@karlauerbach @compoundchem Public health and solid waste people use the word “putresible” in regulatory language. Food, dead animals, and other waste that are capable of putrefaction (putrescible) must be disposed of weekly or twice-weekly with whatever else is defined as “garbage” locally to avoid odor and fly breeding. I didn’t know that there was any specific smelly chemical associated with the term. Non-putrescible solid wastes may be disposed of less frequently and are covered by many terms that may differ by locale—the #USPHS used to use “garbage” for any mixture of waste that included putrescibles, “rubbish” for non-putrescible waste, “municipal solid waste” for either from residential & commercial sources, “debris” for various kinds of inert wastes, and “refuse” or solid wastes for all of it. Flood wastes are a special case, since no matter what it started out as, it’s been contaminated by a mix of putrescible and toxic wastes of largely unknown types and concentration. #Helene #Cleanup

@drahardja The #USPHS looked at whether a #ProductDisposalFee on all retail products could pay for environmentally sound collection and disposal of garbage while also incentivizing #WasteReduction and #Recycling. In the 50s & 60s, residential collection and open or burn dumps cost about $2/mo/household for about 1 ton/year of garbage. Upgrading to enclosed collection vehicles and fully-lined #SanitaryLandfills might have cost no more than $1-$2/mo. That would have been $10-$25/ton. 2/4