Article - Nudging Recycling From Less

Waste to None
Talks about an antigarbage strategy known as “zero waste” ….. The
movement is simple in concept……to Produce less waste.

What is the zero waste? Zero waste that the entire concept of waste should be
eliminated. Instead, waste should be thought of as a “residual product” or simply a “potential
resource”.

• A residual product OR COMPOSTABLE ITEMS….. Bioplastics

like the forks (at Yellowstone) made from plant materials like cornstarch that
mimic plastic, are used to manufacture a growing number of items that are
compostable. For example, a polystyrene foam containers(Plastic
plates, forks, cups,coffee cups) /AREBEING MADE OF
CORNSTARCH- Corn starch is basically white flour made from corn. You
can find it anywhere they sell regular flour. Corn starch is a starch or a starchy
flour made from corn and used for thickening gravies and sauces.For
example, !(1)a city in California called Santa monica which
bans the use of polystyrene foam containers,

Yellowstone and some institutions have asked manufacturers to

mark some biodegradable items with a brown or green stripe. SUCH
AS THE PLASTICS THAT THEY SERVE US IN THE CAFETERIA
ARE BEING MADE CORNSTARCH. When u throw away this kind of
plastics and end up in the garbage landfills. After days of the sun
hitting these things they rELEASE METHANE. when sealed in
landfills without oxygen, organic materials release methane, a potent
heat-trapping gas, as they decompose. If composted, however, the
food can be broken down and returned to the earth as a nonchemical
fertilizer with no methane by-product.

Americans are still the undisputed champions of trash, dumping 4.6

pounds per person per day

While the U.S. shares only 4.7 % of the total population in the world, we produce more
33% of the total waste in the world. About 97.5% of the solid wastes produced by the
U.S. are industrial, and 1.5% are from homes and businesses in or near urban areas
(municipal solid waste). BUT this 1.5 % is not as small as you would first think!
The U.S. produces about 506 billion pounds of garbage every year. The amount doubled
in the last 30 years. "This is enough waste to fill a bumper-bumper convoy of garbage
truck encircling the globe eight times" (Miller, P369). We are producing an average of
1800 pounds of garbage per person every year. We are wasting more than any other
countries in the world! In other words, we are ruining the Earth by wasting resources,
polluting the environment, or destroying the ecosystem more rapidly than any other
time in the history, and no one has ever caused more damage to the earth than the US
has.

BENEFITS

Since waste is a sign of inefficiency, the reduction of waste usually

reduces costs. For example, Hewlett Packard in Roseville, CA
reduced its waste by 95% and saved $870,564 in 1998. Epson in
Portland, OR has reduced its waste to zero and has saved
$300,000. Interface, Inc. in Atlanta, GA has eliminated over $90M in
waste. Xerox Corp., Rochester, NY has had a Waste-Free Factory
environmental performance goal since the early 1990s. The criteria
include reductions in solid and hazardous waste, emissions, energy
consumption, and increased recycling. Savings were $45M in 1998.

A Zero Waste strategy improves upon "cleaner

production" and "pollution prevention" strategies by
providing a visionary endpoint that leads us to take
larger, more innovative steps

The vision of Zero Waste can be seen as a solution to these needs

and a key to our grandchildren's future. Zero solid waste, zero
hazardous waste, zero toxic emissions, zero material waste, zero
energy waste and zero waste of human resources will protect the
environment and lead to a much more productive, efficient, and
sustainable future.

Zero Waste promotes not only reuse and recycling, but also, and more
importantly, promotes prevention - designs that consider the entire product life
cycle. These new designs will strive for reduced materials use, use of recycled
materials, use of more benign materials, longer product lives, repairability, and
ease of disassembly at end of life.
A Zero Waste strategy is a sound business tool that, when integrated into business processes,
provides an easy to understand stretch goal that can lead to innovative ways to identify, prevent
and reduce wastes of all kinds. It strongly supports sustainability by protecting the environment,
reducing costs and producing additional jobs in the management and handling of wastes back
into the industrial cycle. A Zero Waste strategy may be applied to businesses, communities,
industrial sectors, schools and homes.

(2)new San Francisco ordinance requiring residential and commercial building owners
to sign up for recycling and composting services officially kicked on last Tuesday.but
growing evidence already suggests that the law has had an impact.

Since June, when the ordinance was signed into law, the amount of compostables
collected from residents and businesses in special green-colored bins had jumped to 500
tons a day, according to Recology, the city’s waste collection company. San Francisco
officials felt an ordinance making recycling and composting mandatory was needed to
meet the city’s goal of diverting 75 percent of its already substantial collection of
recyclable materials (the city has a 72 percent recycling rate, the highest in the nation)
away from landfills by 2010.