According to the EPA, the United States generates 268 million tons of waste per year. That averages out to some 4.5 pounds per person daily. Yikes! Cheer up, much of that waste can be recycled. That helps protect the air we breathe from greenhouse gases and the water we drink. It also saves finite useable land for more productive uses than landfills and reduces the consumption of raw materials and the energy needed to produce the things we use daily.
That makes me wonder how our hometown Knoxville is faring. After all, we are all stewards of our environment. Let’s check it out.
City residents generated some 135,400 tons of waste in 2023. The city has been encouraging convenient, single container (aka “single-source”) curbside residential waste recycling for more than a decade, sometime in 2010. In addition to driveway pickup, the city sponsors five convenience drop off centers, where cardboard, glass, plastic, paper and other materials are collected.
The waste stream: newsprint and other paper, cardboard, aluminum and metal cans, plastics and glass can be recycled into productive reuse. That saves natural resources, and the energy needed to process raw materials, as well as reducing pollution. The city’s contractor, Westrock, oversees sorting, bundling and selling the various waste streams collected.
Chad Weth, director of Knoxville Public Services, reports that we have some 35,100 households currently participating in the city’s curbside, single container recycling program. Many of you wheel that brown barrel or bin out to the street every two weeks for pickup by Waste Connections, which also picks up separate trash containers. That participation rate includes roughly half of the city households and is growing by some 1,000 to 1,500 customers a year.
The city also hauls off some 26,000 tons of yard waste (brush and leaves) annually. Much of that is recycled as mulch. Also, some 15,300 tons of food scrap waste was composted last year.
So, get involved. Some 95,000 tons of waste are still being carried to landfills. That includes 62,700 tons of garbage and 32,400 tons of construction and demolition waste. (Visit the city’s website: here for more details, including info on what to include in the bin and your neighborhood pickup schedule.) Encourage your kids to take part in the community recycle effort. After all, it’s nice to have a clean planet to come home to.
Nick Della Volpe is a lawyer, a gardener and a former member of Knoxville City Council.