The world leaders signed up to the Paris Agreement in 2015. A set of ambitious promises were set to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and therefore, protect our communities, wildlife, oceans and natural ecosystems from the devastating effects of climate change.
The Zero Waste International Alliance, defines this as “the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, waste or air that threaten the environment or human health.”
Where this can assists to reduce emissions
There are a number of different critical situations where a zero waste approach could comprehensively reduce the amount of GhG emissions being emitted and therefore, reduce the volume of emissions that are the largest drivers of climate change worldwide. These critical moments include:
- Take – The stage when natural resources are extracted from the planet, for example when drilling for oil or gas, the production and manufacturing of crops in agriculture, or sourcing timber for construction or the mining of minerals.
- Process – Once extracted and sourced, these raw materials typically then undergo industrial processing so that they can be successfully adapted into modern commodities, such as producing metals from ores, plastic from oil, and cement from limestone.
- Produce – Once these materials have been refined and processed, they can then be used explicitly for the production, manufacturing and assembly of everyday products that we use in modern society, ranging from large scale construction of roads and houses to the production of fashion garments and food packaging.
- Provide – The finished products can, in turn, be used to provide services and access to products that satisfy the needs of modern society, such as communication services, retail, transport and many more needs which are embedded within the world we live in today.
- End-of-use – A zero waste approach ensures that products and materials continue to retain their value and have a functional use within an economy that is circular. If products and materials cannot be reused, repaired or recycled then they will have a negative impact on our efforts to address and mitigate against climate change, by dispersing into the environment as unrecoverable waste or adding to GhG emissions.
The Zero Waste Hierarchy contains several key principles that can from the basis of a climate change mitigation plan at the local level:
Re-design business models
By changing the way, we consume and produce goods, we can reduce the amount of resources we use and therefore consequently require to be extracted. One way doing this is redesigning business models to ensure products have an extended lifetime and remain a high-value material for longer. By designing them in a way so that can be reused multiple times or that they can be shared or repaired with ease. With each product given a greater value and designed to be kept within the economy, GhG emissions from the Take, Process and Produce steps of a product’s value chain as outlined above are eliminated or reduced.
Rethink the demand for materials
Zero-waste approach can help reduce emissions and mitigate against climate change by primarily reducing the demand for materials. Adopting this approach, municipalities are required to rethink how the local economy operates. Zero waste goes to the root of the problem by redesigning our relationship with resources, rethinking how we produce and consume as well as encouraging communities to move towards taking decisions collectively.
Reduce material use
Within a circular economy and by adopting a zero waste approach, this can be achieved through citizens reducing their consumption and by placing incentives and legal requirements for businesses, manufacturers and products to redesign products to ensure that they have minimal packaging, are composed with the least amount of toxic or non-recyclable material and require as little energy & natural resource to produce as possible.
Recycle to maintain the value of waste
It must be emphasized that we cannot recycle our way out of today’s problems. However, high quality material recovery from recycling of separately collected waste streams can play a crucial role in reducing current GhG emissions from our waste problem. If the value of materials can be recovered and fed back into the processing phase of a product’s value chain, rather than having to repeat the extraction and production of materials, this immediately reduces the GhG emissions and environmental impact of a products life cycle.
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