A Future Without Trash?

Much of what is known about Jamestown, the first US settlement, stems from trenches and pits along the old roadways. Those were the places were the garbage was dumped. Garbage then was mostly broken pottery, utensils and construction debris. Almost anything was used, whatever food scraps went to the pigs or other farm animals, clothes were handed down and eventually became rags. There wasn't much paper and certainly no plastic. From that almost zero waste society the US developed to the biggest waste producer in the world (in total tonnage, not per capita), a condition that only a few find objectionable.

Trash in a landfill: archaic methods

But it is the straw that broke the camel's back. The trash camel that is, the plastic camel, the solid waste camel. Indeed, the tiny plastic straw was able to catch the attention of news media to illustrate all those issues via the help of a sea turtle with one of those things stuck in its nostril. Thanks to the turtle, media coverage about the mountains of use once and then discard plastic utensils has  reached almost the size of that floating trash island floating around somewhere in the pacific.

This attention this is a good thing, especially if it is accompanied by real action. As of last week, according to Fortune, eight major companies have promised to remove plastic straws from their arsenal: Starbucks. Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, American Airlines. Alaska Airlines, SeaWorld Entertainment, Royal Caribbean. Eliminating the plastic suckers won't solve the plastic waste, the trash island or the recycling crisis,  but it is a step in the right direction and it gives the discussion traction. What is the direction of the journey? "Zero Waste!"

In 2014, in the United States, about 258 million tons of [municipal solid waste] MSW were generated. Over 89 million tons of MSW were recycled and composted, equivalent to a 34.6 percent recycling rate. In addition, over 33 million tons of MSW were combusted with energy recovery and 136 million tons were landfilled. (EPA)

Seat turtle with straw in nostril

Caught between full landfills, rejected incinerators, China's ban on contaminated recyclables and the guilt of simply exporting trash to other places, cities find themselves between the proverbial rock and hard place. For years each person in the US produces around 4 pounds of municipal solid waste per day. If incineration, landfilling and even recycling isn't a solution, what is a municipality charged with collecting the trash is to do? Wishing trash away certainly sounds like a dream answer, which is surprisingly popular for how impossible it seems to do.

The decomposition that occurs in landfills accounts for 18 percent of the US’ domestic methane emissions, making landfills one of the largest sources. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and, once in the atmosphere, is slowly converted to CO2. The US and EU nations have required active landfill gas capture for over a decade to minimize their greenhouse gas emissions, but there isn’t extensive data demonstrating the efficiency of these systems. (Ars Technica)

From New York to San Francisco over two hundred communities have discovered "zero waste"pledges, the NYC by 2030,  SF already by 2020.

The City and County of San Francisco believes achieving zero waste is possible. In San Francisco, over half of what still goes in the landfill bins can be recycled in the blue bin or composted in the green bin. When all material is sent to the correct bins, San Francisco’s diversion rate can increase from 80 percent to 90 percent. SF Environment will continue to promote best practices, including waste prevention, recycling and composting.
To achieve 100 percent zero waste, SF Environment will continue to advocate for state legislation and partner with producers to develop a producer responsibility system, where producers design better products and take responsibility for the entire life-cycle of a product, including take-back and recycling.

Zero Waste exhibit NYC

Clearly "Zero Waste" would solve the problem. No waste, no landfill, no incineration and no exporting of trash. But the strategies are not that naive. For one, they usually assume plenty of recycling, still an activity that requires to send trash half way around the globe, provided there are countries that take the materials in. This isn't a given any longer as China proved when the country closed its doors to trash tourism, presumably because US recycling material had become too "contaminated", possibly a result of single stream recycling. The single stream collection practice has become popular because it allows to throw all recyclables into the same container and truck to be sorted at a central facility. The downside: In spite of the sorting process, especially paper gets fouled up by the often soggy mess which results when everything gets mixed up. Possibly more impactful: The lazy recycling method of all in one bin changes people's attitudes and apparently results in much less meticulous behaviour and "wishful" recycling where many items wind up in the bin which don't belong there. Indeed, recycling alone declares "Zero Waste" as wishful thinking and sloganeering more than a literally strategy.

The fact is that there is no such thing as true zero waste. Even in a closed-loop system, waste is created in some capacity (e.g. emissions from transportation, energy wasted during the creation or repurposing of goods, etc). The term zero waste is a misnomer, and the goal to achieve 100% zero waste, while noble, isn’t feasible for most consumers—but that doesn’t mean the path toward zero waste isn’t one worth walking. Tom Szaky on Treehugger.com

Aside from the recycling issue, Zero Waste strategies also assume big changes in how people make purchases, how they live and how waste is managed from the production of packaging to the distribution of goods to the management of waste in households, offices and factories. All this has to occur before an item reaches the hands of a municipal waste collector. The scale of such a challenge is especially daunting in New York which thanks to its size, density and lack of space makes any waste solution exponentially more difficult.

Size of exports of plastics to China

An exhibit of the New York Chapter of Institute of Architects (AIA) shows, that the Zero Waste goal requires a revolution not only for municipal waste management but also for the consumer in general and for professionals who design for them. From apartment design to buildings to urban design Zero Waste mandates a re-set of much what has become common practice. On the website the exhibit's relevance for architect's is described this way:

Designing Waste: Strategies for a Zero Waste City focuses on a particular segment of the life-cycle of waste: the brief period between when we discard something and when it rolls away on a truck. This is when waste is closest to us, when it is sorted and stored in apartments, trash rooms, basement corridors, loading bays, and sidewalks. And this is where architects, designers, and building professionals have agency to transform the waste system. 

A special place in the journey towards Zero Waste belongs to food, or more precisely, food waste, maybe the most difficult waste category of all. There is plenty of it, and food as waste has a big ick factor.

About 150,000 tons of food is tossed out in US households each day, equivalent to about a third of the daily calories that each American consumes. Fruit and vegetables were the most likely to be thrown out, followed by dairy and then meat. The Guardian/ PLOS One.

Food waste begins on farms and in green houses where overproduction or low prices at times never bring the product to the consumer. It continues in the distribution chain with supermarkets throwing enormous amounts of food out because of visual flaws or expiration dates  and ends with consumers that toss items straight from the fridge or after preparing items that were not eaten up. Waste could be reduced on all of those levels with the end consumer being the most difficult because food composting is too difficult in most cases, especially in cities.

US MSW 1960-2014

A truly serious effort of zero waste requires for all material groups that a cradle to grave approach avoids waste in production, avoids unnecessary packaging, takes materials or entire products back for re-use in manufacturing and avoids any single-use products to be used except in instances where sterile use demands it such as in medical care or research, in short a system that replicates in many aspects natural cycles. Aside from eliminating plastic straws many municipalities have made great progress with waste avoidance through banning plastic shopping bags and styrofoam food containers. many German cities requires fast food places to use real dishes and silverware instead of disposable ones. The most integrated waste management system with the goal of waste reduction can probably be found in Singapore.

While avoidance of what would inevitable become trash is certainly the most desirable strategy, re-use of discarded material requires to be integrated into city and building design from the first concept on. The various buckets, cans and containers we use to discard waste aren't much more advanced that Jamestown's pits, only the journey got longer. What is needed is that trash storage, handling and transport in itself receives innovation. The long imagined underground trash vacuum pipes never materialized on a grand scale, and given the state of urban infrastructure likely never will. More likely, technology that compacts, sanitizes and sorts trash at the source, i.e. in the factory, in the office and in the household. So far, ideas are scarce and do little to get to the root of the problem of waste as an unhygienic item in a building that takes up a lot of space. For example, the Volvo trash can robot still sticks with the archaic concept of trash can.

Volvo robotic trash can

Realistic projections don't foresee much trash avoidance, especially not on a global scale. Next to global warming and drinking water shortages, waste may well be one of the worst cases in which mankind is sticking the head in the sand instead of taking the necessary action.

Waste options

Zero waste is not only an environmental issue but also a foremost social issue. Waste not collected,  waste fouling the air by being burnt individually (India) or municipally (US) or as menial labor threatens the health of millions of people, a fact that led to the foundation of the international organization of GAIA, a group devoted to fighting incinerators, unhealthy waste management practices and aiming for Zero Waste worldwide. GAIA was instrumental in defeating a new incinerator in my hometown of Baltimore which would have been placed in a traditionally disadvantaged community. As a result the outdated existing incinerator continues to produce about a third of all of the metro area's air pollution. An examples which just as the closure of the Freshkill landfill in State Island shows, that there is hardly a good solution short of avoiding trash altogether (Zero Waste)

Every single person can contribute, one pound of waste at a time.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Tree Hugger: Zero Waste is all the rage, but is it realistic?

Subaru has been manufacturing cars in ’zero landfill’ facilities for over ten years. All waste generated within Sabaru’s facilities is recycled or reprocessed into energy. The company has mastered categorizing, weighing, and tracking all waste streams generated across its production processes, and even offers training services to manufacturers interested in pushing their own facilities toward zero landfill. Setting manufacturing standards like these pressures other industry actors into following suit, and sets a great example for companies hoping to compete in an increasingly sustainability-driven consumer landscape.

AIA New York, Center for Architecture: Zero Waste 
Untapped Cities: Zero Waste
World Economic Forum: Global Recycling rates
City Ordinances and Policies of Successful Zero Waste Communities