Use the 3 Rs—and Then Some—To Eliminate Trash

Alex Steffen once said "there is no such thing as garbage, just useful stuff in the wrong place." William McDonough said "We're not talking here about eliminating waste, We're talking about eliminating the entire concept of waste." Seth Godin says "Zero is the new black. The Boston Globe took it to the extreme:

"Imagine an industrial system in which nothing ever really dies or gets discarded....In this perfect system, each unit of energy consumed would be somehow offset. Every industrial byproduct would reassemble into something useful and benign. Every beam of sunlight, scrap of garbage, and flush of the toilet would be pressed into service. No exceptions. Humankind would make obsolete the very concept of "waste."

The fact is, we have been sold a bill of goods by our current industrial system that basically runs on waste, on selling stuff to us but not being responsible for the garbage that comes with it. They basically have transferred the responsibility to you, the taxpayer, who has to pay for dumps and separate it for recycling. It is a big issue, bigger than just the waste, it is the energy made producing things that don't last, replacing bottles that get recycled instead of refilled, picking up shopping bags that get tossed instead of reused.

But it doesn't have to be that way, we don't have to take their garbage. Here are some tips for personally moving toward a zero-waste life, adding a few R's to the usual 3 with some help from Lotus Live.

Refuse Simply don't buy stuff that is overpackaged. Many companies are working to reduce their packaging, changing from plastics to papers and cards that are recyclable, eliminating waste. Remember that you are paying to dispose of it (many cities now limit the garbage you can throw out and charge if you go over). Refuse to buy bottled water or coffee in paper cups when you can carry your own refillable. With food, make your own stuff from scratch instead of buying all that prepackaged stuff, you will save money and eat healthier, and have very little left.

Rot Compost what is left over, turning it into valuable nutrients. Read 7 Reasons to Compost.

Refill In Ontario Canada, 88% of beer bottles are returned to the beer store, washed and refilled; just south of the border in the USA, the number drops to under 5%. But it is available if you look, and those vendors that will refill should get your business. We buy milk in refillable glass bottles and it actually tastes better.

Repair Fix and mend things rather than replacing them. This often means buying better stuff in the first place, that will last longer, paying a little more for solid quality, but over time it will cost less. Planet Green has some good sources for Learing the 4th R, Repair Manuals for the 4th R: Repair

Return Some things, like computers, don't have that long a life span as the technologies evolve. But you can buy from manufacturers like Dell and now Apple who have developed some producer responsibility and take back what they sell for proper recycling or refurbishment.

Repurpose If you are handy, a lot of things can be put to different uses than they were originally intended. CD cases become picture frames; Old tea cups become bangles, Fridge parts have been turned into storage. Also, you can give things a new purpose in life by selling or giving them away through yard sales, donations, swaps and even on eBay.And last, and yes, least:Recycle But remember that you are doing the work for the manufacturer and the waste handler, separating the stuff that you didn't need and or want and paying through your taxes to take away. I meant it when I provocatively titled an article on TreeHugger Recycling is Bulls**tMy favorite description of how recycling is fraudulent comes from Vancouver writer Ruben Anderson, who describes the process of recycling Tetra-Paks, promoted by industry as "green" packaging:The places that say they recycle Tetra Paks are liars. What does "re" mean? It means again. Can a Tetra Pak be made into another Tetra Pak? No. Tetra Paks are seven incomprehensibly thin layers of paper, plastic and aluminum. The poor suckers who try to recycle them use giant blenders to mush the paper pulp off the plastic and metal, then they need to separate the plastic from the metal.That isn't zero waste. It is using a lot of energy to manufacture the packaging, ship it around the country to special "recycling" facilities, and to get low grade crap out of it, just to make people feel better, knowing that their purchase is "recyclable." Recycling is a sop to make us feel better about a system that doesn't work. It should be the very last thing we do.Imagine if you didn't have a dump to take stuff to, or a city garbage pickup, or if you had to pay a buck a pound for all of the garbage you make and cannot deal with at home. You would get close to zero waste very quickly.