Nature Can Teach Us Lots About How Not to Waste

By Gord Stewart

Garbage was big news recently when Toronto, its local landfill brimming, was casting about for a new way to deal with its leftovers.

Their first brainy idea, as we all now well know, was to give it a lovely train ride north through cottage country and drop it into an abandoned mine in Kirkland Lake. This met with great flak, so it was on to Plan B: Truck it to Michigan (250 loads a day).

When it comes to waste avoidance, Toronto is a minor leaguer. It diverts only 25 per cent of its waste from landfills, compared to 41 per cent here in the Capital Region and more than 50 percent in Seattle.

Areas with a serious commitment have found many options to burying garbage - alternatives that conserve energy, cut pollution, save money, create jobs and ensure healthy, vibrant communities.

Zero waste has a nice ring to it and it makes good sense. Waste, after all, is a human invention. There is no such thing as waste in nature. Plant and animal debris and remains become the nutrients for growth and the future in an endless - sustainable - cycle.

Humans are the first creatures on earth to try and defy this natural process. Rather than live within the laws and cycles of nature, we have chosen the straight-line approach. We extract, grow, make, buy, use and consume things, with energy expended and waste produced at every step.

Getting to zero waste was on the minds of 50 committed individuals at an October planning session in Vancouver. Many of them were leaders in the field who have helped put British Columbia on the map already with first-class recycling programs and an effective materials-exchange network. Their collective assessment was: We can and must do better.

Warren Snow, head of Zero Waste New Zealand, was on hand to describe efforts to date in his country. One-third of city and district councils in New Zealand have committed to a goal of zero waste to landfills by 2015. Snow's message: Success will come by moving forward on many fronts at once.

Industrial designers, for example, can ensure that products are designed for durability, are repairable, and easily disassembled for recycling.

Manufacturers can create goods using clean production techniques. They must also begin to accept responsibility for products and packaging throughout their entire lifecycle.

Retailers can set sustainability standards for items they stock and prod suppliers to see they are met.

Local governments can continue their waste-avoidance efforts, supported by tipping fees that fully reflect the long-term health and environmental costs of disposal to landfill.

Provincial and federal governments can pass supportive legislation. Ending subsidies for the extraction of virgin resources, for example, would be a boost to recycling which is regularly accused of "not paying its own way."

Make these kinds of moves, and one sees economic and employment benefits all round. For example, Interface Inc., once a carpet-seller, now leases floor-covering services. Its new feature product has slashed material and energy use by 97 per cent. In the first four years of this journey to sustainability, jobs and revenue have doubled and profits tripled.

Communities can be real winners, too. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Washington, D.C., estimates that nine jobs are created for every 15,000 tonnes of solid waste recycled into new products versus one for the same amount of waste sent to a landfill.

With 13 shopping days to Christmas, it's a perfect time to get in on the waste-avoidance act ourselves. For "stuff" on our lists, we can buy quality, buy recycled and, of course, buy less.

You could give coupons (to cook dinner for a favourite aunt, baby-sit for neighbours, take a friend kayaking), volunteer time (say, join a river-cleanup group) or donate to a worthy green cause.

Writer Gord Stewart focuses on environmental and health issues.

Source: Victoria Times Colonist (Tuesday December 12, 2001) B10.

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