The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [160]
For a long time, when I would test the phrase “zero waste” in random conversations (with my dentist, the guy at the bus stop, the woman next to me on the plane), I’d get blank stares. For most people, “zero” and “waste” just didn’t fit together. It didn’t compute. We’ve all been taught that waste is inevitable, the price of progress. I still get odd stares on a regular basis, but I am happy to report that the term is catching on. Newsweek magazine’s 2008 Earth Day issue included Zero Waste on its list of “10 fixes for the planet.” The Newsweek article said, in essence, that recycling paper, plastic, and aluminum is a start, but oh so twentieth century.133 Jeffrey Hollender, executive chairperson of Seventh Generation, which makes nontoxic, recycled paper towels and other products, says, “Zero Waste is the mother of environmental no-brainers.”134
That the concept is seeping into common vocabulary and the media is nice, but I’m really more interested in it seeping into practice. That too is happening. There is no one place that has it down pat, but there are lots of places that have, as we say, pieces of Zero. These pieces look different in different places because Zero Waste isn’t a cookie-cutter model, but a set of approaches designed to meet the needs of each place it is implemented.
The international organization GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) lays out nine core components of Zero Waste programs, which can be tailored and added to for different settings, from schools to neighborhoods to whole states or countries:
1. Reducing consumption and discards
2. Reusing discards
3. Extended producer responsibility
4. Comprehensive recycling
5. Comprehensive composting or biodigestion of organic materials
6. Citizen participation
7. A ban on waste incineration
8. Improving product design upstream to eliminate toxics and instead design for durability and repair
9. Effective policies, regulations, incentives, and financing structures to support these systems135
That covers it: you’ve got the upstream waste prevention and the corporate responsibility, the downstream waste reuse, composting and recycling, and the active, informed public and responsive government to create and implement the policies needed to make it all work. To get to Zero, we need this whole-systems approach.
GAIA notes that “a Zero Waste approach is one of the fastest, cheapest and most effective strategies to protect the climate.” In its 2008 report Stop Trashing the Climate, GAIA explains that significantly decreasing the waste disposed of in landfills and incinerators will reduce greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent of closing one-fifth of U.S. coal-fired power plants.136
Already there are many cities around the world that have adopted Zero Waste policies, goals, or actual plans: Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina; Canberra, Australia; Oakland, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco, California; Kovalam, India. In New Zealand, 71 percent of local authorities have passed a resolution to head for zero waste, and the government runs a national benchmarking system to track their progress called “Milestones on the Zero Waste Journey.”137
In the United States, San Francisco was the first city to adopt a serious Zero Waste plan and to move aggressively toward zero. San Francisco committed to diverting 75 percent of its municipal waste from disposal by 2010 and reaching zero by 2020. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom acknowledged the roles of “producer and consumer responsibility to prevent waste and take full advantage of our nation-leading recycling and composting programs.”138 San Francisco currently has the strongest recycling and composting laws in the United States for households and businesses and, is now diverting 72 percent of its waste—the highest rate in the country.139
On the other side of the world, the coastal town of Kovalam in South India is also aggressively working toward Zero Waste. Kovalam transformed in one generation from a quiet fishing town to