International Industrial Ecology Day 2021

Non-hazardous industrial waste (NHIW) is a major waste stream in the United States, in tonnage approximately equivalent to municipal solid waste. NHIW includes many types of waste with major environmental impacts and disposal costs; it also presents a large potential for reuse and recovery. In this study, we present a new environmental extension for NHIW in the United States Environmentally Extended Input-Output (USEEIO) model. The USEEIO describes environmental flows per sectoral economic output. The satellite presents waste intensities for 119 waste types and 277 industrial sectors. The estimates are based on detailed waste generation and economic data for the state of Pennsylvania. For this, we rely on the Pennsylvania department of environmental protection’s residual waste program from 2018, and match reported sectors to economic output data published by the census bureau from both 2012 and 2017 to ensure maximum sectoral coverage. Economic data is then adjusted for inflation and sectoral growth in 2018 and intensities for each sector and waste type are computed. In total we rely on 5 different datasets for waste quantity, economic output, and adjustment factors. For sectors for which Pennsylvania may not be representative of the wider US economy, we correct the state level intensity with independent national level estimates to ensure representativeness.