By reducing, reusing, and recycling waste, our community can save money, lower the risks of environmental hazards, and help preserve resources for future genera ons.
waste reduction + reuse
Reducing solid waste is important to a sustainable community. All items consumed require natural resources, consume energy, and generate pollu on during produc on and transport to market. Items ‘thrown away’ become waste that must be hauled to disposal facili es using more energy and genera ng more pollu on in the process. Saving energy is an important benefit of reusing and recycling items that would otherwise become waste. Collecting recyclables to create useful materials requires energy, but usually far less than needed to make the same products from newly extracted materials.
accounts for about 9 percent of the city’s solid waste— the third largest component after paper (34 percent) and yard trimmings (16.5 percent).
ENERGY COST OF WASTE COLLECTION Waste is collected from city residential and commercial customers twice a week. Recyclables in blue bags are collected every two weeks. The residential pick up route is roughly 106 miles which requires approximately 51 COMPOSITION OF SINGLE‐FAMILY RESIDENTIAL WASTE DISPOSED AT RRF (% BY WEIGHT), CITY OF ZEPHYRHILLS
WASTE PRODUCTION + RECYCLING In fiscal year 2010/2011, the city’s Sanitation Department collected 11,445 tons of solid waste—4,915 tons from households, 6,463 tons from businesses, 4.68 tons of waste res, and 63 tons of recyclable materials (i.e., aluminum cans, n/steel cans, #1 and #2 plas cs, and glass bo les/jars). Based on these figures and the city’s 2010 popula on of 13,315, 4.7 pounds of solid waste are generated per resident per day. Less than one‐tenth of a pound of waste per resident is recycled even though recyclables make up a significant portion of the city’s solid waste stream (see figure at right). A Pasco County waste and recyclables composi on study conducted in 2011 indicated that food waste
Source: Pasco County 2010/2011 Waste & Recyclables Composi on Study, May 2011.
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