Zero Waste

Waste is a human invention, no ecological system knows waste, and everything that is higher up in the food chain is eaten by something lower down with the decomposers in the soil doing the ultimate recycling job. To understand waste better it helps to do a simple cradle to grave or production line analysis. Where does the product come from? Is it a renewable or non-renewable resource? What is the typical lifetime or use time? Is sweatshop labour involved? And so on. That’s where ethical and smart shopping comes in.

Here are the important R’s concerning waste:

REFUSE to be part of the throwaway culture.

REDUCE waste wherever you can.

RE-USE products for other uses.

REPAIR things so they last longer.

And finally, RECYCLE. Recycling means closing the cycle or loop, putting resources back where they came from. This does not happen under the recycling programme we have. Many man-made components are unknown to nature, are very toxic and cannot be recycled back into the natural systems. Of course everything is biodegradable and breaks down, even plutonium, it just takes thousands of years.

Nearly half of our waste stream here in Rodney is organic matter that can be recycled back to the land through composting and worm farming (vermiculture). It should never go into landfills and create methane gas, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming and climate change.

Rodney District Council shows leadership and has a Zero Waste policy. It runs workshops to educate the ratepayers in composting and worm farming under the slogan “Reduce waste, if not you, then who?”

Landfills are monuments to our ignorance and non-caring attitude and the future archaeologists are going to have a ball sorting through them, or maybe we will start mining before then for all those precious non-renewable resources and metals.