{"id":15088,"date":"2012-11-12T09:26:26","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T15:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=15088"},"modified":"2012-11-12T09:26:26","modified_gmt":"2012-11-12T15:26:26","slug":"beyond-recycling-zero-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/beyond-recycling-zero-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Recycling: On the Road to Zero Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"beyond<\/a>
Workers from El Ceibo Cooperative collecting recyclables and promoting source separation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor’s note:<\/strong> As regular readers may have guessed, this isn’t the first post in this series – we published the second one on San Francisco’s zero waste goals<\/a> last week, as we received it first. No problem, though – the information’s excellent regardless of what order you read it in…<\/em><\/p>\n

by Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives<\/strong><\/p>\n

This week Other Worlds launches the blog series \u201cEnvironmental Possibilities: Zero Waste,\u201d featuring new ways of thinking, acting, and shaping government policy. Each week, we highlight a success story in the zero waste movement, excerpted from the report On the Road to Zero Waste: Successes and Lessons from Around the World <\/a> by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)<\/a>. GAIA is a powerful worldwide alliance of more than 650 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 90 countries. Their collective goal is a just, toxic-free world without incineration. Other Worlds is excited to promote the work of GAIA and the organized communities it works with, and hopes that the stories inspire you and others to begin moving your home, town or city, nation, and planet toward zero waste. This introduction to zero waste is the first in a ten-part series on zero waste successes and lessons. The following weeks will feature inspiring stories about zero waste achievements in San Francisco and waste pickers in India, to be followed by additional stories from around the globe.<\/em><\/p>\n

This introduction to zero waste is the first in a ten-part series on zero waste successes and lessons. Following weeks feature inspiring stories from around the globe. Check back regularly for the latest blogs!<\/em><\/p>\n

Zero waste<\/a> is both a goal and a plan of action. The goal is to protect and recover scarce natural resources by ending waste disposal in incinerators, dumps, and landfills. The plan encompasses waste reduction, composting, recycling and reuse, changes in consumption habits, and industrial redesign. The premise is that if a product cannot be reused, composted, or recycled, it just should not be produced in the first place.<\/p>\n

Just as importantly, zero waste is a revolution in the relationship between waste and people. It is a new way of thinking about safeguarding the health and improving the lives of everyone who produces, handles, works with, or is affected by waste\u2014in other words, all of us.<\/p>\n

Zero waste strategies help societies to produce and consume goods while respecting ecological limits and the rights of communities. The strategies ensure that all discarded materials are safely and sustainably returned to nature or to manufacturing in place of raw materials. In a zero waste approach, waste management is not left only to politicians and technical experts; rather, everyone impacted\u2014from residents of wealthy neighborhoods to the public, private, and informal sector workers who handle waste\u2014has a voice.<\/p>\n

Practicing zero waste means moving toward a world in which all materials are used to their utmost potential, in a system that simultaneously prioritizes the needs of workers, communities, and the environment. It is much like establishing zero defect goals for manufacturing, or zero injury goals in the workplace.<\/p>\n

Zero waste is ambitious, but it is not impossible. Nor is it part of some far-off future. Today, in small towns and big cities, in areas rich and poor, in the global North and South, innovative communities are making real progress toward the goal of zero waste. Every community is different, so no two zero waste programs are identical, but the various approaches are together creating something bigger than the sum of their parts: protection of the earth and the natural riches which lie under, on, and over it. Here are a few examples of what is working:<\/p>\n