---
kind: "section"
citation: "42 U.S.C. § 6941a"
title: "42"
title_heading: "The Public Health and Welfare"
number: "6941a"
heading: "Energy and materials conservation and recovery; Congressional findings"
release: "119-102"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/42/6941a"
units:
  - "Chapter 82 — Solid Waste Disposal"
  - "Subchapter IV — State or Regional Solid Waste Plans"
---

# §6941a. Energy and materials conservation and recovery; Congressional findings


The Congress finds that—

- (1) significant savings could be realized by conserving materials in order to reduce the volume or quantity of material which ultimately becomes waste;
- (2) [solid waste](/usc/42/6903.md?p=27) contains valuable [energy](/usc/42/6311.md?p=7) and material resources which can be recovered and used thereby conserving increasingly scarce and expensive fossil fuels and [virgin materials](/usc/42/6903.md?p=35);
- (3) the recovery of [energy](/usc/42/6311.md?p=7) and materials from municipal waste, and the conservation of [energy](/usc/42/6311.md?p=7) and materials contributing to such waste streams, can have the effect of reducing the volume of the municipal waste stream and the burden of disposing of increasing volumes of [solid waste](/usc/42/6903.md?p=27);
- (4) the technology to conserve resources exists and is commercially feasible to apply;
- (5) the technology to recover [energy](/usc/42/6311.md?p=7) and materials from [solid waste](/usc/42/6903.md?p=27) is of demonstrated commercial feasibility; and
- (6) various communities throughout the nation have different needs and different potentials for conserving resources and for utilizing techniques for the recovery of [energy](/usc/42/6311.md?p=7) and materials from waste, and Federal assistance in planning and implementing such [energy](/usc/42/6311.md?p=7) and materials conservation and recovery [programs](/usc/42/274l–1.md?p=4) should be available to all such communities on an equitable basis in relation to their needs and potential.

## Source credit

(Pub. L. 96–482, § 32(a), Oct. 21, 1980, 94 Stat. 2353.)

## Notes

### Editorial Notes

### Codification

Section was enacted as part of the Solid Waste Disposal Act Amendments of 1980, and not as part of the Solid Waste Disposal Act which comprises this chapter.