The entire community benefits when items once headed to the landfill are reused instead. Waste is generated by activities in homes, commercial establishments, construction sites, agricultural and mining, and other activities and industries. Do you know that there is a difference between the terms "Waste", "Garbage", and "Trash?"

Waste is anything that is discarded, useless or unwanted. Solid waste or refuse is any of a wide variety of solid materials as well as some contained liquids, which are discarded or rejected as being spoiled, useless, worthless, or excess.

Trash is waste that usually does not include food wastes, but can include other organic materials such as plant trimmings.

Garbage is refuse consisting of food wastes: animal and vegetable wastes resulting from handling, storing, selling, preparing, cooking and serving food.

{1999twg} Municipal solid waste (MSW) is a term used to represent all the waste created by households, commercial sites (i.e. restaurants, stores, offices, etc) and institutions (schools, museums, public parks, etc.) MSW also includes materials such as packaging and office paper waste from small to midsized factories, known as "light-industry". The ebb and flow of these various waste materials is known as the municipal solid waste stream.

For managing their MSW, Communities utilize an integrated solid waste management approach choosing from five basic waste management options. These basic options include: reduction, recycling, composting, waste-to-energy, and landfill.

Decomposition Chart