The Municipal and Industrial Solid Waste Division of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is actively involved in evaluating national achievements in municipal solid waste (MSW) minimization. USEPA’s research has focused on finding new ways to link source reduction to material flows and consumption patterns. MSW (household and commercial waste) generation is traditionally measured on a pounds per capita per day basis (ppd). In 1990, the per capita rate per day in the US was 4.5 pounds. In accordance with The Climate Change Action Plan, USEPA set a goal of reducing MSW generation to the rate of 4.3 ppd by the year 200024 . USEPA then further expanded this goal in response to the US Government Performance Review Act, by calling for the MSW generation rate to be held steady at 4.3 ppd until the year 200525 . USEPA’s National Municipal Solid Waste Characterization Reports produce vital information on US waste flows and recycling rates. This data has proven instrumental in tracking and evaluating progress towards these reduction goals. While USEPA’s MSW Characterization reports measure the amount of both waste generation and recycling in the US, they do not include measurements of the amount of source reduction which is occurring. To address this need, USEPA has developed a methodology for quantifying the amount of MSW source reduction nationally. USEPA has applied this methodology in a report called the “National Source Reduction Report”, which will be released by USEPA later this year. For the purposes of that report, source reduction was quantified for a single year (1996) relative to changes in waste generation from 1990 to 1996. The year 1990 was chosen as a base-line from which to evaluate source reduction achievement, in accordance with the 1989 release of USEPA’s Agenda for Action, which places source reduction at the top of a recommended hierarchy of alternative integrated solid waste management strategies26 . A number of preliminary findings from this report will be presented in this paper.