Role of plastics in decoupling municipal solid waste and economic growth in the U.S.

Analysis of data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on municipal solid waste (MSW) generation rates correlated to personal consumption expenditure (PCE) uncovers a decoupling event occurring between 1997 and 2000. A comparison of waste generation rates for each material category found in MSW reveals that plastics increased by nearly 84 times from 1960 to 2013 while total MSW increased only 2.9 times. The increase in plastic waste generation coincides with a decrease in glass and metal found in the MSW stream. In addition, calculating the material substitution rates for glass, metal and other materials with plastics in packaging and containers demonstrates an overall reduction by weight and by volume in MSW generation of approximately 58% over the same time period. A quantitative calculation of a scenario where plastics were not used in packaging and containers to replace glass, metal, and other materials demonstrates that MSW generation rate rises equally with PCE. Therefore, this study has determined that the increase of plastic use is a contributing factor to the decoupling of MSW generation from PCE.