Zero Culture: Stop Trashing the Climate and All That...

As we gear up for a new world in the war on climate change and global warming (meaning that the Obama Administration will soon provide laser-like, focused leadership for both this nation and, eventually, the global community), the idea of Zero Waste needs to have a major seat at the table. While mainstream energy and environmental policy groups talk about high-tech technology solutions not quite here yet like fuel cells, carbon sequestration, plug-in hybrids, smart transmission systems, and, of course, the magic of bio-fuels, Zero Waste solutions are fully loadable today.

Zero waste is not so much a single technology, but an approach to manufacturing and resource utilization that seeks to maximize recycling, reuse and reduced material inputs. As Philadelphia Dumpster Diver Neil Benson has said, "Waste is a failure of the imagination."

Indeed, while many people recycle most of their paper, cardboard, bottles and cans, another 70% of the nation's waste stream still gets thrown in landfills or burned in incinerators. A report published by the environmental/resource management advocacy groups Institute for Local Self-Reliance, GAIA, and
Eco-Cycle, called Stop Trashing the Climate, shows that taking zero waste principles seriously can impact about a third of the nation's economy through reduced energy requirements in manufacturing, mining, and timber harvesting. The authors posit a national goal of 1% reduction in a waste generation each year up to 2050 and show that the energy use reduction effect is the equivalent of taking 20% of our coal fired power plants off line.

Important to note as well is that recycling, composting and reuse businesses create far more jobs than the trash and incineration industries. If the Obama Administration is serious about "green collar" jobs, some of that investment should go to new, regional organic waste composting systems, reuse management centers, and retooling of the nation's recycling industries so that they can use state-of-the-art manufacturing processes to compete again in the global marketplace.

See an article on this topic and others ready to publish at EzineArticles.com

Comments

The State of the War on Climate Change: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

Bill McKibben (Source: 350.org) Talking Writing magazine just posted an interview I did with climate activist and environmental journalist Bill McKibben called "We Don't Require Leaders." I urge you to go check it out. McKibben surprised me with some of his answers. The whole climate equation and how it impacts culture and politics is not simple or predictable. I did a lot of research for my interview. You can never get in all your questions. Nor can you make all the points you want to make in your interview introduction. I want to add a bit here, then, if that's okay. It's my contribution this week to what will likely otherwise be a finger snapping coverage of Earth Day by mainstream media. First off, while it's been underway for about two years, the climate change Divestment Movement at college and university campuses is really heating up, if you'll pardon the pun. Bill was getting prepared for Harvard Heat Week when we were correspondin...

Why Green Jobs Don't Count

In ten years, if we're still talking about green jobs, we will have failed to transform the world economy to a more sustainable and egalitarian set of markets. For many of us who have been invested in the so-called "green revolution" for the past three decades, the fact that we're talking about jobs with special hues even today is disconcerting. As has been documented here at Blue Olives , efforts to modernize technology and establish a more democratic and benign form of productive capitalism have been in the pipeline since at least the early 1960s. Indeed, "green jobs" should not be something special; they should simply be "good jobs" that are part

Bashing Recycling for Confusion and Profit

The following essay is a work in progress. I invite all readers to give me criticism and direction. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recently, the ABC show, Good Morning America , ran a segment interviewing columnist and author Stephen Dubner (co-author of the book Freakonomics ) on whether recycling works. You can watch it by clicking here . While Dubner's basic argument about recycling turns on the idea of market economics (which is sensible), he also says some really weird things that drew me back into the good old early 1990s when bashing recycling was the sport of kings. In particular, Dubner says that plastic water bottle recycling doesn't make sense because it costs more to recycle water bottles (they aren't as valuable as aluminum cans) than it does to make new ones. He also says that old newspapers have such a low value that cities often simply landfill them after they go to the recycling center. He doesn't really provide us with...

Blue Olives

Search This Blog