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ZERO WASTE CAMPAIGN
Beyond Recycling
"I have said repeatedly and will say it again, in 99% of
the cases, the only reason companies, even the so-called 'better'
ones, turn towards the ideas of sustainability is because of activism,
boycotts, protests, litigation, and legislation. Without those
constant pressures, there would be no corporate movement towards
sustainability, as small and nascent as it is."
-- Paul Hawken, founder and former president of The Natural Step
USA
As human populations and material use continue to increase, the
natural systems that sustain us are suffering from accelerated
degradation. Zero Waste is a new planning approach for the 21st
Century that seeks to redesign the way that resources and materials
flow through society, taking a 'whole system' approach. It is
both a 'back end' solution that maximizes recycling and minimizes
waste, and a design principle that ensures that products are made
to be reused, repaired or recycled back into nature or the marketplace.
Zero Waste embodies approaches that enable rapid waste reduction
outcomes, breakthrough strategies rather than incremental change.
Zero Waste challenges the whole idea of endless consumption without
needing to say so, and it enables even those who are locked into
the system to challenge their own behavior in a positive way without
immediately threatening it. Zero Waste poses a fundamental challenge
to 'business as usual' by challenging the economic incentives
in our political and economic system that reward waste. And Zero
Waste addresses, through job creation and civic participation,
increasing wastage of human resources and erosion of democracy.
The group spearheading the call for Zero Waste in North America
is the GrassRoots Recycling Network (GRRN), a national network
of waste reduction activists and professionals promoting the messages:
Zero Waste; Create Jobs from Discards; and End Corporate Subsidies
for Wasting. GRRN was founded in late 1995 by members of the Sierra
Club, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the California
Resource Recovery Association.
Peter Montague, editor of Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly,
said recently of GRRN's Zero Waste Campaign: "Recycling is
now the entry point into a critique of excessive consumption,
waste, corporate irresponsibility, and the fundamental causes
of environmental destruction. … Zero waste has the potential
to motivate people to change their life styles, demand new products,
and insist that corporations and governments behave in new ways.
This is a very exciting development. … [It is] a key strategy
for those opposing landfilling and incineration, deforestation,
resource depletion, global warming, energy waste, loss of biodiversity,
and the elimination of toxic products."
GRRN originally got the Zero Waste idea (via Dr. Daniel Knapp,
president of Urban Ore in Berkeley, California) from the Australian
Capital Territory of Canberra, which endorsed in 1995 a goal of
'No Waste by 2010.' Canberra determined to phase out its two landfills
and replace them with 'recycling estates' in 15 years. In New
Zealand, a third of all local government councils have now passed
resolutions to work for 'Zero Waste to landfills by 2015,' and
central government officials are increasingly interested in the
potential of Zero Waste communities to lighten welfare rolls.
Recently, the New Zealand Zero Waste Trust invited a GRRN representative
to address local government officials on our efforts to promote
Zero Waste and extended producer responsibility policies. GRRN
has received international attention for our video, Zero Waste:
Impossible Dream or Realistic Goal?, co-produced with Dr. Paul
Connett, which has been distributed to more than 20 countries
and translated into two languages (Japanese and Polish).
The Problem and the Opportunity
As the global economy makes ever-greater demands on the natural
environment, political, business and community leaders around
the world are pointing to our waste stream and recycling as areas
of new business and employment potential. We need to look again
at waste because it also represents a flow of materials and resources
that adds great value to our economy. A new report released by
GRRN, Wasting and Recycling in the United States 2000, describes
three basic drivers of change that are turning waste into a dynamic,
fast changing, international economic sector:
1. Hazards of waste disposal The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency acknowledges that every landfill will leak. Swedish research
now shows that the leachate toxicity of a landfill is still not
benign after a thousand years. Even landfill professionals are
now saying that we should assess the true costs of landfills based
on looking after each of them for 500 years. In Creating Wealth
from Waste, Robin Murray states, "Incinerator emissions of
acid gases, mercury, dioxins and furans have led to widespread
protests in North America, Japan and continental Europe, forcing
the closure of plants and the abandonment of plans for new ones.
In the U.S., 248 new municipal incinerators have been blocked
and the number still in operation has fallen from 170 in 1991
to 119 in 1998."
2. Broader environmental concerns High levels of materials and
energy consumption in industrial countries are the driving force
behind the global ecological devastation that is a grave threat
to mankind. Only 1% of the total North American materials flow
ends up in, and is still being used within, products six months
after their sale, according to industrial ecologist Robert Ayres.
Resource extraction and production of raw materials consumes three
times as much energy as manufacturing; manufacturing using recycled,
rather than virgin, material saves substantial energy in virtually
every case. Landfills are a major source of methane which contributes
to global warming. Seventy-one tons of wastes are produced from
mining, manufacturing and distribution of products and packaging
for every ton landfilled today.
3. Economic problems and opportunities Perverse markets are major
obstacles to creating a Zero Waste society. At the local level,
the structure of market incentives is almost the exact reverse
of the environmental policy hierarchy. In profitability, landfill
is at the top of the scale, while recycling remains at the bottom.
Perverse subsidies benefit extraction and processing of natural
resources, which compete with recycled materials in the marketplace.
A 1999 report by the GrassRoots Recycling Network and three other
groups showed that 15 direct subsidies to virgin resource extraction
and waste disposal industries in the United States will cost taxpayers
$13 billion over five years. Lack of manufacturer responsibility
for wasteful products and packaging further distorts price signals.
Those responsible for producing the products and packaging that
become waste are not the ones who pay for waste disposal, recycling
and litter pickup, and thus have little economic incentive to
reduce or eliminate product waste.
The immense inefficiencies of our materials use and waste production,
coupled with the fact that increasing production efficiencies
of our industrial economy create vast numbers of under-utilized
people, suggest major business opportunities for using both people
and natural resources more effectively. Eliminating waste can
increase profitability, while cycling resources back into commerce
creates local jobs.
Zero Waste Action Plan
In the public sector of the United States, GRRN has played a key
role in advancing the idea of a Zero Waste society. GRRN's report
advocating a Zero Waste agenda (Wasting and Recycling in the United
States 2000) was distributed to all members of the U.S. House
of Representatives in April 2000. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown,
after reading the report, publicly advocated jobs from total recycling.
GRRN members drafted the first comprehensive Zero Waste plan for
Del Norte County, CA (published June 2000), and inspired the City
of Carrboro, NC, and County of San Luis Obispo, CA, to pass resolutions
embracing Zero Waste.
GRRN's goal is to reverse unsustainable practices and policies
by continuing to build effective coalitions and partnerships for
Zero Waste policies based on government and corporate accountability
for waste. GRRN has identified the following outcomes as essential
to move us towards a Zero Waste society: (a) Extended Producer
Responsibility for Waste; (b) Consumer Action Against Wasteful
Corporations; (c) Deposit Programs; (d) Jobs Through Reuse and
Recycling; (e) Incentives for Reducing Trash; (f) Full-Cost Accounting
and Life-Cycle Analysis; (g) Minimum Recycled Content; (h) Ending
Subsidies for Extracting Virgin Resources; (i) Shifting Taxes
from 'Goods' to 'Bads'; (j) National Resource Policy; and (k)
Campaign Finance Reform.
By design, GRRN will stay a decentralized organization that will
not always be the lead organization working to achieve progress
on each of these outcomes; however, GRRN will be the lead organization
that identifies, educates, supports and motivates other individuals
and organizations to advance Zero Waste policies. Recognizing
that the implementation of Zero Waste is a long-term, ambitious
goal, a key component to our outreach is to educate other organizations
whose work/mission might not be readily identifiable as impacted
by Zero Waste.
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