Trends and Projections for Municipal Waste

CURRENT STATUS OF MUNICIPAL WASTE MANAGEMENT

Municipal Waste Disposed at Central Landfill (Tons)

Source: RI Resource Recovery Corporation

According to the Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan, these quantities of waste disposed, recycled, and composted can be summed to determine total waste generation. However, this does not necessarily represent statewide municipal waste generation, since there are several communities that did not take all of their municipal waste to the Landfill. Currently, Central Landfill is receiving 95 to 97 percent of all waste generated. Municipal Waste generation in the state has leveled off around 430,000 tons. Thus, in order to estimate total statewide waste generation versus waste received at Central Landfill, the data from the Landfill must be extrapolated.

Comparison Between Estimated Statewide Generation and Waste Disposed at CLF (1987-1999)

Source: RI Resource Recovery Corporation

This is done by calculating the waste generation per-capita for those communities that did bring all of their waste to the Landfill, and applying the per-capita waste generation rate to those communities that did not. The per capita waste generation rate was calculated to be approximately 0.47 tons per person per year. This rate was projected to increase 0.5 percent per year from 1994 through 2000. (Source: RI Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan)

MUNICIPAL WASTE PROJECTIONS

Municipal Waste Projections through 2015

"Municipal Waste Generation" provides a graphical representation of municipal waste management. In this graph, recycling and composting are considered together, under the general heading of recycling.

Source: RI Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan

The rate of increase is projected to continue to decline, based on future source reduction efforts, so that in the period 2011 through 2015 the per-capita waste generation rate is estimated to remain constant. The projected per-capita waste generation rates are applied to the statewide population projected by the Statewide Planning Program. The resulting projections of municipal waste generation are shown in the chart to the right. It can be seen that municipal waste generation is projected to increase to 532,700 tons in 2015.

(Source: RI Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan)

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