Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 7: The question of the futureBox 23: Citizens’ agenda for zero wasteThe ‘Citizens’ Agenda for Zero Waste’ emerged from “decades of opposing landfillsand incinerators and promoting recycling”, say Paul Connett and Bill Sheehan. Thezero waste movement presents a raft of alternatives to current waste management.At its centre is the conviction that “our current industrial system and throwawaysociety is based on the one-way flow of virgin resources to polluting dumps andincinerators … We need to reconfigure our one-way industrial system into acircular, closed-loop system, recycling discarded resources from communities backto industries, both new and old.”While in practice the citizens’ zero waste agenda mostly focuses on reduction of thewaste stream, recycling and reuse, it also argues that “[c]ommunities cannot solvethe trash problem alone and should not be forced to clean up after irresponsibleindustries.”Zero waste activists have developed their own categories for analysing the wastestream: avoidables, reusables, compostables, recyclables, toxic materials, and redesignables.Each of these categories calls for different strategies: from dealing withthe immediate waste stream in creative ways, to activism that forces retailers orproducers to take back the unrecyclables and redesign or remove the re-designablesthey are responsible for. Tactics extend to take-back campaigns and shaming theproducers of toxic waste and “silly” throw-away and fake convenience packaging.In Halifax, Canada, citizen groups opposed a council plan to expand the dumpas well as its alternative proposal for incineration. The council finally accepted thecitizens’ plan for intensive recycling and, with active people’s participation, achieveda 50% reduction in municipal waste in just five years with more since. Other northAmerican towns are also achieving major reductions and setting up recycling, fixingand re-use centres which have created permanent jobs and produced re-use goodsincluding fridges, computers, bicycles and furniture.Source: Paul Connett and Bill Sheehan 2001: A Citizens’ Agenda for Zero Waste accessible athttp://www.grrn.org/zerowaste/community/activist/citizens_agenda_4_zw.html.- 186 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation