rate and Population

FY 1999-2008

Total Waste Total Waste Total Waste

Landfilled Landfilled Disposed in

(Millions of tons) (Pounds/ MSW Landfills

person/day)

(Tons)

11.43

7.98

9,382,622

Out of State Waste
(Tons) 453,875

Total MSW
(Pounds/ person/day)
6.55

8,015,626

12.71

8.69

9,724,736

511,472

6.65

8,186,453

13.36

8.94

10,678,980

893,651

7.15

8,383,915

13.04

8.52

10,233,692

950,779

6.68

8,544,005

14.25

9.14

11,135,473

1,197,686

7.14

8,684,715

15.77

9.95

11,916,124

1,633,182

7.52

8,918,129

16.46

9.85

12,155,598

1,627,044

7.47

9,132,553

16.66

9.77

12,531,898

1,889,312

7.52

9,363,941

17.39

10.17

12,746,159

1,942,647

7.45

9,685,744

16.27

9.18

12,623,173

1,857,687

7.14

GA MSW
(Pounds/ person/day)
6.24 6.30 6.55 6.05 6.38 6.50 6.52 6.48 6.46 6.07

B-2 Revised July 31, 2009