Residents of the City of Los Angeles produce 96,500 tons of municipal solid waste daily on average. And the garbage we generate contributes to the county’s massive solid waste per year, which begs the question —where does your Los Angeles trash go? These astronomical refuse amounts are typical trash that restaurants, offices, retail stores, health facilities, construction sites, and residential homes produce. Municipal solid waste ultimately has a destination regardless of the waste type you generate. Continue reading if you’re looking to understand where trash goes after your trash guy picks them up.
Answering the Question: Where Does Your Los Angeles Trash Go?
The eco-friendly trash disposal process.
Los Angeles has a goal, and it’s on the road to achieving zero waste. And one of the plans is to focus on eco-friendly waste disposal options before anything else.
In a nutshell, your trash could end up in a recycling or composting plant once it leaves your curbside.
Eco-friendly garbage destinations ensure that the trash you generate doesn’t harm the environment and gets diverted into valuable products.
Recycling
If your Los Angeles trash is recyclable, it could end up in a recycling facility as its final destination.
Recycling is the process of diverting recyclable municipal solid waste into beneficial products while reducing the amounts of garbage to landfills.
Whether it is residential, retail, or construction refuse, there is a bit of it that you can recycle rather than take to the landfills.
Whether independently or through private partners, the City of Los Angeles provides proper recycling bins that you can dump recycling materials.
The blue bin is the container that you put recyclable trash that’s recyclable. Your waste management will pick the trash cart and take it to the material recovery facility. And this is where they sort the refuse using different processes.
Some of your trash that ends up in the recycling center includes paper, plastic bottles, CRV beverage containers, bottles, glass, metals, cardboard, etc.
Some of your construction/demolition or inert garbage like concrete, asphalt, wood, metals, and scrap plastics also end up in recycling facilities.
Recycling success relies on your efforts to keep the material clean from contamination.
Composting
Undoubtedly, you generate trash that is a perfect fit for composting. This eco-friendly waste destination-compost- utilizes micro-organisms in the soil to break down the waste matter and produce fiber-rich compost that contains inorganic nutrients.
The compost is a beneficial organic fertilizer that you can use in your garden and fertilize your potted plants.
Your food waste like fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy products, meat, kitchen paper towels, etc., are compostables.
Also, your yard refuse can end up in a composting plant. These compostable green wastes include leaves, wood, grass, garden weeds, bark, branches, yard clippings, and shrubs.
So, any time you spruce up your garden or the yard, remember that the waste from such projects is perfect for composting.
Waste-to-energy trash disposal
Another destination for your Los Angeles trash is the waste-to-energy facility.
This eco-friendly disposal option uses cutting-edge technology to minimize air pollution and reduce landfilling.
There are several waste-to-energy processes, but the most prominent ones are incinerators and anaerobic digestors.
Your trash that ends up in the incinerators goes through high combustion levels to release heat that heats a boiler to generate steam.
Typically, they burn trash materials like wood, plastics, paper, yard waste, etc.
The energy from waste-to-energy contributes 20% of renewable energy in the country.
An anaerobic digester is another waste-to-energy option that could take up your trash.
This eco-friendly waste option uses a biological process to break down organic waste like food waste, biosolids, crops, manure, etc., to release biogas.
Biogas is an excellent source of energy, renewable gas, and fuel.
The ultimate disposal of your trash
If your trash can’t fit in any above options, it can go to landfills. Landfills are designated lots where you dump refuse. What happens to your waste at the landfill is that it disintegrates slowly. And although this isn’t the best option, the fact is that much of our trash ends up in landfills. If you’re looking for support in getting rid of junk, waste, or construction debris in as environmentally friendly a way as possible, contact American Reclamation today.