Zero waste encompasses all three of these components, and is much more than just recycling. Zero waste is about keeping material out of the landfill by better understanding and managing one’s waste stream. Zero Waste is a pragmatic and visionary goal that guides people to emulate sustainable natural cycles, where all discarded materials become resources for others to use.
Zero Waste means designing and managing products and processes to:
Implementing Zero Waste will eliminate all discharges to land, water or air that may be a threat to planetary, human, animal or plant health. Zero waste initiatives look first at how not to create waste in the first place, and then more aggressively towards separating and diverting what waste is created.
Zero Waste is not about getting to zero. It is a total commitment to pursue zero and being on a path to zero.
Reduce
Look for opportunities to eliminate unneeded material usage, whether it’s packaging, disposable products, or even energy or water resources. This is also known as source reduction, and is the strategy from which the most amount of money can be saved and environmental benefits reaped. A simple example of this would be buying five-gallon jugs of water instead of individual bottles of water. The jug is returnable, which allows one to only pay for the water, and not the plastic packaging as well.
Reuse
Find ways to put goods and products to good use after they’ve fulfilled their intended purpose. This can include things like cardboard boxes, scrap printer paper, furniture, or clothing. This component even includes things like food, which can be composted back into valuable and nutrient rich soil.
The idea of Zero Waste is relatively new to modern-day environmental circles. However, the concept is as old as time itself, as nature knows no such thing as waste: the outflow created by one ecosystem becomes the food source for another ecosystem.
For various reasons, our global society is at a point where we have left these principles far behind. Materials are extracted from the earth, processed, fused with other materials, used, and then disposed of elsewhere; all of which require significant energy inputs. This has caused the following problems:
Pennsylvania imports the most waste in all of the US. The Commonwealth accepts waste from 28 states, Puerto Rico, and Canada, most of which originates from New York and New Jersey. Our collective ability to contain and mitigate the negative impacts from the conventional hole-in-the-ground landfill model is showing signs of stress.
We need to think smarter about how, where and why we create waste. Recycling is a good start, but it is far from perfect, and on its own cannot solve the problems described above. We need to take the next step in reducing not only the amount of waste we sent to the landfill but also what we consider waste in the first place. Here’s what you can do:
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