Waste-to-energy: A review of the status and benefits in USA

The USA has significant experience in the field of municipal solid waste management. The hierarchy of methodologies for dealing with municipal solid wastes consists of recycling and composting, combustion with energy recovery (commonly called waste-to-energy) and landfilling. This paper focuses on waste-to-energy and especially its current status and benefits, with regard to GHG, dioxin and mercury emissions, energy production and land saving, on the basis of experience of operating facilities in USA.