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What is Zero Waste?

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Introduction

• Recycling was a social revolution in this country
  
• Get ready for the next social revolution called Zero Waste

Why Zero Waste is Important

• Recycling growth has leveled off so we need a new vision
  
• Wasting is up
  
• Examples: more packaging, more disposables, more toxins, less durability, throw-away electronics
  
• Recycling alone won't sustain us
  
• We need a material efficient economy that values recovery of our waste stream

A New Way is Coming

• Old way of thinking is "there's always going to be waste and we have to take care of it."
  
• New way of thinking: waste isn't inevitable…it's a result of bad design. We need to design it out of the process by:
1. Design for recycling, durability, less toxins, reuse, composting
   
2. Jobs from discards
   
3. Hold companies responsible for environmental harm
4. Increase infrastructure for reduce, reuse, recycle
   
5. Remove subsidies

• Yes, markets control business but some things are priceless.
  
• Some things the market will never address like touching a 2000 year-old redwood or snorkeling in a pristine coral reef.
  
• Markets didn't abolish slavery…it was those who stood up and said it just wasn't right.

We're on a pathway towards destruction

• The current engine of growth is destruction.
  
• We're fouling our nest like no other species on earth does.
  
• Example: 1 billion lbs. of lead from 300 M computers over the next 5 years will go to landfills (lead is a powerful toxin that affects IQ levels). Europe and Asia outlawed CRT disposal. Problems here will grow worse as TV's go from analog to digital and many are sent to landfills.

Landfills

• They're dinosaurs…we're doing the same thing cavemen did by dumping stuff in the ground (except they used everything they could before disposing of it!).
  
• All landfills will leak (EPA).
  
• Regulations require them not to leak for 30 years though they remain toxic much longer.
  
• Europe requires protection for 300 years.
  
• Landfills/incinerators take material out of commerce. Recycling preserves the value of material.

The Value of Discards

• We're destroying the value of discards by landfilling/incinerating.
  
• Reduce, reuse, recycle preserves natural resources.
  
• An item isn't waste just b/c it's discarded…trash companies want you to believe this though.
  
• The impacts of wasting: more extraction, processing, transportation

Material Efficient Economy is the Goal

• Design for reduce, reuse, recycle
  
• Build infrastructure for repair and distribution
  
• Recycle

Components of Zero Waste

• Discard Malls: Similar to airports, which are publicly funded.
  
• Businesses: Some already there like HP with 92% diversion, Fetzer with 93%…they're among the 35 companies in the US that report over 90% diversion rates.
  
• Jobs: ZW concepts create jobs. The trash industry employs 1 person for every 10,000 tons collected. There are 6 jobs in recycling the same amount and 80 jobs in reconstruction.

Producer Responsibility: Meeting the needs of consumers and the planet

• Businesses should not be allowed to make stuff then walk away
  
• The environmental impacts paid up front in the price of a product
  
• Garbage is an unfunded mandate (buy product, throw away, maintain landfill, cleanup and monitor landfill)
  
• Minimize use of packaging and toxins in products
  
• Set up take back programs. Europe - cars and computers must be taken back by companies. Let industry best decide how they want to accept responsibility through recycling, reusing, composting or repairing.
  
• 30 countries have take back laws (US is even behind Brazil on producer responsibility.)
  
• Sends signal to the design team that they must design for take back
  
• Examples: Kodak's disposable cameras. Coke's bottle to bottle program in Europe. British Columbia has paint take back program funded by the paint companies through a fee on each can sold. Mercedes has a disassembly plant in which a car can be disassembled in 4 hrs.
  
• Set up Discard Management Parks.

Subsidies

• Supports mining, timber, petroleum, waste disposal to the tune of $2.6 billion per year.
  
• Undermine recycling by establishing an unlevel playing field in the market place.
  
• Need to be abolished

Primary vs. Secondary Materials Economy

• We operate under a "primary extraction economy" (mining, timber, oil) which built the west
  
• The future: "secondary materials economy" is growing.
  
• It's about capturing and reusing natural resources once they have been extracted
  
• Examples: DuPont is building a cornstarch facility to make a plastic-type material made from plants, not oil/petroleum (Henry Ford made first car from corn, not petro-based plastic).

Environmental Externalities

• Impacts costing society but we don't measure
  
• Examples: leachate costs, clear-cut a hillside and erosion destroys the salmon and wipes out jobs.
  
• Barrier is politics: many politicians are entrenched in extraction economy
  
• There are consequences to our behavior in the environment

Around the World

• As nations stop landfilling and incineration they need something else. We need to be able to sell them a Zero Waste package. Need to capture 100% "or darn near" of "waste" stream
  
• New Zealand, China, Europe, Australia, may be close to ZW by 2015

Challenges

• Old way was mixing discards into one pile.
  
• New way is mandatory source separation (this is the key to keeping the value of the resources high enough to make it a sustainable system.
  
• Organic wet stream and an inorganic dry stream
  
• No technical barriers, just political

Next Steps

• New Zealand - 40% of counties signed onto a ZW pledge
  
• Zero Waste Institute: Training institute for certified ZW planners.
  
• Waste is a design issue. Need to design it out of our lives. Stop spoiling our nest.
  
• Need laws, won't happen on its own.
  
• In US 150 M people recycle…industry needs to get on board now

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