+ Lynn Landes and Zero Waste (part 1)

Lynn Landes is a freelance journalist specializing in environmental issues, waste disposal, health and politics. She is the founder of Zero Waste America, a Web-based environmental organization.

I talked with Lynn about the issues of waste in our country-- and our world.

Can you please explain the concept behind zero waste?

Well it’s really not a new concept it’s just what nature does which is recycle everything back into the environment. The concept of waste is what I think needs an explanation because it makes no sense at all. It just doesn’t make any sense to accumulate things that have no further purpose, because eventually (and it may not be in 100 years or 1,000 years) but we will simply just run out of space.

In the county we lived in for about 23 years, they have Mega-Landfills – these are mountain ranges of waste and it just makes no sense to do that and ruin not just your ground water but air as well and take materials out of the market place or out of the environment. It absolutely makes no sense to accumulate waste.

Does zero waste concern itself with all aspects of waste – consumer, industrial, and wasted energy?

It really involves everything. This is recognizing that in the modern world you’re going to have some toxic waste that is going to need to be contained until a technology is developed to safely return it to the environment or the market place. Recognizing that though, we don’t have to use all the plastic we use. Plastic, aluminum and other materials that are inherently unsafe can be minimized in their use rather than having no thought given at all to the affect of so much [plastic]. The petro-chemical industry is really the big culprit.

"It absolutely makes no sense to accumulate waste."

Is zero waste really possibly today?

It’s not a matter of it being possible—it’s vital.

Unless we find another planet to live on, we’ve got to do something. Frankly, in my opinion, attitudes have been changing of course, but there not going to take a sharp turn until the environment really begins to collapse. As the environment begins to collapse were going to have to re-assess what were doing and why were doing it.

That requires a really hard look at civilization that bases its decisions on what makes money and what doesn’t make money. So we have people running around trying to develop products with no thought as to their impact on the environment – they’re just thinking what will make them money, what constitutes as a job and that sort of thing.

"Waste is more than just what you may think of as trash."

Meanwhile were piling up the waste, we now have a world of have’s and have not’s; it’s a competitive environment instead of a cooperative one. So there has to be a paradigm shift, in other words we’re going in the wrong direction, we’re basing our actions on a game and that game is called money. But life of course is not a game and were paying a heavy, heavy price for treating it like a game.

So if instead you base your decisions on what’s good for -- or what will not hurt the environment and what’s good for everyone, you’re going to have to take money and jobs out of the equation.

What’s really amazing to me, particularly in the United States is we have abdicated any responsibility for our own well being. We don’t make our own clothes, we don’t make our own food in many respects; we are sitting here quite literally like couch potatoes expecting the rest of the world to service our needs.

That’s not only foolish and wasteful in terms of importing clothes and food from half way around the world. Even if the transportation was ‘energy free’ on a solar ship—still this society has lost the skills to survive. So basically were becoming over time more and more ignorant of what it takes to really survive in the most basic sense and to survive in a technology world.

Waste is more than just what you may think of as trash.
Zero waste is just a recognition that what were doing isn’t going to work and doesn’t make sense. You cant be a secure nation, city or town if you rely on food clothing and shelter from far away.