How Much Is There? 

Milwaukee produces about 142,000 tons of food waste each year:

​100,500 tons of wasted food and spoilage
41,115 tons of food scraps

Milwaukee also produces 9,800 tons of compostable yard waste material each year.

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how do we know?

• Much like a river’s watershed, the area contributing trash to a landfill is the facility’s “wasteshed”
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  • Milwaukee has two clusters of landfills, one in the northwest corner of the county, the other in the southwest corner.
  
  
  • The annual intake of Municipal Solid Waste at each facility is tracked by the WDNR, as well as the available room remaining in each facility.​
  
  
  • Economic activity and population values are tracked by the Federal Reserve and the Census.​
  
  
  • Combining the intake rate with GDP and population allows an estimate of the total quantity Milwaukee County contributes to the landfills each year.
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  • The WDNR’s 2021 waste composition study determined the types of waste going into landfills in different areas of Wisconsin.
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  • In southeast Wisconsin, around 33% of MSW was organics, broken into helpful subcategories:
    • 15.4% wasted food and spoilage
    • 6.3% food scraps
    • 1.6% yard waste and branches under 6” diameter
   
  • Annual contribution quantity x percentage organics = total food waste estimates.​

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