Waste kerela Zero Waste

8/3/2019 Waste kerela Zero Waste

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Kovalam Cleanup started on January 28th 2004. In one weeks

cleanup huge loads of discarded plastic water bottles were

fished out of the ponds, wetlands and homesteads.

The Zero Waste Centre supported by the Kerala Hotels and

Restaurants Association, Kerala Tourism and Indian Coast Guards

have embarked on a major cleanup drive at Kovalam. The months

of February and March have been declared Cleanup Kovalam

months. Organizing awareness programmes, setting up of filtered

drinking water kiosks and distributing paper bags and cups to keep

the plastics off Kovalam would be part of the programme.

In one week of cleanup which started January 28th 2004, the regular dumping sites behind the

Light House beach, the Samudra beach and the Guest House beach have been targeted. 225

sacks of discarded plastic water bottles totaling more than 37500 bottles in number have been

fished out of the ponds, wetlands and private properties. Another 100 sacks containing

discarded glass bottles, broken glasses, tube lights and bulbs , other plastics and mostly mucky

materials have also been fished out.

Twenty two brands of plastic bottles including the major brands -

Aquafina, Kinley, Classic, Bisleri, Golden Valley were fished out in

abundance. Earlier in October, Greenpeace had organized a cleanup

and symbolically packed and transported sacks of PET bottles to

Coke and Pepsi demanding "Extended Producer Responsibility". This

time the Cleanup has been very exhaustive and is intended to

showcase the need for immediate and serious interventions from all stake holders for stopping this

dumping culture and a message to the bottled water companies to take responsibility of this waste.

In the coming weeks shops, restaurants and hoteliers in Kovalam would be supplied with paper bags and

paper cups as part of the awareness drive to stop plastic material use. Use of packaged water would bediscouraged and water kiosks selling clean filtered water is also being setup. We shall keep you updated.

Waste is something that is rejected as useless. These are items that are either so badly designed that they

can neither be repaired, reused, re-sourced through composting, or safely recycled.

Wastes are also created when we dump various items together in a manner that they cannot be easily

separated or in a manner that renders them useless even if they are separated. Much of our resources end


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up as wastes primarily because we do not separate them before discarding. For instance when we throw in

paper and toxic wastes with bio wastes the entire garbage becomes toxic. The bio wastes then cannot be

composted because the compost would be poisonous. The paper cannot be recycled because it becomes

wet and dirty for anyone to pick it up and send it to a recycler.

Wastes typically consists of -

Bio degradable substances (food wastes, flowers, garden wastes etc)

Plastics (bags, bottles, toys and other items, containers and so on)

Glass

Paper and Cardboard

Metal Items

Wood Items

Toxics such as batteries etc

Composites that are made up of a combination of two or more of the above item.

The conventional methods of handling garbage is termed waste management. That is this approach sees

all garbage generated as useless and then goes on to manage these wastes by devising technologies to

collect it, transport it, bury it, dump it or burn it. Landfills, Incineration or burning of wastes, centralized

composting and recycling are some of the ways of solid waste management.

Landfills

Landfills are those assigned places or holes in the ground where wastes are dumped. Low lying areas are

usually selected for this purpose. In developed countries, landfills are holes in the ground lined with plastic

sheets and concrete to prevent pollution of the environment due to the poisons that these wastes would

release during decomposition.

The poisons from a landfill leak out from the sides in the form of a black, smelly toxic liquid called

leachate This liquid eventually escapes into the ground surrounding the landfills and contaminate the

nearby and underground water sources.

Landfills also lend to air pollution and attract vermin and other disease causing germs. Landfill fires, a

common incident for landfills releases heavy metals and other toxic substances such as dioxins and furans

into the atmosphere.

Landfills are a flawed technology and a cancer on the land. Landfills waste resources and compete directly

with beneficial resource conserving enterprises such as reuse, recycling, composting. Even so-called

state-of-the-art landfills merely delay, rather than eliminate, massive pollution to groundwater and are a


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leading contributor to global warming. Waste can and should be designed out of our industrial system.

Waste is not inevitable. Nor are landfills.

Incineration and Open Burning

Conventional waste disposal relies significantly on burning garbage, either in the open (common in India)

or in machines. The machines are known as incinerators. Incinerators are wasteful because they burn

resources that rightfully ought to be conserved for further use. They are also inherently polluting because

incineration involves the combustion of diverse items, they inevitable release poisons such as heavy

metals and cancer causing chemicals including dioxins and furans. Advanced pollution control equipment

cost a lot of money and merely trap the pollutants concentrating them in fly ash and the bottom ash.

Highly contaminated ash then has to be disposed of in specialized landfills, which will also eventually leak.

Centralised Composting

In this method, mixed waste is allowed to sit for days or weeks before entering the compost process.

During this time, poisons from the toxic components of the waste stream contaminate the biodegradable

substances that will be composted to form soil conditioners. Hence plastics and other gross impurities,

which are usually removed in other types of composting, are by this time too dirty to be viable raw

materials for any recycler and end up in a landfill.

RecyclingRecycling has some pitfalls. The most important of them is that not all materials can be recycled.

Especially toxic substances should not be recycled because when you recycle a hazardous substance, you

also recycle the hazard. Take for instance recycling of PVC. So many poisonous substances go into theproduction of PVC. These poisons are inevitably released during recycling.Some materials that are recycled ought not to have been produced in the first place. Technologies torecycle without much harm to the environment or human health may exist. However, what is technicallypossible may not always be efficient or economical.

Perhaps the greatest drawback of recycling is that it does not in anyway discourage the use of inherently,unsustainable material especially when safer and sustainable alternatives exist.

As human populations and material use continue to increase, the natural systems that sustain us are

suffering from accelerated degradation. Zero Waste is a new planning approach for the 21st Century that

seeks to redesign the way that resources and materials flow through society, taking a 'whole system'

approach. It is both a 'back end' solution that maximizes recycling and minimizes waste, and a design

principle that ensures that products are made to be reused, repaired or recycled back into nature or the

marketplace. Zero Waste embodies approaches that enable rapid waste reduction outcomes,

breakthrough strategies rather than incremental change.


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Zero Waste challenges the whole idea of endless consumption without needing to say so, and it enables

even those who are locked into the system to challenge their own behavior in a positive way without

immediately threatening it. Zero Waste poses a fundamental challenge to 'business as usual' by

challenging the economic incentives in our political and economic system that reward waste. And Zero

Waste addresses, through job creation and civic participation, increasing wastage of human resources and

erosion of democracy.

Hence while elsewhere waste goes up in smoke in expensive incinerators or goes down the leachate drain

in mega land fills, the same pile of trash throws up a range of raw materials for new products, exciting

financial opportunities, and better jobs.

From its inefficient uncompetitive former alternatives, zero waste rechannelises the flow of resources

through our societies with marked and substantial environmental, social and economic benefits.

Opting for zero waste means we forgo the entire concept of waste. Zero waste works from this belief.

Resources are used for creation of a product or commodity usually designed for time-bound use, after

which the product is rendered useless and ends up as waste while the process of production also

generates waste. But Zero waste nips the creation of waste at the very stage of the resource. It changes

the way resources flow through our society and communities.

Clean production, environmental friendly designs, and products eliminate creation of waste. At the end of

the pipe, so to say, zero waste lines up facilities like resource recovery, composting, and waste to wealth

ideas to tackle the waste generated.

Walking the zero waste way has other added gains too. Considerable saving on water, energy, resources

and landfill space makes it an optimum environmental and sustainable option. Zero waste presupposes

the involvement of the local community in its day-to-day processes. Hence it directly leads to the creation

of employment opportunities in a society otherwise at loggerheads trying to create new avenues of

employment.

Thus the zero waste approach shows how this far reaching environmental progress will beachieved by just impacting change at one single point: where and how we empty our bins.Material Substitution or the efficient use of materials is one way of achieving the goal of Zero waste. The

Zero Waste approach considers waste as the visible face of inefficiency. An efficient system should have

sustainable movement of materials. This assumes that material would be consumed, material would

change form, and material would become discards.


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In a responsible community that is committed to sustainable development, materials or resources should

be efficiently used. This means that the selection of material should be ethically justified in terms of its

impact on the environment and the economy.

Secondly, as materials will be subject to change it has to take an ethical, economic and efficient path. This

means that the conversion should be rewarding in terms of value addition, local economic benefits and

employment generation and should not be a burden on the environment. For instance, most of the

manufacturing processes today are automated, polluting, energy and capital intensive and not at all labour

intensive. At the same time the manufacturing products from traditional material like coconut tree (wood,

coir, shell, fiber, leaves etc) has always been labour intensive and directly beneficial.

Thirdly, the material once used will be discarded. The discarding process should also be ethical,

economical and efficient. For instance, in the case of the coconut shell, the used coconut shell product can

still yield carbon black or be burnt for fuel or can still be used for other coconut shell products. Moreover,

the disposal process is non-polluting as these materials are biodegradable and add to the biomass. On the

other hand the disposal of a plastic bottle or a tetra-pack packaging is practically impossible without

harming the environment or human health.

It is hence imperative that any Zero Waste programme should look at proper resource use throughmaterial substitution.

Around the world progressive communities and governments as well as innovative business enterprises

have already put on the mantle of zero waste.

The entire concept was still in its bare infancy when Canberra, capital of Australia, in 1996 adopted the

Zero Waste strategy and the goal was that by 2010 no waste would go into a landfill. Today they are well

within this path towards zero waste.

The government owns the entire infrastructure in Canberra and all they do is franchise these facilities to

the various industrial interests to use these resources. All that these enterprises need do is to reuse

projects or to take them out as material resources for recycling or for composting.

It was from Canberra that the idea spread to New Zealand. Here 38% of the municipalities will have

achieved the goal of Zero Waste by 2015. Initially the New Zealand Zero Waste Trust provides a grant.

But the essential blue print of the same has to be developed within the local community-their officials,

engineers, and managers. An estimated 40,000 jobs will be created over this entire ten-year period with


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the conversion of local transfer units into resource recovery centers and by the predicted spurt of reuse

and recycling businesses all over.

Across the seas, the idea has found eager emulators in California. Del Norte and Santa Cruz, two counties

in California have adopted Zero Waste strategies. Even more laudable are the efforts of companies here

like Hewlett Packard and Mad River Brewing who have actually seen the bottom line. While the former has

achieved an impressive 90% reduction in their waste stream, the latter has managed to cut down 93%.

Canada is also definitely on the path to Zero waste. Here the Nova Scotia province is cutting down on

landfills by almost 50%.

The idea is over sixteen years old. And all over it seems to be generating much excitement and

enthusiasm. By far, this has established that waste management at the backend alone is a limited

proposition. And all over the natural environment is becoming a primary driver of a healthy political action

and behavioral change. Evidence from all over also suggests that the huge challenges that are present can

be met and that the long-term benefits are enormous.

Bio Degradable Discards

The study Towards Zero Waste Kovalam (downloadable pdf) revealed that hotels, restaurants, petty

shops, bakeries, provision stores, general stores and coconut vendors together generate about 6 tonnes of

bio-degradable waste every day during the peak season. Of this 4 tonnes of bio-discards are from more

than 100 hotels and restaurants.

Biogasification (Biomethanation or anaerobic digestion) was proposed and accepted as the most possible

option for handling the bio-discards in Kovalam. Subsequently, a feasibility study was also done, with a

more accurate quantification of the waste and its composition.

Detailed enquiries were done regarding biogas plants. The biogas plants running at Seaface Hotel, the

ITDC and the IHMCT, Samudhra Beach Kovalam were studied. Plants in other places including the

prototype models at the Vivekanada Centre, Kanyakumari was also studied. The Dheenabandhu model

biogas plant, which is running smoothly at the Sea face Hotel was found to a more cost-effective and

traditional model.

Segregation Proper segregation of this bio-discard is fundamental to handling the waste issue. The

success of a biogas plant will fully depend on the proper implementation of segregation, and it being taken

up as a practice and habit in the hotels, restaurants and other establishments. A two-bin segregation

scheme is suggested - one for the bio-discards and the other for the rest of the discards, both recyclables

and the non-recyclables.


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Awareness and Training Hotels, Restaurants and other establishments need to be given awareness

classes and training sessions for both their managerial staff as well as the operational staff, with specific

focus on the staff in the kitchen and cleaning work. This should be done with the active participation of the

KHRA. It was also felt that segregation and clean management practices of discards need to be

incorporated as part of the accreditation schemes of the Tourism Department as well as the KHRA.

Establishment of the bio-gas plant/plants Regarding establishment of biogas plants, various options

have been proposed.

The KHRA / a society formed for the very purpose can set up a centralized bio-gas facility, the regulated

bio-discard can then be taken over to this facility to produce gas /electricity.

The Venganoor/Vizhinjam Panchayaths can put up a bio-gas facility owned by the panchayath or self-help

group/groups and the bio-gas/electricity generated can be used by them for some mini-industrial activity

that they can plan, on a symbiotic basis along with this plant, or sold to some hotels. Alternatively, the

SHGs can also take up the running of the plant for the hotels/restaurants.

These options could be taken as individual systems or in combinations. The action plan was accepted by

the Tourism Department and they have decided to part support the projects financially. As of now, there

are three sizes of biogas plants that are considered. They are the 10 cu.m, 15 cu.m and 25 cu.m plants.

The Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology (IHMCT), a Government owned institution

near the Samudhra Beach, have set up their own biogas facility and a Resource Recovery Facility. Biogas

plants can also a source of income to the SHGs as they produce good quality digested matter in the form

of sludge which is excellent manure and has commercial value.

NON BIODEGRADABLE DISCARDS

In Kovalam about 4340 mineral water bottles, mostly in crushed and unusable form, about 2500 plastic

carry bags, nearly 3000 plastic milk sachets, about 75 plastic cups are ending up as discards in streams,

burnt in the open and dumped in the bushes, the beach and the sea on a daily basis. The menace that

plastic can cause to human health and environment is more evident here than in the literature, which we

often prefer to turn to. One can say that the tourism industry has much to lose, if immediate and

concerted action is not taken against this menace. Apart from plastic, there are glass, metal tins and

parts, cardboard boxes, cloths, cotton etc which are discarded in Kovalam every day.

Many of these materials have a very good reuse market value, especially glass bottles, some plastic

bottles, cardboard cartons, metal items etc and should be sent to the secondary selling market, which

thrives in the city of Thiruvananthapuram (mainly from Chalai).


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A large part of these discards can be recycled. But identifying the recyclable from the non-recyclable is a

question of technicality and one needs to be an expert or there must be a number code which identifies

the type of the plastic material as LDPE, HDPE, PVC, PS, PETE etc. But the clearly better option is to

reduce the use and disposal of these materials as much as possible.

A third category, mostly the Mineral Water Bottles ( which the manufacturer forces to Crush after Use ) ,

the Plastic Carry Bags, tetra pack and other plastic coated plates and the Plastic Cups can neither be

reused nor recycled and hence need to be totally phased out from use. Sustainable substitutes to these

must be introduced, preferably with materials that are locally available, like paper bags, plates and cups

from leaves like palmyra, banana etc, coconut shells and paper. Bags made from cloth, tailor waste,

paper, coir, jute should be good substitutes for the plastic materials that are to phased out. Alternate

good water supply options also need to be explored.

The following action plans were decided upon for handling the non-biodegradable discards

A Resource Recovery Park A Resource Recovery Park is in simple terms a centre where all the non-

biodegradables can be brought in, separated into the reusables, recyclables, remanufacturables and can

be redirected to those agencies which would use/recycle them. This may sound similar to the secondary

seller, but is a more planned and organized extension of the same, as the RRP also acts as a local and

direct repository of materials that have been used but cleaned up and ready for reuse. The primary

purpose of an RRP would be to recover resource to the maximum. The RRP can be setup by any agency,

who may be interested in this. Self-Help Groups in the panchayaths can also set this up and run it on a

profit. The Venganoor Panchayath has come up with one such proposal to setup the park and have

included the stake holders contribution in their 10th five year plan.

Awareness and Training - Awareness on the use and hazards of plastic need to be imparted to the local

community, hotels, restaurants and establishments. Training on use reduction, material handling, setting

up RRP etc also need to be done. A Proper two-bin Segregation and Collection system is being designed to

lead all the discarded non-biodegradable materials to the Resource Recovery Park (RRP) . Proper planning

of the collection and redirection mechanism would help much in making it a viable and profit-making

center apart from recovering precious resources. One resource person from the ZWT Shibu K Nair has

been trained on Zero Waste at the Ecology center, Berkeley to coordinate, plan and train SHGs in setting

up and running the RRP.

Awareness and Campaign for Zero Waste Kovalam Sustainable Tourism is so much dependent on

the materials use and ethical conduct of the tourist and the hosts as much as on other factors. Both the

Tourist and the Hosts must be made aware of the potential threats posed by the use of polluting


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materials, like mineral water bottles, plastic carry bags, plastic cups and other toxic materials. Tourist,

both domestic and foreign must be instructed to respect the right of the local community to keep their

locality neat and unpolluted. The Zero Waste Kovalam can go as an icon, that tells the tourist from all

over the world this message. It is imperative that the Tourism Department, the travel agencies, the

tourism promotion agencies, hotels, restaurants and other establishments, the local panchayaths and

other stake holders participate and supplement this process. A well-planned awareness and campaign

programme through media, posters, banners, exhibitions, roadside displays, sign-boards, pamphlets,

conduct guides, need to be implemented with the help of newspapers, information desks, websites, road

shows, travel marts, travel brochures of Government and private agencies and hotel room instructions etc.

Phase-in Alternate Drinking Water Schemes - Alternate drinking water schemes that can replace the

mineral water supply, should be introduced. For this the following suggestions are made.

Introduce Dispenser Bottles large 20 litre and more cans, which can dispense mineral water in

bottles that the tourist can be provided from hotels.

Introduce Ayurvedic Water - guaranteed by an agency such as the local panchayath.

Introduce Water Kiosks Well maintained water kiosks in specific corners in Kovalam, can guarantee that

use and dumping of the smaller mineral water bottles is avoided.

Phase-out Disposable-Plastic Use The use of Disposable-type plastic material need to be immediately

phased out, as it has been identified in the Stake Holders meeting as the one creating the maximum

nuisance to Kovalam. This will include Plastic carry bags and Mineral Water bottles and plastic drinking

cups. This is being taken up with the Tourism Ministry and the Government of Kerala.

Periodical Clean-up Inspite of these measures it is expected that Kovalam would need to have a

periodical cleanup operation, which can mobilize not just the local stake holders and the panchayath but

can be made eventful with the help of even the tourists who would wish to volunteer.

PIONEER PAPER UNIT

The Pioneer Paper Centre

The Pioneer Paper Centre tucked away beyond a coconut grove produces marvelously ornate shopping bag

made of paper, dustbins crafted entirely out of strips of paper woven together having seen the products

popping up here and there, I could hardly wait to see the center where they design such innovative things.

A tiring climb up the road from the Hotel Management College (another waste to wealth center) brought

me to the highway leading to Trivandrum. Barely 50 metres away I could see the autorickshaw stand that

I was told was the landmark for the paper center, the point where Id have to enter the lane that would


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lead up to the center. It led up all right! A steep, sharp incline, with little more than the characteristic

red soil to grip my feet on.

The center itself is housed in a pleasant little barn made entirely out of natural materials, incidentally.

From a distance, you can hear the sounds of young women chatting and laughing busily. When I finally

wheezed my way to the top, I saw them sitting in orderly rows and chatting to each other over their

shoulders, as their hands busily rolled, folded, pasted or cut paper. Brown paper, waste paper, hand-made

paper there was paper EVERYWHERE!

The paper center is a truly brilliant part of the ZWK jigsaw for one, it uses up the paper that is

segregated from the waste in other participating projects. For another, it gives the local women an outlet

for their creativity, and a means to earn money for the project!

They started out in January 2003, making standard-sized and ordinary-shaped paper bags, to replace

plastic in the market place. Slowly, as they have gained confidence, they have started experimenting with

their ideas, and developed innovative paper products; they now make bags of all shapes and sizes, and

their repertoire now encompasses all kinds of products including paper beads woven into jewelry!

They have started processing commercial orders too for instance, theyre supplying paper bags to be

used as disposal bags in all rooms at Hotel Sea Face. Theyve been getting orders for Workshops and

Seminars and the Tourism department recently ordered 2500 bags.

Our Current Linear Wasting SystemA costly one-way street

Our current production systems are linear, designed as if there are no limits to our natural resources.

Products are born of environmentally-destructive activities such as clearcutting, strip mining and drilling,

which result in soil erosion, habitat loss, and severe air, soil, and water contamination. We as taxpayers

unwittingly encourage this wasteful and polluting behavior through governmental subsidies at three

different stages: (1) When resources are extracted to make the product, financial incentives and tax

breaks are given to industries that extract virgin resources. (2) When toxins enter our air and water


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supplies during the manufacturing process, the taxpayer helps pay to clean up these messes through

programs such as the federal Superfund program. (3) At the end of the products lives, taxpayers pay

again for the cleanup of toxins, which leak into the groundwater from landfills and billow into the air from

incinerators.

Zero Waste System:An environmentally and economically sustainable system where

resources are kept in the production cycle

Rather than looking at our production systems as one way and linear, we can redesign them to be cyclical,

as in nature, where there is no such thing as waste and materials are kept in the production cycle. Zero

Waste is emerging as a paradigm shift, a new, comprehensive socio-technical system that addresses our

resource use from product design to disposal.

Click on each of the Zero Waste components to read more about the Zero Waste System.

Eco-Cycle 2005. Contact Eco-Cycle to use graphics and/or text.

Changing the Rules of the Game


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We need to put policies and practices in place that favor environmentally and economically sustainablepractices over wasteful, polluting, and ultimately costly practices. Such policies would include creatingfinancial incentives for businesses and residents to recycle more and create less waste, banning toxicproducts from landfills or incinerators, prohibiting the sale of unnecessarily toxic or polluting products,essentially putting policies in place that make it easy to recover materials instead of waste them.

Shifting Taxpayer Subsidies Away From Wasteful and Polluting Industries and

Into Supporting Environmentally-Friendly Practices

Federal tax subsidies created more than 100 years ago to spur our change from an agrarian society to anindustrialized society still exist, giving a financial incentive to industries to make products from virginmaterials. As long as these subsidies remain in place, the devastation of the environment will continue.These are not paltry sums driving todays resource extraction bonanzaaccording to the report, Welfarefor Waste, direct subsidies to the timber, hard-rock mining, and energy industries reach $2.6 billion peryear in taxpayers funds.

Design for the Environment (DFE)

Its time to stop waste before it happens at the designers desk. Instead of designing products without

regard for the amount or type of resources used, the products toxicity, or the products eventual

recovery, under DFE, all products and packaging will be manufactured with the use of non-toxic materials,and designed for either reuse, recycling or composting.

Clean Production

Under the current system, the fastest and cheapest production methods win out above the health and

safety of the workers, the community, and the environment. Companies unwilling to meet the

environmental and worker protection standards in the developed world have simply relocated to exploit

the workers and the environment of developing countries. By providing incentives for clean production

methods, we can discourage this fight to the bottom mentality and award efforts to protect workers and

the environment.

The Role of Distribution/Retail in the Zero Waste System

Within the Zero Waste system, distribution centers work with manufacturers to reuse packaging such as

pallets and crates and to reduce unnecessary packaging. Retailers convey consumer habits and

preferences upstream to the manufacturers where consumer pressures can lead to better design. Retailers

may also support downstream infrastructure such as Resource Recovery Parks through financial

contributions or informational displays. Distributors and retailers serve as education centers to inform

consumers about the proper disposal methods for items such as motor oil, electronics, and batteries. In all

these ways, distributors expand upon their current roles by acting as a go-between for manufacturers and

consumers in both directions.

The Empowered Consumer

The empowered consumer is essential in all facets of Zero Waste. First, the consumer uses their buying

power to demand non-toxic and easily reused, recycled, or composted products. The consumer dollar is

the ultimate voice to industry, particularly in the U.S., and will be the driving force in changing our

consumption and disposal patterns. Reduce and reuse also begin with the consumerthey choose

materials that are minimally packaged and less toxic, thus rewarding those manufacturers who take

responsibility for their products and packaging, and providing the financial incentive for other companies

to follow suit.


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Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

EPR puts the legal, financial, and environmental responsibility for materials entering the waste stream

with the manufacturer, not on the consumer or the local government at the end of the products or

packagings life cycle. The end result is a fundamental shift in responsibility and financing so that

manufacturers redesign products to reduce material consumption and facilitate reuse, recycling and

recovery.

Investing in Recovery Infrastructure, Not Landfills

Rather than using the tax base to build new landfills or incinerators and then to clean up the resulting

contamination, communities working towards Zero Waste invest in recycling, composting, and reuse

facilities called Resource Recovery Parks. When the true costs of environmental pollution resulting from

landfills or incinerators are accounted for, these cleaner Resource Recovery Parks attract the publics

enthusiasm, pride and market investments.

Creating Jobs from Discards: The Job Potential of the Zero Waste System

Wasting materials in a landfill or incinerator also wastes jobs that could be created if those resources were

preserved. According to the report Wasting and Recycling in the United States 2000, "On a per-ton basis,

sorting and processing recyclables alone sustains ten times more jobs than landfilling or incineration." In

its report Resources up in Flames, the Institute of Local Self-Reliance discusses how remanufacturing

offers the biggest pay-off in recycling. Recycling-based manufacturers create more jobs at higher wages

than sorting operations. In fact, some recycling-based paper mills and plastics product manufacturers

employ 60 times more workers on a per metric ton basis than do landfills. Rather than destroying the

value of societys discards in incinerators and landfills, this value is protected and leveraged to create new

local wealth.

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