Re: [GreenYes] MSW vs total wastes

[Muna Lakhani <muna@iafrica.com>]

Michele Raymond wrote:
> 
> That was my understanding too
> 
> At 04:46 PM 1/4/02 -0600, Heidi Swets wrote:
> >         A few years ago I read something which compared municipal solid
> > waste to
> >"all the waste generated in the U.S.", including mining and logging
> >wastes,air pollution, water pollution, manufacturing wastes.  MSW was
> >described as being just (approx.) 2% of that total waste amount.  The point
> >of the statement was to point out how relatively minimal the impact of
> >recycling can be in conserving energy and materials, especially if our
> >national recycling rate is somewhere around 26,27%.  The greater benefit,
> >then would come upstream from recycling, at the extraction and
> >manufacturing stages.

Nice that this came up - it would be true to say that the vast majority
of waste happens before your garbage bin - Gary? was not the Zero Waste
figure something like 2% or so of all process waste is garbage, the rest
happens upstream?

Philosophical and practical thought: given the energy so many of has do
/ have spent on recycling, does that not maybe let the real wasters off
the hook? If we are using our (always limited) energy on MSW, then we
are not doing it "at source" - which is the main reason why I became a
Zero Waste advocate many years ago....

take care all!

Kind regards
Muna


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