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Neil
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Why does Zero Waste
focus in on two management techniques and not on the issue of reducing
environmental impacts -- wherever they occur? It seems to me that Zero Waste
does not necessarily lead towards sustainability, since there does not seem to
be much -- if any -- consideration of the environmental impacts of its
decision-making.
Best
wishes,
John
Dear Martin J.
Chávez,
It is heartening to learn that Albuquerque is yet another US
city focusing on zero waste, the logical extension of the US post World War II
recycling movement.
Zero waste is defined as 90%, or more, diversion
from disposal in landfills or incinerators. It involves high degrees of source
separation for recycling and composting, as well as clean manufacturing
without toxic materials in our products and packages.
Incineration is
not included in the zero waste calculation as this process destroys materials
requiring new extraction from virgin resources and the resulting pollution
from mining, forestry and transportation. Thus so-called waste to energy
plants are in fact wasted energy plants as more energy is needed to replace
materials than energy is created though incineration. With regard to air
emissions from garbage incinerators---they are cleaner than years ago, but
still emit pollutants.
Further, incineration contradicts another key
component of the zero waste paradigm----more good jobs. Incineration creates
one job per 10,000 tons processed, while recycling, composting and reuse
create from 4 - 250 times more jobs per 10,000 tons of materials, depending
upon which material is considered.
The city can also recover energy
from clean organics that are currently discarded with alternative technologies
operating at low temperatures, then compost the residue afterwards from those
processes. By not using high temperature systems and clean materials,
you do not volatilize heavy metals that are in the mixed waste stream, and do
not produce dioxins and furans, which are created when high temperature
systems cool down.
ILSR and other groups, such as Zero Waste
International Alliance and the California Resource Management Training
Institute, can help train your staff to implement a plan that is developed for
your city that can get you to 75%-90% diversion within three years. We can do
this without incineration, which is the most expensive system (capital and
operating costs) you can use to handle discards from households and
businesses.
Please review the documents prepared by ILSR for the US
EPA which detail case studies of communities that have cut their waste stream
in half, and then continued to recover more and more materials with the same
infrastructure. The URLs for these reports are as follows:
http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/recordsetters/index.html
and http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/zerowaste/index.html
I am available for any questions you may
have.
Sincerely,
Neil Seldman
Institute for Local
Sel-Reliance
Washington,
DC
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