Zero Waste

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Zero Waste
Partnership
Presentation by Chris Burger
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DIFFERENT TIMES DEMAND DIFFERENT QUESTIONS
20th CENTURY WASTE MANAGEMENT
21st CENTURY RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
How do we handle our discarded resources in ways
which do not deprive future generations of some,
if not all, of their value?
How do we get rid of our waste efficiently with
minimum damage to our health and the environment?
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DIFFERENT TIMES DEMAND DIFFERENT QUESTIONS
20th CENTURY WASTE MANAGEMENT
21st CENTURY RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Key Issue was SAFETY
Key Issue is SUSTAINABILIY
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Zero Waste

• Zero Waste is a goal that emulates 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, conserve and recover all
  resources, and not burn or bury them.
• Implementing Zero Waste eliminates the
  discharges to land, water or air that represent a
  threat to planetary, human, animal, or plant
  health.

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Zero Waste
From an organizing standpoint, it is extremely
helpful to not simply be against something, but
articulate a vision of what you are for.
Zero Waste is such a vision.
If you are not for Zero Waste,
how much waste are you for?
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Zero Waste Partnership
ZW TEAM
ZW Committee
National Sierra Club
ZW Partnership
ZW Community
ZW Community
ZW Community
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Zero Waste Partnership

• Purpose to share ideas and combine our efforts
  not only to effect change within our own
  communities, but to join with each other and
  other environmental groups throughout the US and
  the world to reform how we utilize resources
  going forward to formulate a system that is
  truly sustainable.
• Looking for Communities that commit to
• Building a Zero Waste Infrastructure
• Advocating for EPR (Extended Producer
  Responsibility)

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Zero Waste Community
Adopt a Zero Waste Goal and Plan for It

• Adopt a resolution to establish a community-wide
  Zero Waste goal and a commitment to develop a
  plan to implement that goal. Do as separate
  resolution or part of climate change plans.
• Involve residents and businesses actively in the
  development of a Zero Waste Plan, including
  extensive education, outreach and input on the
  Plans proposed policies, programs and
  facilities. Establish interim goals and a target
  year to achieve Zero Waste goal (or darn close).

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Zero Waste Community
Resolution Calling for a Goal of Zero Waste

• Resolved, that the ltyour Chapter or Groupgt
  advocates for a cradle-to-cradle Zero Waste goal
  for ltyour city, county or stategt that follows the
  Pollution Prevention Hierarchy of Reduce, Reuse,
  Recycle, while planning for eventual elimination
  conventional waste disposal systems, and be it
• Further Resolved, that the ltyour Chapter or
  Groupgt advocates for ltyour city, county or stategt
  to implement EPR programs and policies, and be it
• Further Resolved, that the ltyour Chapter or
  Groupgt establish a Zero Waste ltCommittee or Task
  Forcegt to further these goals.

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Zero Waste Community
RESOLUTION FOR ZERO WASTE
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the
ltCity/County/Organizationgt hereby adopts a Zero
Waste goal and directs staff to return with a
Zero Waste Plan to implement that goal within one
year.
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Zero Waste Community
Know Your Waste and Design It Out

• Evaluate materials discarded according to the
  Urban Ore 12 Master Categories of discarded
  materials, determine how and where materials are
  discarded.
• Identify service opportunities where new
  services are needed to fill gaps in current
  reuse, recycling and composting services.
• Identify current waste elimination, reuse,
  recycling and composting policies, programs and
  facilities. Select additional policies, programs
  and facilities from a menu of best practices
  around the world. Prioritize them according to
  local economic and political conditions.

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Zero Waste Community
Hold Producers Responsible

• Ask product designers and marketers to consider
  ZW a critical design criterion.
• Hold businesses financially or physically
  responsible for their products and packaging
  manufactured and sold. For retailers, ask them
  to take back products and packaging for problem
  materials not included in residential recycling
  programs. For contractors and developers,
  encourage adaptive reuse and deconstruction, and
  require recycling of construction, demolition and
  land-clearing debris.
• Work with other local governments and businesses
  to build useful alliances and share successes.
  Develop a waste exchange. Engage industry, make
  them aware of materials and products that are
  problems for the community, and establish a
  process for resolving those problems.
• Ban products or packages from being sold or
  require businesses and institutions to take back
  designated products and packaging sold that are
  toxic in their manufacture, use, or disposal,
  and/or are not currently recyclable in the area.

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Zero Waste Community
Adopt Incentives and New Rules

• Adopt incentives and new rules in Ordinances,
  contracts, franchises, permits, zoning, General
  Plans and garbage rate structures to make it
  cheapest to stop discarding materials, and
  reusing, recycling or composting them.
• Environmentally preferable purchasing guidelines
  can be adopted to reduce resource use and cut air
  and water emissions, including the Precautionary
  Principle for all government purchases.

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Zero Waste Community
Support Green Business and Green Jobs

• Ask local businesses to adopt Zero Waste goals,
  to develop Zero Waste plans, to adhere to Zero
  Waste Business principles, to meet waste
  diversion targets, and to source separate
  designated materials that can be reused, recycled
  or composted.
• Support existing reuse, recycling and composting
  businesses and nonprofit organizations and help
  them expand. Develop locally owned and
  independent infrastructure on an open,
  competitive basis.
• Develop Resource Recovery Parks to provide
  locations for expansion of reuse, recycling and
  composting businesses.
• Fund community Zero Waste initiatives with fees
  levied on the transport, transfer and disposal of
  wastes and by leveraging the investments of the
  private sector.

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Resource Recovery Park
Repair Reuse Center
Residual Separation Stabilization Research
Center
C D
Composting Facility
Public Entrance
Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials (CHARM)
electronics, appliances, etc.
Materials Recovery Facility (MRF)
Hauler Entrance
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Extended Producer Responsibility

• Cradle-to-Cradle
• Producers (or first importers) must have an
  approved plan for how they will recover their
  products when consumers are done with them, as a
  condition for sale in a jurisdiction.

Connects product design to material recovery.
www.sierraclub.org/committees/zerowaste/
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Extended Producer Responsibility
RESOLUTION SUPPORTING EXTENDED PRODUCER
RESPONSIBILITY

• THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that Broome County
  intends to encourage the State of New York to
  transfer responsibility for the costs of managing
  certain products at end-of-life to producers
  (brand owners and first importers) and be it
• FURTHER RESOLVED, that Broome County urges the
  New York State Legislature to enact framework EPR
  legislation which will give producers the
  incentive to design products to make them less
  toxic and easier to repair, reuse and recycle
  and be it
• FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Deputy Commissioner of
  the Broome County Division of Solid Waste
  Management is requested to send letters to the
  State Legislature and State associations and to
  use other advocacy methods to urge support for
  EPR legislation and be it
• FURTHER RESOLVED, that the State of New York and
  its member agencies are urged to include EPR
  language, such as specifying product and
  packaging collection and recycling requirements,
  in contracts for commodities.

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Listserves

• ZWPartners_at_googlegroups.com This is a listserv
  for activists working in communities on
  implementing zero waste and extended producer
  responsibility practices and policies in homes
  and at work in schools, businesses, town
  councils. It is for sharing strategies, success
  stories and challenges.  This listserv is for
  activists committed to the principles of zero
  waste and extended producer responsibility as
  adopted by the Sierra Club Board of Directors in
  2008.  It is not a discussion list for debating
  benefits of landfilling, incineration, or any
  technology developed to derive energy from
  unsorted municipal solid waste.  Individuals who
  persist in debating these subjects will be
  dropped from this list and directed to the Sierra
  Club Zero Waste Forum. Although started by Sierra
  Club activists, this group is open to zero waste
  activists everywhere.
• CONS-EQST-WASTE-FORUM_at_LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG
  Listserve designed to share zero waste
  information and discuss zero waste and EPR
  topics.

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Web Sites

• http//www.sierraclub.org/committees/zerowaste/
• http//connect.sierraclub.org/teams/

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(No Transcript)
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Reducing OurWaste Production
Not zero waste
but pretty darn close
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Earth Day Commitment
We will not buy anything that we are unwilling to
take Responsibility for
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Family -Picture
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17 Years of Waste
Our Failures!
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Extended Producer Responsibility
Company should not make anything that it is
unwilling to take Responsibility for
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Extended Producer Responsibility

• If product cannot be Recycled,
• or
• If product cannot be Composted

Industry should not be making it
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There is NO away
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Chris W. Burger 110 Walters Road Whitney Point,
NY 13862 Phone [phone] Email
cwburger_at_frontiernet.net