Zero waste

Zero waste is a set of principles focused on waste

prevention that encourages redesigning resource
life cycles so that all products are reused. The
goal of this movement is to avoid sending trash to
landfills, incinerators or the ocean. Currently, only
9% of global plastic is recycled.[1] In a zero waste
system, the material will be reused until the
optimum level of consumption is reached. The
definition adopted by the Zero Waste
International Alliance (ZWIA) is:

Zero Waste: The conservation of all

resources by means of responsible
production, consumption, reuse and Used products dumped at a scrap metal recycler
recovery of all products, packaging,
and materials, without burning them
and without discharges to land, water
or air that threaten the environment
or human health.

Zero waste refers to waste prevention as opposed to end-of-pipe waste management.[2] It is a whole
systems' approach that aims for a massive change in the way materials flow through society, resulting in no
waste.[2] Zero waste encompasses more than eliminating waste through reducing, reusing, and recycling. It
focuses on restructuring distribution and production systems to reduce waste.[3] Zero waste provides
guidelines for continually working towards eliminating waste.[2]

Advocates expect that government regulation is needed to influence industrial choices over product and
packaging design, manufacturing processes, and material selection.[4]

Advocates say eliminating waste decreases pollution, and can also reduce costs due to the reduced need for
raw materials.

Contents
Cradle-to-cradle / cradle-to-grave
Health
History
2002–2003
2009: The Zero Waste lifestyle movement emerges
Present day
Examples of zero waste
Recycling and composting
 Software recycling
Use of zero waste system
Significance of dump capacity
Corporate initiatives
Re-use or rot of waste
Market-based campaigns
How to achieve
The 5R’s of Bea Johnson
Zero Waste Hierarchy
Zero waste jurisdictions
Zero-waste stores
See also
References
Further reading
External links
Advocacy organizations

Cradle-to-cradle / cradle-to-grave
The cradle-to-grave is a linear material model that begins with resource extraction, moves to product
manufacturing, and ends with a "grave" or landfill where the product is disposed of. Cradle-to-grave is in
direct contrast to cradle-to-cradle materials or products, which are recycled into new products at the end of
their lives so that ultimately there is no waste.[5]

Cradle-to-cradle focuses on designing industrial systems so that materials flow in closed-loop cycles, which
means that waste is minimized and waste products can be recycled and reused. Cradle-to-cradle goes
beyond dealing with waste issues after it has been created by addressing problems at the source and
redefining problems by focusing on design.[5] The cradle-to-cradle model is sustainable and considerate of
life and future generations.[5]

The cradle-to-cradle framework has evolved steadily from theory to practice.[3] In the industrial sector, it is
creating a new notion of materials and material flows. Just as in the natural world, in which one organism's
"waste" cycles through an ecosystem to provide nourishment for other living things, cradle-to-cradle
materials circulate in closed-loop cycles, providing nutrients for nature or industry.[5]

The spread of industrialization worldwide has been accompanied by a large increase in waste production.
In 2012 the World Bank stated that 1.3 billion tons of municipal waste was produced by urban populations
and estimates that the number will reach 2.2 billion tons by 2025 (Global Solid Waste Management Market
- Analysis and Forecast). The increase in solid waste production increases the need for landfills. With the
increase in urbanization, these landfills are being placed closer to communities. These landfills are
disproportionately located in areas of low socioeconomic status with primarily non-white populations.
Findings indicated these areas are often targeted as waste sites because permits are more easily acquired and
there was generally less community resistance. Additionally, within the last five years, more than 400
hazardous waste facilities have received formal enforcement actions for unspecified violations that were
considered to be a risk to human health.[6]
There is a growing global population that is faced with limited resources from the environment.[7] To
relieve the pressures placed on the finite resources available it has become more important to prevent waste.
To achieve zero waste, waste management has to move from a linear system to be more cyclical so that
materials, products, and substances are used as efficiently as possible. Materials must be chosen so that they
may either return safely to a cycle within the environment or remain viable in the industrial cycle.[8]

Zero waste promotes not only reuse and recycling but, more importantly, it promotes prevention and
product designs that consider the entire product life cycle.[8] Zero-waste designs strive for reduced material
use, use of recycled materials, use of more benign materials, longer product lives, repairability, and ease of
disassembly at end of life.[3] Zero waste strongly supports sustainability by protecting the environment,
reducing costs and producing additional jobs in the management and handling of wastes back into the
industrial cycle.[8] A Zero waste strategy may be applied to businesses, communities, industrial sectors,
schools and homes.

Benefits proposed by advocates include:

Saving money. Since waste is a sign of inefficiency, the reduction of waste can reduce costs.
Faster Progress. A zero-waste strategy improves upon production processes and improves
environmental prevention strategies which can lead to take larger, more innovative steps.
Supports sustainability. A zero-waste strategy supports all three of the generally accepted
goals of sustainability - economic well-being, environmental protection, and social well-
being.[8]
Improved material flows. A zero-waste strategy would use far fewer new raw materials and
send no waste materials to landfills. Any material waste would either return as reusable or
recycled materials or would be suitable for use as compost.[8]

Health

A major issue with landfills is hydrogen sulfide, which is released from natural decay of waste. Studies
have shown a positive association between increased lung cancer mortality rates and increased morbidity
and mortality related to respiratory disease and hydrogen sulfide exposure. These studies also showed that
the hydrogen sulfide exposure increased with proximity to the landfill.[7]

Household chemicals and prescription drugs are increasingly being found in large quantities in the leachate
from landfills. This is causing concern about the ability of landfills to contain these materials and the
possibility of these chemicals and drugs making their way into the groundwater and the surrounding
environment.[8]

Zero waste promotes a circular material flow that allows materials to be used over and over, reducing the
need for landfill space.[9] Through zero waste the number of toxins released into the air and water would be
decreased and products examined to determine what chemicals are used in the production process.

Health issues related to landfills:

Birth defects, low birth weight, and exposure to particulates and nitrogen dioxide are
associated with close proximity to landfills.
Respiratory diseases and lung cancers are related to the release of hydrogen sulfide from
landfills.
Zero waste promotion of a cyclical product life can help reduce the need to create and fill landfills. This can
help reduce incidents of respiratory diseases and birth defects that are associated with the toxins released
from landfills. Zero waste can also help preserve local environments and potable water sources by
preventing pollutants from entering the ecosystem.

History

2002–2003

The movement gained publicity and reached a peak in 1998–2002, and since then has been moving from
"theory into action" by focusing on how a "zero waste community" is structured and behaves. The website
of the Zero Waste International Alliance has a listing of communities across the globe that have created
public policy to promote zero-waste practices. There is a zero-waste organization named the GrassRoots
Recycling Network that puts on workshops and conferences about zero-waste activities.

The California Integrated Waste Management Board established a zero waste goal in 2001.[10] The City
and County of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment established a goal of zero waste in
2002,[11] which led to the City's Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance in 2009.[12] With its
ambitious goal of zero waste and policies, San Francisco reached a record-breaking 80% diversion rate in
2010,[13] the highest diversion rate in any North American city. San Francisco received a perfect score in
the waste category in the Siemens US and Canada Green City Index, which named San Francisco the
greenest city in North America.[14]

2009: The Zero Waste lifestyle movement emerges

In 2008, Zero Waste was a term used to describe manufacturing and municipal waste management
practices. Bea Johnson, a French American woman living in California, decided to apply it to her
household of 4. In 2009, she started sharing her journey through her blog, Zero Waste Home, and in 2010,
was featured in The New York Times.[15][16] The article, which introduced the mainstream to the concept of
waste-free living, received much criticism from people confusing it for a bohemian lifestyle. These critical
reviews began to shift after images of the family and their interior was widely broadcast in worldwide
media. In 2013, Johnson published Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying your Life by
Reducing your Waste.[17] Dubbed "Bible for the zero waste pursuer" by Book Riot, it provides a simple to
follow the methodology of 5R's with in-depth practical tips on how to eliminate waste in a household.
Translated into 27 languages (as of 2019), the international bestseller helped spread the concept to a wide
audience. Some of Bea's followers and readers went on to start their own blogs, such as Lauren Singer,[18]
an eco-activist living in New York, whose Social Media channels spread the concept to millennials, open
package-free stores, such as Marie Delapierre, who opened the first unpackaged store in Germany[19]
(based on the model of Unpackaged,[20] the first package-free concept in our modern era), launch non-
profit organizations, such as Natalie Bino, founding member of Zero Waste Switzerland.[21] Over the
years, the Zero Waste lifestyle experienced a significant increase in followers. Thousands of social media
channels, blogs, unpackaged stores,[22] lines of reusables and organizations have emerged worldwide. And
in turn, the fast-evolving grass-root movement created a demand for large corporations, such as Unilever
and Procter and Gamble, to conceive reusable alternatives to disposables.

Present day
Behavior change is a central factor, necessary for shifting to more
sustainable waste management but there is a lack of research with
regards to behavior change intervention. Critics of Zero Waste
point out that a material could be reusable, organic, non-toxic, and
renewable but still be ethically inferior to single use products. Bags
made of baby seal pelts or tiger skin, for example, theoretically
meet the definitions of "zero waste", but are hardly superior to
single use plastic bags. Similarly, a toxic material, such as lead in
solder, may be replaced by less toxic materials like tin and silver.
But if the mining of silver and tin releases more mercury or
damages sensitive coral islands, the protection of landfills in
developed nations is hardly paramount. While zero waste advocates
have sophisticated answers as to why these examples do not meet An example of a zero waste starter
the definition of Zero Waste (e.g., that the bodies of seals and kit that includes: a reusable water
tigers, or mining waste, is of equal concern), critics say that Life bottle, reusable cutlery, mason jars,
Cycle Analysis, habitat protection, carbon neutralization, or "Zero upcycled spice jar, and reusable
Extinction" are more environmentally astute philosophies than grocery bag
waste-centric measures. The simple accounting of measurable
waste diversion, reuse, recycling rates, etc. is an attractive and
useful tool, but a campaign based on a goal of literally stopping the last 5% of waste might will come at the
expense of other environmental and sustainability goals.

Within the waste industry itself, other tensions exist between those who view zero waste as post-discard
total recycling of materials only, and those who view zero waste as the reuse of all high-level function. It is
probably the defining difference between established recyclers and emerging zero-wasters. A signature
example is a difference between smashing a glass bottle (recovering cheap glass) and refilling the bottle
(recovering the entire function of the container).

The tension between the literal application of natural processes and the creation of industry-specific more
efficient reuse modalities is another tension. Many observers look to nature as an ultimate model for
production and innovative materials. Others point out that industrial products are inherently non-natural
(such as chemicals and plastics that are mono-molecular) and benefit greatly from industrial methods of
reuse, while natural methods requiring degradation and reconstitution are wasteful in that context..

Whether made of starch or petroleum, the manufacturing process expends all the same materials and energy
costs. Factories are built, raw materials are procured, investments are made, machinery is built and used,
humans labor and make use of all normal human inputs for education, housing, food etc. Even if the plastic
is biodegraded after a single use, all of those costs are lost so it is much more important to design plastic
parts for multiple reuse or perpetual lives. The other side argues that keeping plastic out of a dump or the
sea is the sole benefit of interest.

Companies moving towards "zero landfill" plants include Subaru, Xerox and Anheuser-Busch.[23]

This movement continues to grow among the youth around the world under the organization Zero Waste
Youth,[24] which originated in Brazil and has spread to Argentina, Puerto Rico, Mexico, the United States,
and Russia. The organization multiplies with local volunteer ambassadors[25] who lead zero waste
gatherings and events to spread the zero waste message.

Examples of zero waste

Milk can be shipped in many forms. One of the traditional forms
was reusable returnable glass milk bottles, often home delivered by
a milkman. While some of this continues, other options have
recently been more common: one-way gable-top paperboard
cartons, one-way aseptic cartons, one-way recyclable glass bottles,
one-way milk bags, and others. Each system claims some
advantages and also has possible disadvantages. From the zero-
waste standpoint, the reuse of bottles is beneficial because the
material usage per trip can be less than other systems. The primary
input (or resource) is silica-sand, which is formed into glass and
then into a bottle. The bottle is filled with milk and distributed to
the consumer. A reverse logistics system returns the bottles for
cleaning, inspection, sanitization, and reuse. Eventually, the heavy-
duty bottle would not be suited for further use and would be
recycled. Waste and landfill usage would be minimized. The
Returnable glass milk bottles
material waste is primarily the wash water, detergent,
transportation, heat, bottle caps, etc. While true zero waste is never
achieved, a life cycle assessment can be used to calculate the waste
at each phase of each cycle.[26][27][28][29]

Online shopping orders are often placed in an outer box to contain multiple items for easier transport and
tracking. This creates waste for every order, especially when there is only a single item. In response, some
products are now designed not to require an outer box for safe shipping, a feature known as ships in own
container.

Recycling and composting

It is important to distinguish recycling from Zero Waste. The most common practice of recycling is simply
that of placing bottles, cans, paper, and packaging into curbside recycling bins. The modern version of
recycling is more complicated and involves many more elements of financing and government support. For
example, a 2007 report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states that the US recycles at a
national rate of 33.5% and includes in this figure composted materials. In addition, many multinational
commodity companies have been created to handle recycled materials. At the same time, claims of
recycling rates have sometimes been exaggerated, for example by the inclusion of soil and organic matter
used to cover garbage dumps daily, in the "recycled" column. In US states with recycling incentives, there
is constant local pressure to inflate recycling statistics.

Recycling has been separated from the concept of zero waste. One example of this is the computer industry
where worldwide millions of PC's are disposed of as electronic waste each year in 2016 44.7 million metric
tons[30] of electronic waste was generated of which only 20% was documented and recycled. Some
computer manufacturers refurbish leased computers for resale. Community Organizations have also entered
this space by refurbishing old computers from donation campaigns for distribution to undeserved
communities.

Software recycling

A clear example of the difference between zero waste and recycling is discussed in Getting to Zero
Waste,[31] in the software industry. Zero waste design can be applied to intellectual property where the
effort to code functionality into software objects is developed by design as opposed to copying code
snippets multiple times when needed. The application of zero waste is straightforward as it conserves
human effort. Also, software storage mediums have transitioned from consumable diskettes to internal
drives which are vastly superior and have a minimal cost per megabyte of storage. This is a physical
example where zero waste correctly identifies and avoids wasteful behavior.

Use of zero waste system

Zero waste is poorly supported by the enactment of government laws to enforce the waste hierarchy.

A special feature of zero waste as a design principle is that it can be applied to any product or process, in
any situation or at any level. Thus it applies equally to toxic chemicals as to benign plant matter. It applies
to the waste of atmospheric purity by coal-burning or the waste of radioactive resources by attempting to
designate the excesses of nuclear power plants as "nuclear waste". All processes can be designed to
minimize the need for discard, both in their own operations and in the usage or consumption patterns which
the design of their products leads to. Recycling, on the other hand, deals only with simple materials.

Zero waste can even be applied to the waste of human potential by enforced poverty and the denial of
educational opportunity. It encompasses redesign for reduced energy wasting in industry or transportation
and the wasting of the earth's rainforests. It is a general principle of designing for the efficient use of all
resources, however defined.

The recycling movement may be slowly branching out from its solid waste management base to include
issues that are similar to the community sustainability movement.

Zero waste, on the other hand, is not based in waste management limitations to begin with but requires that
we maximize our existing reuse efforts while creating and applying new methods that minimize and
eliminate destructive methods like incineration and recycling. Zero waste strives to ensure that products are
designed to be repaired, refurbished, re-manufactured and generally reused.

Significance of dump capacity

Many dumps are currently exceeding carrying capacity.[32] This is often used as a justification for moving
to Zero Waste. Others counter by pointing out that there are huge tracts of land available throughout the US
and other countries which could be used for dumps. Proposals abound to destroy all garbage as a way to
solve the garbage problem. These proposals typically claim to convert all or a large portion of existing
garbage into oil and sometimes claim to produce so much oil that the world will henceforth have abundant
liquid fuels. One such plan, called Anything Into Oil, was promoted by Discover Magazine and Fortune
Magazine in 2004 and claimed to be able to convert a refrigerator into "light Texas crude" by the
application of high-pressure steam.

Corporate initiatives

An example of a company that has demonstrated a change in landfill waste policy is General Motors (GM).
GM has confirmed their plans to make approximately half of its 181 plants worldwide "landfill-free" by the
end of 2010. Companies like Subaru, Toyota, and Xerox are also producing landfill-free plants.
Furthermore, The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has worked with GM and other
companies for decades to minimize the waste through its WasteWise program. The goal for General Motors
is finding ways to recycle or reuse more than 90% of materials by: selling scrap materials, adopting reusable
boxes to replace cardboard, and even recycling used work gloves. The remainder of the scraps might be
incinerated to create energy for the plants. Besides being nature-friendly, it also saves money by cutting out
waste and producing a more efficient production. Microsoft and Google are two other big companies that
have Zero Waste goals. These two companies have goals to keep the majority of their waste out of landfills.
Google has six locations that have a Zero Waste to Landfill goal.[33] These locations have a goal to keep
100% of their waste out of landfills. Microsoft has a similar goal, but they are only trying to keep 90% their
waste out of landfills.[34] All these organizations push forth to make our world clean and producing zero
waste.

A garden centre in Faversham, UK, has started to prevent plastic plant pots from being passed down to
customers. Instead, it reuses the plastic pots only locally in the garden center, but upon selling it to its
customers it repots the plants in paper plant pots. It also sells plants wrapped in hessian, and uses a variety
of techniques to prevent handing down (single-use) plastics to customers[35]

Re-use or rot of waste

The waste sent to landfills may be harvested as useful materials, such as in the production of solar energy or
natural fertilizer/de-composted manure for crops.

It may also be reused and recycled for something that we can actually use.[36] "The success of General
Motors in creating zero-landfill facilities shows that zero-waste goals can be a powerful impetus for
manufacturers to reduce their waste and carbon footprint," says Latisha Petteway, a spokesperson for the
EPA.[37]

Market-based campaigns
Market-based, legislation-mediated campaigns like extended producer responsibility (EPR) and the
precautionary principle are among numerous campaigns that have a Zero Waste slogan hung on them by
means of claims they all ineluctably lead to policies of Zero Waste. At the moment, there is no evidence that
EPR will increase reuse, rather than merely moving discard and disposal into private-sector dumping
contracts. The Precautionary Principle is put forward to shift liability for proving new chemicals are safe
from the public (acting as guinea pig) to the company introducing them. As such, its relation to Zero Waste
is dubious. Likewise, many organizations, cities and counties have embraced a Zero Waste slogan while
pressing for none of the key Zero Waste changes. In fact, it is common for many such to simply state that
recycling is their entire goal. Many commercial or industrial companies claim to embrace Zero Waste but
usually mean no more than a major materials recycling effort, having no bearing on product redesign.
Examples include Staples, Home Depot, Toyota, General Motors and computer take-back campaigns.
Earlier social justice campaigns have successfully pressured McDonald's to change their meat purchasing
practices and Nike to change its labor practices in Southeast Asia. Those were both based on the idea that
organized consumers can be active participants in the economy and not just passive subjects. However, the
announced and enforced goal of the public campaign is critical. A goal to reduce waste generation or
dumping through greater recycling will not achieve a goal of product redesign and so cannot reasonably be
called a Zero Waste campaign.[36] Producers should be made responsible for the packaging of the products
rather than the consumers in EPR like campaigns by which the participation of the Producers will increase.

How to achieve
National and provincial governments often set targets and may provide some funding, but on a practical
level, waste management programs (e.g. pickup, drop-off, or containers for recycling and composting) are
usually implemented by local governments, possibly with regionally shared facilities.[38]
Reaching the goal of zero waste requires the products of manufacturers and industrial designers to be easily
disassembled for recycling and incorporated back into nature or the industrial system; durability and
repairability also reduce unnecessary churn in the product life cycle. Minimizes packaging also solves many
problems early in the supply chain. If not mandated by government, choices by retailers and consumers in
favor of zero-waste-friendly products can influence production. More and more schools are motivating their
students to live a different life and rethink every polluting step they may take.[39] To prevent material from
becoming waste, consumers, businesses, and non-profits must be educated in how to reduce waste and
recycle successfully.[40]

The 5R’s of Bea Johnson

In the book Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying your Life by Reducing your Waste[41]
the author, Bea Johnson, provides a modified version of the 3Rs, the 5Rs (https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Refuse,_Reduce,_Reuse,_Recycle,_Rot.png): Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot to achieve
Zero Waste at home. The method, which she developed through years of practicing waste free living and
used to reduce her family's annual trash to fit in a pint jar, is now widely used by individuals, businesses
and municipalities worldwide.

Zero Waste Hierarchy

The Zero Waste Hierarchy describes a progression of policies and strategies to support the zero-waste
system, from highest and best to lowest use of materials. It is designed to be applicable to all audiences,
from policy-makers to industry and the individual. It aims to provide more depth to the internationally
recognized 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle); to encourage policy, activity and investment at the top of the
hierarchy; and to provide a guide for those who wish to develop systems or products that move us closer to
zero waste. It enhances the zero-waste definition by providing guidance for planning and a way to evaluate
proposed solutions. All over the world, in some form or another, a pollution prevention hierarchy is
incorporated into recycling regulations, solid waste management plans, and resource conservation
programs. In Canada, a pollution prevention hierarchy otherwise referred to as the Environmental
Protection Hierarchy was adopted. This Hierarchy has been incorporated into all recycling regulations
within Canada and is embedded within all resource conservation methods which all government mandated
waste prevention programs follow. While the intention to incorporate the 4th R (recovery)prior to disposal
was good, many organizations focused on this 4th R instead of the top of the hierarchy resulting in costly
systems designed to destroy materials instead of systems designed to reduce environmental impact and
waste. Because of this, along with other resource destruction systems that have been emerging over the past
few decades, Zero Waste Canada along with the Zero Waste International Alliance have adopted the only
internationally peer reviewed Zero Waste Hierarchy that focuses on the first 3Rs; Reduce, Reuse and
Recycle including Compost.[42]

Zero waste jurisdictions

Various governments have declared zero waste as a goal, including:

Brazil
Florianópolis, Santa Catarina
Canada

Vancouver[43] (see Zero Waste 2040 Strategy)

Italy
 Capannori, Tuscany[44]

Japan
Kamikatsu, Tokushima recycles 80% of its waste at
the Kamikatsu Zero Waste Center, and aims for zero
waste.[45]
Sweden (Country wide)
United States
Austin, Texas[46]
Boulder, Colorado[47] Kamikatsu Zero Waste Center, itself
built using recycled materials
Fort Collins, Colorado[48]
Chula Vista, California[49]
Minneapolis, Minnesota[50]
San Francisco, California[51]
San Jose, California[52]

An example of network governance approach can be seen in the UK under New Labour who proposed the
establishment of regional groupings that brought together the key stakeholders in waste management (local
authority representatives,[38] waste industry, government offices etc.) on a voluntary basis.[53] There is a
lack of clear government policy on how to meet the targets for diversion from landfill which increases the
scope at the regional and local level for governance networks.[53] The overall goal is set by government but
the route for how to achieve it is left open, so stakeholders can coordinate and decide how best to reach
it.[54]

Zero Waste is a strategy promoted by environmental NGOs but the waste industry is more in favor of the
capital intensive option of energy from waste incineration.[53] Research often highlights public support as
the first requirement for success.[55] In Taiwan, public opinion was essential in changing the attitude of
business, who must transform their material use pattern to become more sustainable for Zero Waste to
work.[55][56]

California is a leading state in the United States for having zero-waste goals. California is the state with the
most cities in the Zero Waste International Alliance (https://zwia.org/policies/). According to the United
States Environmental Protection Agency, multiple cities have defined what it means to be a Zero Waste (htt
ps://www.epa.gov/transforming-waste-tool/how-communities-have-defined-zero-waste) community and
adopted goals to reach that status. Some of these cities include Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, San
Francisco, Pasadena, Alameda, and San Jose. San Francisco has defined zero waste as "zero discards to the
landfill or high-temperature destruction." Here, there is a planned structure to reach Zero Waste through
three steps recommended by the San Francisco Department of the Environment. These steps are to prevent
waste (https://sfenvironment.org/prevent-waste-0), reduce and reuse (https://sfenvironment.org/consumer-re
sponsibility), and recycle and compost (https://sfenvironment.org/zero-waste-in-SF-is-recycling-composting
-and-reuse). Los Angeles defines zero waste as "maximizing diversion from landfills and reducing waste at
the source, with the ultimate goal of striving for more-sustainable solid waste management practices." Los
Angeles plans to reach this goal by the year of 2025. To reach this goal, major changes will have to be
made to product creation, use, and disposal.

Zero-waste stores
Retail stores specializing in zero-waste products have opened in various countries, including Spain and the
United States.[57]

See also
Bea Johnson
Composting
Environmentalism
Nursery pots
Miniwaste
Paul Connett
Phase-out of lightweight plastic bags
Precycling
Source reduction
Sustainable packaging
Throwaway society
Waste
Whole-life cost
Zero waste agriculture
Zero-waste fashion
Waste management

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Further reading
Palmer, Paul (2005). Getting to Zero Waste (https://web.archive.org/web/20210111120113/h
ttps://gettingtozerowaste.com/). Purple Sky Press. ISBN 978-0-9760571-0-9. Archived from
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Mauch, Christof, ed. "A Future without Waste? Zero Waste in Theory and Practice (http://ww
w.environmentandsociety.org/perspectives/2016/3/future-without-waste-zero-waste-theory-a
nd-practice)," RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society (http://www.e
nvironmentandsociety.org/perspectives) 2016, no. 3. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/7540.

External links

Advocacy organizations
Zero Waste Institute (http://www.zerowasteinstitute.org/)
Zero Waste Network (http://www.zerowastenetwork.org/)
Zero Waste International Alliance (http://www.zwia.org/) (ZWIA)
Zero Waste Alliance (http://www.zerowaste.org/)

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