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7. Can we realiy recycle and compost this much?
<br />For over 150 years, our worldwide manufacturing, distribution, and disposal systems have
<br />developed under the illusion that our natural resources are manageable and expendable
<br />and that any amount of pollution can be absorbed or diluted by the land and water.
<br />Today, we know this is not true: the cost of maintaining and expanding landfills continues
<br />to rise, incinerators have been proven to decrease our air quality and impact our health,
<br />and our once "endless" natura] resources are showing obvious signs of depletion. Our
<br />waste is in fact very valuable, despite the current paradigm that tells us that it is no so.
<br />We have the technology, and we can have the foresight to cost-effectively adapt this old
<br />system of using and disposing to a new system of conserving, reusing, recycling, and
<br />composting our resources. This will allow us to reinvest more of the "output" of our
<br />waste stream, rather than burying it in a landfill or burning it in an incinerator. Not only
<br />will our environment and our health improve, but so will our econonay.
<br />On a per-ton basis, sorting and processing recyclables alone sustains ten times more
<br />jobs than landfrlling or incineration. [...J Each recycling step a community takes
<br />locally means more jobs, more business expenditures on supplies and services, and
<br />more money circulating in the loca] economy through spending and tax payments
<br />(Platt and Seldm.an, 2000).
<br />By adopting zero waste as our goal right now, we shift job creation to reuse, recycling,
<br />and composting industries that transform discarded materials into resources. Many people
<br />left out of the current econonay will be able to find interesting and fulfilling work in these
<br />efficient and inventive businesses. We can. change our economic measurements to support
<br />an abundant economy that rewards creativity, efficiency, community, healthy families and
<br />environmental protection..
<br />Communities and businesses curr.ent]y in th.e process of adopting zero-waste goals look to
<br />examples of ecological systems, where the output of one system becomes the input for
<br />another system, the way decomposition and decay for-n~ the basis of nourishment for new
<br />organisms. In nature, there is no waste, and we can mimic this as we interact with nature.
<br />Zero-waste initiatives are being adopted and implemented all over the globe, in big and
<br />small ways, including in Seattle, Washington; San Francisco and llel Norte, California;
<br />New Zealand; Canberra, Australia; Denmark; Edmonton, Alberta; Ottawa, Ontario; and
<br />Nova Scotia. Businesses like Hewlett Packard, the EPA green building program, and Mad
<br />Diver Brewing have achieved 95% and higher diversion rates. Zero Waste is being
<br />incorporated into the business functions of many organizations including Xerox, Sony,
<br />1VTitsubishi, Interface Flooring Systems, The Beer Store, I131v1, DuPont, Honda anal
<br />Toyota, 3M, Anderson Windows, Aveda, and Pillsbury.
<br />The Stop Trashing the Climate reports makes a case far a zero waste approach as one of
<br />the "fastest; cheapest, and most effective strategies for mitigating climate change in the
<br />shore and long-term" and reports on several communities that are putting these zero waste
<br />strategies in place:
<br />Zero waste goals or plans have now been adopted by dozens of communities and
<br />businesses in the U.S. and thereby the entire state of California. In addition, in
<br />2005, mayors representing 103 cities worldwide signed onto the Urban
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