[GreenYes] Fwd: Comments on Fairfax, CA (Marin County) Zero Waste Resolution

[Gary Liss <gary@no.address>]

Dan Knapp asked me to forward these comments to 
this listserve.  I don't agree with all that is 
said below, but welcome the dialog for us to 
sharpen our thinking on how we communicate about Zero Waste for the future.

Gary

>Cc: crra_members@no.address,
>GreenYes@no.address,
>   <zwia@no.address>,
>  ZeroWasteCommunities@no.address,
>  sustainablebusiness@no.address,
>  p2tech@no.address,
>  p2@no.address
>To: Gary Liss <gary@no.address>
>From: Mary Lou Van Deventer <marylouvan@no.address>
>Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 16:58:58 -0800
>Subject: Re: [CRRA] Fairfax, CA (Marin County) 
>Passed Zero Waste Resolution on 3-7-07
>
>Respected colleagues -
>
>Congratulations on another Zero Waste goal passed!
>
>But many readers of the accompanying rhetoric 
>will be confused, as we were, by the 
>either-or/one-best-option logic that is embedded 
>in but not argued out in the post's succeeding 
>discussion.  This is not the first place that 
>Zero Waste has been presented as an alternative 
>to and replacement for recycling.  The either-or 
>framing is clear in ?recycling is not the 
>solution to our long-term problems.?  [Our 
>bolding.]  This confusion first appeared years 
>ago, and it sets up an unnecessary conflict 
>within the collection of industries that we have 
>and will become.  It?s a PR trainwreck.  Maybe 
>it was first devised by Karl Rove and has been 
>inserted into our discussions as 
>disinformation.  It is either an unintentional 
>framing glitch or sophistry to implant this 
>change of mind without clear argumentation.
>
>Let the issue be joined, again.
>
>There is no ?the? single, easy, magic-bullet 
>solution to our complex problems, and watch out 
>for anybody who suggests any such thing.  There 
>is only a complex of solutions, and all are required for success.
>
>Zero Waste is NOT EVEN A NEW IDEA.  Rather, it 
>is a long-awaited EXPRESSION OF THE ORIGINAL 
>3-Rs HIERARCHY ? a development of the first R in 
>the structure that we have for thirty years 
>called ?Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.?  It?s about 
>time somebody started working on it as a career; 
>and although it?s late to the party, it is still 
>welcome, as it has been always.
>
>But the latecomer may not rudely insult the 
>first-comers - just take a piece of pie and be 
>friendly.  We refer to facile thoughtless 
>slogans such as ?recycling is so last century? 
>and ?recycling is so end-of-pipe? and ?recycling 
>can?t do it all by itself? and even ?recycling has failed.?
>
>Let us all appreciate Recyling, the first urgent 
>expression of our original Zero Waste dream from 
>1970, the past and future replacement for 
>wasting after Reducing and Reusing have done their work.
>
>We have known for decades that our whole 
>movement began by bending the end of the 
>resource-flow pipe and is now working 
>upward.  The first development: we bent the pipe 
>away from wasting for cans, bottles, and paper 
>to let the clean refined resources flow back 
>into production feedstock ports instead of into 
>the landflll.  So now that part of the resource 
>pipe has no end!  We are still working on 
>bending the pipe for many other categories of discards.
>
>And DON?T CALL THEM WASTE!  Unless they get wasted.
>
>This is not a mere catch-phrase, not ?just 
>semantics.?  Terms of the trade are a critical 
>conceptual framework that structures thinking, 
>and if recyclers don?t know it, the garbage 
>industry and their trade associations certainly 
>do.  They say so to each other on their websites 
>and in their explicit instructions to each other 
>for how to use terminology.  Waste is precisely 
>what resources are not!  Garbage really is 
>manufactured from otherwise recyclable 
>resources.  Surely you know this by now.  Why 
>suck up to the wasters by accepting their 
>framework, which undermines ours?  Our industry 
>is bigger than theirs, and better, and is the future.
>
>The wasting industry is the only one whose pipe has an end.
>
>We worked up the pipe to Reuse.  There?s still a 
>lot of work to do there, too, as Urban Ore knows 
>well.  WHEN we expand Reuse, its market niche is 
>to remove objects from the discard supply going 
>to Recycling.  Nobody should whine.  This market 
>position is built into the Reuse, Recycle part 
>of the hierarchy.  Recycling will still be 
>necessary for discarded resources that cannot be reused.
>
>AT LAST we are working farther toward the 
>beginning of the resource-flow pipe to Reduce 
>discards and asssure that they are nontoxic and 
>recyclable.  We will protect the Earth?s wild 
>places, virgin resource supplies, air, land, and 
>water by making manufacturers redesign products 
>to use recycled feedstocks; to use nontoxic 
>feedstocks; and to be repairable and 
>recyclable.  One METHOD of achieving these 
>objectives is to make manufacturers take 
>responsibility for their products at the end of 
>their useful life.  WHEN the products are 
>finally discarded, as they will be, THEY WILL 
>STILL NEED RECYCLING, which may require 
>dismantling, sorting, sending to diverse 
>markets, ALL THE THINGS WE RECYCLERS DO.
>
>NEXT we can look at mining and forestry 
>practices.  Those industries waste so much of 
>the Earth that their problems dwarf the 
>post-consumer flows.  Some recyclers may think 
>this work would get into another field, but 
>that?s just a question of where the joints are 
>in THE ONE GREAT BRANCHING RESOURCE PIPE.
>
>Of course, all of the Reduce, Reuse, and 
>Recycling industries have begun this work of 
>reducing the impacts of mining and forestry by 
>starting at the only end the resource pipe has ? 
>the landfill ? and bending it back into 
>production intake ports.  But the end of the 
>pipe was only the beginning of our work.
>
>We mustn?t let ourselves be misdirected by 
>letting anyone introduce any either-or-ness into 
>our long-cherished vision of resource circles.
>
>THE UNIFIED RESOURCE THEORY WE HAVE ALL KNOWN SINCE EARTH DAY 1970:
>
>Reducing + Reusing + Recycling = Zero Waste
>
>Let?s move forward ? follow the Reducing path 
>while developing the Reusing and Recycling 
>paths, especially the Recycling subset of 
>composting.  Let?s be sure municipalities 
>provide us with land for growth, and with the 
>ability to compete with wasting by collecting 
>variable service fees to underwrite our 
>beneficial and beneficiating replacements for 
>mining technologies.  Let?s be sure the 
>resource-based manufacturing regulations and 
>discard-fee structures encourage Reducing, 
>Reusing, and Recycling.  Wasting should always 
>be the most expensive disposal option.
>
>There?s so much to do to keep bending the pipe!
>
>
>Dan Knapp and
>Mary Lou Van Deventer
>
>PS - The modern Zero Waste Movement originated 
>in Canberra, Australia, in a government bureau 
>that fashioned the first Zero Waste Goal for 
>Parliament to pass, which it did.  They focused 
>initially on materials recovery, on providing 
>space for businesses to dry up the flow of 
>resources to two local landfills, which were 
>located, as they are here, at the headwaters of 
>two of the only creeks this extremely dry area 
>has.  They built big resource recovery parks, 
>including buildings dedicated to reuse and other 
>forms of recovery.  They called them 
>?purpose-built resource recovery estates.?  We 
>are going to Australia next month and may visit 
>Canberra to see how they are doing.  If we do, we?ll keep you posted.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On Mar 8, 2007, at 11:06 AM, Gary Liss wrote:
>
>>Apologies for Cross-Postings
>>
>>>From: "Bruce Baum" <b-baum@no.address>
>>>Subject: Fairfax Passes ZW resolution
>>>Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 10:00:09 -0800
>>
>>Some positive news from Fairfax??..Last night 
>>at the town council Fairfax became the first 
>>Marin town to adopt a Zero Waste by 2020 
>>Resolution (attached): Mayor Larry Bragman 
>>introduced the resolution for approval. Vote was 4-1
>>
>>For more information I can be reached at 707-459-5859
>>
>>Bruce Baum
>>ZW Citizens Advisory Committee
>>
>>Some quick points on ZW that were made last evening:
>>
>>Zero Waste is a philosophy and a design 
>>principle for the 21st Century. It includes 
>>'recycling' but goes beyond recycling by taking 
>>a 'whole system' approach to the vast flow of 
>>resources and waste through human society.
>>
>>Zero Waste maximizes recycling, minimizes 
>>waste, reduces consumption and ensures that 
>>products are made to be reused, repaired or 
>>recycled back into nature or the marketplace. 
>><http://www.grrn.org/zerowaste/>http://www.grrn.org/zerowaste/
>>
>>
>>·         In 2002 CIWMB adopted a goal of Zero 
>>Waste as one of it?s guiding 
>>principles<http://www.zerowaste.ca.gov/>http://www.zerowaste.ca.gov/
>>
>>·         Cities and counties around the state 
>>have adopted ZW resolutions including model 
>>programs in SF & Palo Alto Most municipalities 
>>in the Bay Area have also adopted ZW 
>>resolutions and strategies. (Oakland recently passed theirs).  None in Marin!
>>    * November, 2006 Marin County?s Solid waste 
>> JPA passed a ZW resolution with a 2020 goal 
>> that Fairfax, a JPA member, agreed to.
>>    * ?Zero Waste, The Complement to 
>> Sustainability for Fairfax?, was approved by 
>> the Planning Commission March 2006.
>>    * Fairfax took leadership over 10 years ago 
>> --- when Fairfax adopted the first retail food 
>> polystyrene take out regulations in Marin.
>>    * Recycling was last century?s solution to 
>> garbage while Marin?s numbers may be 
>> impressive, they are very misleading, 
>> Recycling is not the solution to our long term problems.
>>    * ZW is about looking at the other end of 
>> the pipe from recycling. Simply put source 
>> reduction, including producer responsibility, 
>> reuse, recycling, and composting.
>>    * Fairfax, took the leadership role in 
>> Marin County as first municipality in Marin to adopt a ZW resolution. --
>>Gary Liss
>>916-652-7850
>>Fax: 916-652-0485
>>www.garyliss.com
>
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Gary Liss & Associates
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Fax: 916-652-0485
www.garyliss.com 
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