Zero Waste Plans for Communities GRRN National Zero Waste Action Conference July 30, 2011, San Diego, CA By Gary Liss & Associates

Ask for ZW Goal and Plan  Ask to Adopt Zero Waste as a goal and to direct staff to return with a Plan within 6 months to 1 year  Include Zero Waste as a goal in Sustainability or Climate Change Plans

ZWIA Principles and Practical steps towards Zero Waste 1. Adopt ZWIA Zero Waste definition 2. Establish benchmarks and a timeline to meet goals for measuring success and monitoring accomplishments

 Don’t leave Zero Waste to “waste experts.”  Involve all organizations that provide waste reduction, takeback, reuse, recycling and composting services  Challenge all to pursue Zero Waste at home, at school, at university, at work and at play, while communities develop longer term policies and programs 3. Engage the whole community

 Existing incinerators must be closed down and no new ones built.  Reform landfill practices to prevent all pollution of air and water  Pre-process all residues at landfills before burial to stabilize organics and prevent methane generation More energy can be saved, and global warming impacts decreased, by reducing waste, reusing products, recycling and composting than can be produced from burning discards or recovering landfill gases. 4. Manage Resources not Waste

EU LANDFILL DIRECTIVE  Requires all Member States to introduce measures to reduce the quantities of biodegradable material going to landfill, to 35% of 1995 levels by  Waste must be treated before being landfilled

 Avoided Collection & Disposal Costs  Use fees levied on tons of waste hauled or landfilled to fund programs:  To develop policies, programs and facilities  To provide startup funds for EPR programs  To educate and train Resource Managers to use a Zero Waste approach  To create green jobs  New Rules Stimulate Private Investment 5. Program Funding

 Educate residents, businesses and visitors about new rules & programs  Zero Waste is a strategy not a technology that aims for better organization, better education and better industrial design to achieve the cultural change needed to get to Zero Waste 6. Education and Outreach

Alameda County Billboards

Alameda County Transit Ads

 ID source, amount, type and value of discarded materials  Collect Data locally or get data from comparable communities  Use as baseline to ID recovery and employment opportunities, cost savings, and to measure success of reduction and recovery programs Evaluate what additional source reduction, takeback, reuse, recycling and composting programs and facilities are needed to make those services more convenient to users than mixed material collection and disposal services. 7. Zero Waste Assessments

Know Your Discards Value Material% in WastesValue ($/ton) Reusables6%$400 Putrescibles26%$35 Paper21%$100 Ceramics (C&D)10%$15 Metals9%$80 Polymers9%$150 Soils6%$15 Glass4%$25 Textiles3%$20 Plant Debris3%$35 Wood2%$15 Chemicals1%$200 Richard Anthony, Resource Management in the New Millennium, 2005,

 To link community responsibility and industrial responsibility  Residuals need to be made very visible to ID  Bad industrial design  Bad purchasing habits  Change through dedicated research and education 8. Residual Separation & Research Facilities

 Communities can significantly change what is “economic” in the local marketplace with new policies, new rules and new incentives.  Restructure contracts and policies to make the avoided costs of collection and disposal a key engine for moving towards Zero Waste. 9. New Rules and Incentives

Hawai’i New Rules & Incentives  Producer and Retailer Responsibility, take-back of non-recyclable, reusable or compostable products and materials  Source Separation (of designated organics, reusables & recyclables)  Compostable Organics out of Landfill  Construction & Demolition (C&D) reuse and recycling plans & permits

 Businesses take back products and packaging at no cost to the public  Advocate for state and national EPR policies  Incentive to redesign products to be less toxic and easier to reuse and recycle  Don’t export harm and properly reuse, recycle or compost  Support small, local businesses and nonprofits 10. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

 Remove subsidies for wasting locally controlled, and call for removal of others  Tax incentives for mining and timber harvesting  Subsidies for “Energy from Waste”  Landfill regulations that inadequately address leachate, methane generation and perpetual long-term care  Shift community adopted garbage rates to Pay As You Throw incentives 11. End subsidies for wasting

 Adopt Precautionary Principle for municipal purchases  Purchase Zero Waste products and services  Avoid single use products and packaging  Return to vendors wasteful packaging  Reduce packaging and buy in larger units  Use reusable shipping containers  Purchase reused, recycled and compost products  Buy remanufactured equipment  Lease, rent and share equipment  Buy durables (using life-cycle cost analyses)  Encourage businesses and Institutions to follow 12. Zero Waste Procurement

13. Zero Waste Infrastructure  Develop locations for reuse, recycling and composting, including Resource Recovery Parks  Get Compostable Organics out of Landfills and back to the soil  Support Zero Waste practices at businesses and institutions  Adopt deconstruction, reuse and recycling policies citywide for Construction, Demolition, Landclearing and Remodeling (C&D)  Support locally owned and operated local enterprises.

Resource Recovery Park, U.K.

 Thousands of Businesses already divert over 90% of their wastes from landfill & incineration  Zero Waste Businesses reduce costs, increase efficiency, decrease carbon footprint and decrease long-term liability  ID, recognize and promote Zero Waste Businesses locally and challenge others to follow. 14. Zero Waste Businesses

Reduce First!  Design out Waste  Waste is not Inevitable  Businesses save the most by eliminating inefficient practices  Refuse and Return  Takebacks

 Review Data, Policies and Programs  Participation Strategy  Service Opportunities Analysis  Policies, Programs and Facilities Options  Economics & Impacts (Jobs, GHG)  Implementation Plan (including timeline & “low-hanging fruit” for quick success) Zero Waste Plan Scope

Key Lessons for Pursuing ZW  Someone Has to ASK to Adopt ZW  Envt. Group, Staff, Elected, State  Connect to Other Problems  Jobs, Economy, Facility Siting, Sustainability, Climate Change  Educate and Build Support  ID & Promote Local ZW Businesses

Resolution for Zero Waste WHEREAS: The placement of materials in waste disposal facilities, such as landfills and incinerators, causes damage to human health, wastes natural resources and/or inappropriately transfers liabilities to future generations, and Landfills are the single largest man-made source of methane in the United States, and contribute significantly to global warming, and Reduced wasting, and increased reuse, recycling and composting could dramatically help reverse climate changes, and Communities are currently forced to assume the high financial cost of collecting, recycling, and disposing of increasingly complex and toxic products and packaging, which is an unfunded mandate, and A resource management based economy will create and sustain more productive and meaningful jobs, and Subsidies for wasting and use of virgin materials send the wrong economic signals to both consumers and producers, and Federal, state and local governments around the world are adopting policies to hold producers financially and/or physically responsible for collecting, recycling, and properly handling of products and packaging, and

Resolution for Zero Waste Producers should design products to ensure that they can be safely reused or recycled back into the marketplace or nature, and Most toxic product and packaging waste can be eliminated through the use of non-toxic alternatives in product design, and Voluntary recycling goals have not reduced wasting sufficiently, and Zero Waste policies and programs will establish practical ways in our community to eliminate waste or safely reuse, recycle or compost discarded products and packaging; THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT The [City/ County/ Organization] hereby adopts a Zero Waste goal and directs staff to return with a Zero Waste Plan to implement that goal within one year.

If you’re not for Zero Waste, how much waste are you for?