According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Americans generate 4.9 lbs of municipal solid waste (MSW) per person per day. That equals approximately 292.4 million U.S. tons per year of everyday items across the country. With all that trash, waste can easily start to pile up, and across the South, nearly every state faces MSW storage issues.

In general, there are three main ways to address MSW: create or expand landfills, burn it, or reduce the amount of waste entering landfills to begin with. Each of these comes with monetary (and often political) costs. In addition, each of these options may not necessarily eliminate the need for the others. Therefore, it is likely that some combination of all three may be the best approach.

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