Zero Waste by Robin Murray, Greenpeace Environmental Trust 2002

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68 run parallel to the expansion of recycling. They provide the second route to Zero Waste.
V The Green Materials Revolution The transformations of the waste industry, though remarkable, are in many ways subordinate to the changes taking place in the field of materials. Like ‘smart’ recycling they reflect a change in the industrial paradigm. Every long wave of industrial development, driven by a leading new technology, brings with it its own innovation in materials. Cotton, iron, steel, oil-based plastics and chemicals were the leading materials of previous long waves. The current fifth wave – centred on electronics – is marked not so much by a new material (although modern materials can now be composited for particular uses to an unprecedented extent) as by the pressure to reduce materials and their toxicity. We live in an age – as far as materials are concerned – that strives for absence. It speaks of ‘de-materialisation’, of finding ways of avoiding production, of making more with less. Instead of labour productivity, its attention is turned to material productivity as a new frontier of innovation. Its interest is in ‘clean production’ rather than more production, in quality not quantity. The economy of space (reducing material extraction, minimising transport and cutting environmental pollution) is at long last emerging as a challenge to the long ascendancy of the economy of time. What we can now see, with hindsight, is that the old mass p roduction model which reached its social and economic limits in the late 1960s and early 1970s was also having p roblems with its material limits. The volume of industrial minerals, metals, non-renewable organics and agricultural and fore s t ry products in the USA had doubled to 600 million tonnes p.a. between 1945 and 1970. It continued to g ro w. By 1995 it had risen by nearly as much again, 4 5 b u t by then the twin ‘thunderclap’ of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the Club of Rome’s ‘Limits to Growth’, and all that followed from them, had been heard and internalised. Zero Waste 69
Page 1 and 2: As a pollutant, waste demands contr
Page 3 and 4: F o r e w o r d Stephen Tindale, Gr
Page 5 and 6: outlines the political, financial a
Page 7 and 8: F rom the perspective of pollution,
Page 9 and 10: disposal. The issue of toxicity is
Page 11 and 12: primary forests … Humankind has i
Page 13 and 14: I I Zero Waste Fair and foul At one
Page 15 and 16: phasing out the production of the s
Page 17 and 18: innovative Zero Waste thinkers, Mic
Page 19 and 20: the technical circuit of inorganic
Page 21 and 22: But here, too, the advance has been
Page 23 and 24: m a c h i n e ry of mass production
Page 25 and 26: Inset 1 Vertical compost unit mater
Page 27 and 28: Recycling as market economy If the
Page 29 and 30: IV The Road to Zero Waste 1. Settin
Page 31 and 32: After that the household rate is pu
Page 33 and 34: Europe by no means all landfills ha
Page 35 and 36: • support groups. Many recycling
Page 37 and 38: past have tried to limit these imba
Page 39: are targeted. In economic terms, re
Page 43 and 44: municipal sector. The eco-efficienc
Page 45 and 46: The commodity-service economy One o
Page 47 and 48: Designing for cycles The trends ide
Page 49 and 50: parallel to increasingly far reachi
Page 51 and 52: Canada, the USA and Australia. New
Page 53 and 54: V I I Re-orienting UK waste The pol
Page 55 and 56: Germany. 65 Only 8% of household or
Page 57 and 58: where returns are high, while remai
Page 59 and 60: The important point to note is that
Page 61 and 62: • minimising costs, not advancing
Page 63 and 64: VIII The integrated option As a res
Page 65 and 66: The attraction of these arrangement
Page 67 and 68: These inquiries are defensive. They
Page 69 and 70: Climate change and Significance pla
Page 71 and 72: • the exemption from business rat
Page 73 and 74: C o n c e rned over the widening co
Page 75 and 76: • the introduction of measures to
Page 77 and 78: 3. The recycling of bulky waste •
Page 79 and 80: • introduce a ban on untreated mu
Page 81 and 82: Inset 4 Halifax, Nova Scotia In the
Page 83 and 84: 2. Restructuring incentives There w
Page 85 and 86: make recycling and composting finan
Page 87 and 88: conversion scheme from their share
Page 89 and 90: of operation and monitoring of prac
Page 91 and 92:
a subsidiary of an existing waste c
Page 93 and 94:
X Beyond Recycling I have argued th
Page 95 and 96:
This has been effective when pollut
Page 97 and 98:
Inset 5 Producer Responsibility and
Page 99 and 100:
challenge comes when the cause of t
Page 101 and 102:
auditing bodies, and by schemes suc
Page 103 and 104:
186 of regional sub-centres. Local
Page 105 and 106:
Beyond the waste ghetto Zero Waste
Page 107 and 108:
testing. Never has waste been so cl
Page 109 and 110:
• Central government intervenes i
Page 111 and 112:
workshop, May 1998, Berlin. 15 USEP
Page 113 and 114:
strong, and that increasing numbers
Page 115 and 116:
supportive of the ‘integrated opt
Page 117 and 118:
Press, 2000. The book also outlines
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Zero Waste by Robin Murray, Greenpeace Environmental Trust 2002

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