Zero Waste

Comments on talk given on Jan 13 2001, organised by GSE (Galway for a Safe Environment).

The speaker was a man called Paul Connett, a US uni professor – definitely an expert in the area it was clear he had travelled the world campaigning against incinerators and helping out communities.

His Zero Waste campaign promotes the idea of looking at this “waste” as a resource to be utilised. He showed a really interesting video about Nova Scotia and a good recycling project, which had begun there. It was really great because through the various examples you could see that serious waste reduction is very possible and can really work to everyone’s advantage.

He spoke about the Xerox company and their response to recycling. When they send out vans to distribute their photocopiers the vans then return full of the old machines which people are discarding (reverse distribution). Through either cleaning the machines up, repairing or dismantling for parts they manage to reach 95% reuse!! The reason Xerox got into this to begin with was to make saving – both production costs and disposal costs. Anyway they are making a £76 million a year saving – amazing or what?!!

Paul Connett believes that the recycling will work if there is both community and industrial responsibility. However if all industries were required to take back their products – electrical appliances, machines, furniture etc.- it would quickly force them to seriously rethink there design. I believe this is really where it is at – in 3^rd level colleges all design and engineering courses must contain a module on the environment and sustainability. Using composite and toxic materials in products make recycling very difficult and costly. One thing that Paul Connett suggested was ringing up those free phone numbers for companies and just saying something like “ hey love your product, hate your packaging!” Image etc. is so important for these companies so if they think their customers are pissed off about something they will try to change things to keep them happy.

The talk did focus on incineration and he really, really drove all the points home. In comparing incineration to zero waste here is what he had to say:

Incineration                                                       Zero Waste

+ Boring                                                           + Exciting

+One Big Black box                                         +lots of little green boxes

+Discourages innovation                                   + thrives on creativity, initiative and invention

+Back end solution                                           + Front end solution

+Destroys resources                                         + recovers resources

+Recovers a little energy                                   + saves far more energy

+Little reduction in global warming                    + reduces global warming of primary            processing

+ At worst: persistent toxics into air                 + At worst:  makes toxics viable

+ At best:  Puts persistent toxics into ash          +At best:  pressure for clean production

+ Perpetuates landfill                                         + Aims to eliminate landfill

+ waste management in the corporate interest   + Resource management in the community interest     

            -expensive machinery                                             - jobs

            -  money leaves country                                         - stays in the community

+ No stimulation of local economy                     + Generates many small businesses

+ No demands on industry                                + Harmonises corporate and community   interests

+ Not sustainable                                              + Sustainable

Check out www.grrn.org - grassroots recycling network.

This zero waste approach is definitely the way to go!!