Something important to know when talking about recycling is Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), better known as trash. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) takes into account the MSW statistics each year when computing national recycling figures. MSW includes common household throw-away items such as food scraps, package wrapping, grass clippings and even bigger items like an old microwave, sofa or refrigerator.
The amount of municipal solid waste - commonly called trash - rose 60 percent from 1980 to 2005. It probably would have risen even higher if many states didn't start to set aggressive goals in 1989 to reduce the amount of garbage going into their landfills. Some states have set goals to reduce the amount they add to their landfills by 40 to 50 percent. Recycling is one of the most effective ways to reduce our reliance on landfills. Cities, counties and states have set up recycling programs to capture bottles, cans and paper that were previously dumped into the garbage. These programs have resulted in nearly 70 million tons of materials being diverted away annually from landfills.