What's Zero Waste?
-Zero Waste is a goal that is both pagmatics and visionary. It's used to guide people to emulate sustainable natural cycles, where all discarded materials are resources for others to use.
-Zero Waste Means designing and managing products and processes to reduce the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, conservce and recover all materials,and not burn or bury them. It's looking at products as commodities and valuable recources. Nothing is used one, and if that product is designed as a single use than it means we should look for an alternative product that will last longer, be reused, and in it's last stages recycled.
-Implementing Zero Waste will eliminate all discharges to land, water or air that may be a threat to planetary, human, animal or planet health. *www.zwia.org/standards.html
Why Is There So Much Garbage?
The widespread human appetite for all materials has defined this century in much the same way that stone, bronze, and iron characterized previous eras.
-U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, 1998
Most Americans produced little trash until the twentieth century. Food scraps were boiled into soups or fed to animals, which were themselves part of the food chain, providing milk, eggs, or meat for household use or for sale. Durable items were passed on to the next generation or to people more in need. Objects that were of no further use to adults became toys for children. Broken items were repaired or dismantled for reuse. Many Americans possessed the skills required for repairing items. Things that could no longer be used were burned for fuel, especially in the homes of the poor. Even middle-class Americans traded rags to peddlers in exchange for buttons or tea kettles. These "ragmen" worked the streets, begging for or buying for pennies items such as bones, paper, old iron, rags, and bottles. They then sold the "junk" to dealers who marketed it to manufacturers.
Spending time to prolong the useful lives of items and to use scraps saved money. Besides giving away clothes, mending and remaking them, and using them as rags for work, women reworked textiles into useful household furnishings such as quilts, rugs, and upholstery. Rags were also important materials collected for recycling in factories: Paper mills used rags to make paper, and a growing paper industry made it profitable for thrifty homemakers to save rags.
This trade in used goods provided crucial resources for early industrialization, but these early systems of recycling began to pass into history around the turn of the twentieth century. Sanitary reformers and municipal trash collection did away with scavenging. Technology made available cheap and new alternatives. People made fewer things themselves, and they bought more than previous generations had. They saved and repaired less and threw out more.
People of the growing middle class learned to throw things away, attracted by convenience and wanting to avoid any association with scavenging and poverty. Success often meant that one did not have to use secondhand things. As municipalities became responsible for collecting and disposing of refuse, Americans found it easier to throw things out.
Nothing is inherently trash. Trash is produced by a human behavior called sorting. Items in people's lives eventually require a decision to keep or to discard. Some things go here, and some things go there.
The sorting process varies from person to person, from place to place, and changes over time. What is considered rubbish changes from decade to decade. Some societies value saving things more than others: Nomadic people, who must travel light, save less. During times of war, people often have to conserve and reuse materials, a situation that is not as common during peacetime.
The United States is facing a problem with its ever-growing mountains of garbage. America generates more garbage than any other nation on Earth, twice as much per person as in Europe. As with most environmental issues, waste disposal has grown to crisis proportions. The cost of handling garbage is the fourth biggest item after education and police and fire protectionin many city budgets. Most of the nation's solid waste is dumped in landfills, but sites are rapidly filling up and many are leaking toxic substances into the nation's water supply.
The more that is learned about garbage, the more apparent it is that trucking garbage to landfills does not necessarily eliminate it. As a result, municipal governments worldwide are struggling to find the best methods for managing waste.
Read more: http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/1112/Waste-Disposal-MUNICIPAL-SOLID-WASTE.html#ixzz0PiWDQNSY
Extended Producer Responsibility
Producer responsibility has been a key ingredient of our program and agenda for achieving Zero Waste. Shifting the costs of waste from taxpayers to brand owners and producers creates a powerful economic incentive to design waste out of the system and substantially reduce the use of toxic materials. Moreover, strategies like producer responsibility that dont rely on taxpayer dollars are increasingly attractive to policy makers facing budget deficits and revenue shortfalls. Todays fiscal climate presents a moment of tremendous opportunity to make producer responsibility for waste a reality.
Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR, and including producer take-back systems, describes policies and practices requiring product brand-owners to take full physical or financial responsibility for the life-cycle impacts of their products, from product design to end-of-life product management.
Extended Producer Responsibility has been a major movement since the early 1990s in other countries, but it has been slower to take off in the United States. However, the state of California is looking at enacting a Producer Responsibility system. This would be a major step toward zero waste.
cited:http://www.grrn.org
My life's passion is to educate people of all ages about waste reduction.
Did you know that the average American produces 4.6 pounds of trash a day most of which is organic material? Yes it's true, and many people don't realize their organic materials are dumped into our neighboring landfills creating a gas called methane. Methane is generated in landfills and open dumps as waste decomposes under anaerobic conditions. The amount of methane generated is dependent on the quantity and moisture content of the waste and the design and management practices at the site.
Methane is about 72 times more powerful at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in a 20 year lifetime. Source-www.stoptrashingtheplanet.org. The chemical lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is approximately 12 years. The relatively short atmospheric lifetime of methane, coupled with its potency as a greenhouse gas, makes it a candidate for global warming over the near-term. Source-http://www.azocleantech.com
I recommend everyone to find out where their local garbage and recycling goes. It can be interesting and also shocking. Generally speaking, when businesses cut back on waste they tend to save money and resources. This may include everything from water, energy, to garbage.
So what to do with all those food scraps and other organic materials that are generated, well how about start a composting system? Did you know that 60% of our household waste is from organic material. That's a large number going to our landfills; when all that has to be done is create a composting system. One time I received a large flower pot from a garage sale and created a composting sytem out of that, and yes it worked! Here are some sites to look at that help you get started, even if you live in an apartment.
Here are some pretty good Composting Websites below:
http://simplemom.net/how-to-make-a-compost-bin/
http://www.ehow.com/how_3541_begin-compost-pile.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Worm-Compost-System
Buy a stainless steel reusable container for both your water, morning coffee or tea. If you think they are too expensive try looking for them at your local departments store. I've even seen them at Target and Long's Drugs. Let's face it, buying a stainless stell container and using tap water is cheaper than purchasing all those single use #1 plastic water bottles.
Another concern that has been in the news recently is the concern that plastic water bottles and leaching BPA. Even the #7 Nalgene Water bottles, have been said to leach a bit. Are plastic water bottles really safe to drink our of or are they harmful to the environment and human health? Much research has been done on this topic, and it's really up to you to make that decision.
The FDA says that plastic water bottles are safe, however, they do mention that leaching can occur if the bottle becomes to hot. However, a chemical known as Bisphenol A, or BPA, has been detected in nearly all humans tested in the U.S. It is a key building block in the manufacture of hard, clear polycarbonate plastics, including baby bottles, water bottles and other food and beverage containers. The chemical can leach from the plastic, especially when the containers are heated, cleaned with harsh detergents or exposed to acidic foods or drinks.
Did you know that America's consume 28 Million Water Bottles per Year? And roughly 80 percent of those end up in a landfill. Even if you don't fancy yourself an eco-crusader, the impact of that amount of trash is significant, not to mention Bisphenol A, chemical found in most water bottles has been linked to a host of ailments including increased risk of cancer, obesity, early onset puberty, and diabetes. Companies are slowly phasing out the use of Bispehnol A.
Check out these websites below about plastic waste
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxX1g9A2OM
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Recycling/Problem-With-Plastics5jun03.htm
Oh and what about all those 80 billion baby diapers that the U.S. throwns away each year. I know the cloth diapers tend to leak. However, that has changed over the past few years and reusable diapers have gotten better. Both disposable and cloth diapers have their environmental costs. The question is, which is higher? First, disposables place a burden on the environment through manufactured materials (often synthetic). The plastic in disposables takes an extended time to break down in a landfill. There are different estimates as to how long, but it is more than several lifetimes. With the billions upon billions of disposable diapers thrown into landfills every year, any estimate gives a bad result, regardless of how you look at it.
Check out http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com/ and if you only want to use disposable try this biodegradable option. And remember if the diaper is made out of corn starch it will eventually break down in a landfill, but it could create methane gas. Check this out a flushable diaper all you do is just add a flushable insert, how cool is that http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/12/gdiapers_the_ne.php
Here are some tips to get off the plastic grid:
Instead of buying a plastic container for soap, get a hold of a seashell and place a natural bar soap in it. It looks unique and pretty; and a plastic container was never purchased.
Visit http://www.gaia-essentials.com for natural products for everyone in the family.
Did someone say Paper or Plastic? The correct is neither, I have my own reusable bag, of course!
Try using net bags to put your fruits and vegetables in at the grocery store. If you do end up getting plastic bags for you produce, it's easy to wash them. What I've done in the past is wash them out and take a magnet from my fridge and hang them updide down on one side of the fridge. They are dry in no time and can be used again.
Put a reusable napkin or bandana in your bag or purse and so no to paper napkins.
Bring your own utensils,www.to-goware.com
Ask yourself, do I really need to wash this shirt or pair of pants after one use?
Buy your foods from local markets, this will create more jobs in your area, is less demanding on the environment, and will taste fresher. Even eating meat less can help lessen the demand on resources. Check this blog out http://greenwoman.typepad.com/biggreenpurse/2009/02/ten-reasons-why-you-should-eat-less-meat.html
If you're going to purchase something always opt for the glass, aluminum, or steel container. These materials can be recycled over and over again-Closing the Loop. So make sure you reuse or recycle the container.
A side note: Purchasing a Brita container does not take out bad chemicals from your tap water, it only makes the water taste better by taking out certain elements . Last year I visited a water treatment plant and asked her if Brita filters make a difference. She told me that it only helps the taste of the water not getting rid of dangerous chemicals that are unnatural. The Brita water filter jug uses replaceable cartridges that reduce chlorine and other impurities such as lead, copper and aluminium that affect the taste of your tap water.Tap water, whilst safe, may contain substances which affect its taste and appearance. A Brita jug water filter is a simple yet effective way of reducing these substances, thereby improving the taste and appearance of water for hot and cold drinks, cooking and food preparation. I got this from the website, so it only makes the water taste better not really healthier.
You can recycle the brita filters at a near by Whole Foods.
