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Aiming for ZERO
WASTE
ten steps to get started
at the local level
Every community is different. There is no one
way to prevent, reduce, reuse, recycle, or
compost discarded materials. For instance, manual
sorting of recyclables may be appropriate in one
community and not in another. The ten steps
listed below are applicable to most if not all
communities interested in pursuing a zero waste
future. A community group or local government can
take any step to get started. These steps are not
mutually exclusive. Integrating community
participation in decision-making will enhance the
success of any discard management program. This
plan can be adopted at the community, municipal,
or national level, depending on which approach
will yield the best results in each situation.
Also, one can work with many communities to adopt
local zero waste goals, and the momentum
generated can lead towards an eventual citywide
or even national goal.
1. Adopt a
non-incineration discard management plan. Better
yet call it a resource management plan and
embrace zero waste as a vision for the future.
Make waste prevention, reuse, repair, recycling,
and composting the heart of the plan. Adopt waste
elimination goals as well as recycling goals.
Provide leadership, dialogue, and information on
how to move toward a zero waste economy. Decide
against privatizing and centralizing waste
systems. Seek public input to build broad public
support for waste reduction programs and build a
network of stakeholders to be involved in the
design and implementation of the programs. Make
community participation meaningful.
2.
Decentralize waste management by building on
local community initiatives using local resources
and accommodating the informal sector. Community
projects do not need to be relegated to local
small efforts. Replicate and expand successful
community initiatives. Provide them with an
institutional structure that will allow them to
thrive and become mainstream (for example,
earmark land for composting activities). Allow
for decentralized functioning and community
efforts rather than an emphasis on one central
initiative to solve all waste problems.
3. Target
a wide range of materials for reuse, recycling,
and composting (especially several grades of
paper and all types of organics) and keep these
materials segregated at the source from mixed
trash to maintain quality and enhance diversion
levels.
4.
Compost. Composting is key to achieving 50% and
higher diversion levels and doing so
cost-effectively. Keeping organics and
putrescibles out of landfills will make landfills
less of a nuisance and source of pollution.
Emphasize backyard or at-home composting followed
by community composting. Target many types of
clean organic materials and offer year-round,
frequent, and convenient collection.
5. Make
program participation convenient and meaningful.
The more households and businesses participating,
the more materials diverted from disposal. More
people will reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost
if programs are convenient, easy, and simple.
Some ways to make programs convenient include:
· providing curbside or door-to-door
collection of recyclables with the same
frequency curbside collection of trash is
provided;
· providing seasonal and frequent
collection of yard trimmings;
· offering service to all households
including multi-family dwellings;
· utilizing set-out and collection
methods that encourage resident
participation as well as yield
high-quality, readily marketable
materials (such as using large bins for
commingled food and beverage containers,
and separate set-outs for paper grades);
· providing adequate containers for
storage and set-out of recyclables; and
establishing drop-off sites to augment
door-to-door collection (such as at
disposal facilities if residents or
businesses self-haul trash and at
decentralized locations around the
community).
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6.
Institute economic incentives that reward waste
reduction and recovery over disposal, such as
reduced tipping fees for delivering recyclable
and compostable materials to drop-off sites, tax
incentives to encourage businesses and haulers to
recycle, and pay-as-you-throw fees for trash
collection. Eliminate any subsidies for waste
burning.
7. Enact
or push for policies and regulations to improve
the environment for recycling and recycling-based
businesses. These might include:
· Banning waste incineration.
Incinerators compete for the same
materials and financial resources as
waste reduction strategies and encourage
wasting.
· Banning products that cannot be
reused, repaired, recycled, or composted.
· Requiring residents and businesses
participate in recycling and composting
programs. Local ordinances can either
require residents and businesses to
source-separate or ban them from setting
out designated recyclable or compostable
materials with their trash. Retain
authority over the collection and
handling of municipal discards so that
haulers undertake, encourage, and invest
in recycling
· Banning recyclable and reusable
materials and products from landfills and
incinerators.
· Banning single-use disposable products
from public events and festivals and as
many other places as possible.
· Instituting or expanding existing
beverage container deposit systems. Amend
laws to require refillable containers.
· Establishing recycling market
development zones with incentives to
create industrial parks for reuse,
recycling, and composting firms.
· Instituting building policies that
require reuse and recovery of building
materials in new construction and in
building deconstruction projects.
· Establishing a municipal, regional, or
national disposal surcharge
(funds could be used to establish a Solid
Waste Reduction, Recycling, Composting
Authority that awards grants and loans to
industry and nonprofit recycling
operations).
· Supporting state and national mandates
and goals, which can be very effective in
increasing recycling levels. In the
United States, state waste reduction
goals, requirements, and policies
encourage governments at the local level
to implement waste reduction programs.
State beverage container deposit laws and
landfill bans on recyclables materials
have, for instance, provided
recycling-based businesses with needed
materials.
· Supporting state and national policies
that will help ensure the prices we pay
for our goods and services reflect the
true cost of providing them. Policies
ending subsidies for virgin material
extraction and taxing polluting
industries are examples.
· Enacting a Toxics Use Reduction Act to
encourage industries to reduce the use of
toxic materials in their processes and
products.
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8.
Develop markets for materials with an eye toward
closing the loop locally (that is, within the
local economy), producing high-value end
products, and linking recycling-based economic
development with a larger vision of sustainable
community development. Minimum recycled-content
policies, grant and loan programs, and recycling
market development zones have encouraged the
development of recycling-based manufacturing.
Acquire public property for reuse, recycling, and
composting in order to provide a stable land base
for ecoindustrial parks and reuse and recycling
facilities. Support local nonprofit or for-profit
mission-driven recyclers and reuse operations and
the informal recycling sector. Community-based
recyclers are in business for the good of the
community and often provide services that the
market undervalues. The informal sector likewise
provides undervalued services and often does so
free of charge to waste generators and local
government. Implement or expand procurement of
recycled-content products. If you're not buying
recycled, you're not recycling.
9. Work to
hold manufacturers responsible for their products
throughout their life-cycle. Local government can
press for extended producer responsibility (EPR)
at the state and national levels. In particular
press for state and national efforts to work with
manufacturers to voluntarily reduce packaging and
meet minimum recycled-content standards for
products and packaging. If goals are not met,
push for institution of a regulatory framework.
Local government can pass producer responsibility
resolutions calling on producers to share the
responsibility for their products and on state
and national legislatures to shift the burden of
managing discarded products and packaging from
local governments to the producers of those
products. Local government can also pass local
ordinances banning use and/or sale of certain
types of products and packaging that cannot be
reused, repaired, recycled, or composted.
10.
Educate, educate, educate. Education and outreach
is critical. Educational and technical assistance
programs provide residents and businesses with
information about "how" and
"why" to reduce, reuse, recycle, and
compost. Launch a public information campaign
that will allow consumers to make smart choices
when making purchases. Public education campaigns
can also highlight the environmental and economic
benefits of preventing, reusing, and recycling
discards and connect the role these activities
play in moving toward a sustainable economy.
Source: Brenda Platt, Institute for Local
Self-Reliance, Washington, D.C., U.S., 2004.
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