Zero Waste & Climate Change

There is a strong relationship between resource demands, waste generation and greenhouse emissions. Greenhouse gains can be delivered by avoiding, reducing, reusing and recycling waste.

The goals of the zero waste agenda accord with those of the climate change agenda.

The National Greenhouse Inventory accounts for the greenhouse impact of waste only at the disposal end of the waste hierarchy.

According to the National Greenhouse Inventory, the waste sector contributes only 3% of national emissions, and of that, the vast majority is methane from landfills that is captured and recovered for electricity generation . Based on this methodology of measuring greenhouse contribution, waste is a largely insignificant sector in relation to climate change.

This narrow focus on one part of the life cycle means that the greenhouse impact of materials is being measured only when it becomes ‘waste’. This approach dramatically underestimates the climate change benefits arising from policies, investment, programs and activities that target the higher (preferred) end of the waste hierarchy.

It is imperative that the policies, programs and other initiatives ultimately developed to secure the objects of the proposed Climate Change and Greenhouse Emissions Reduction legislation consider waste in its broader context as one stage in the life cycle of materials, and viewing materials as ‘energy carriers’.

Recycling resources that have already entered the human economy uses much less energy than mining and manufacturing virgin materials – a 95% energy saving when using secondary (recycled) aluminium, 85% for copper, 80% for plastics, 74% for steel and 64% for paper (source: Recycling International). Through re-use and recycling, the energy embodied in waste products is retained and thereby slows the potential for climate change.

Recycling will continue to be, an essential part of responsible materials management, as the greater the shift from a ‘river’ (linear throughput of materials) economy towards a ‘lake’ (stock of continually circulating materials) economy, the greater both the material and greenhouse gains.

Even so, recycling is only halfway up the waste hierarchy. The greenhouse gains lying in the upper half (waste avoidance and reduction) are largely yet to be tapped. The focus of attention needs to expand from the downstream of the materials cycle, from their post-consumer stage, to include the upstream, pre-consumer stage.

Higher Up The Hierarchy

The further activity moves up the waste management hierarchy, the more greenhouse gains there are to be made.

Reuse requires less energy again than recycling, although designs which are both adaptable and durable are essential. Other factors, such as desire for ‘newness’, can conspire against reuse. There are many ways that clothes, cars, books, buildings and other materials are reused, via trash’n’treasure, and more recent phenomena such as e-bay and Freecycle swap sites. Reuse is already part of our society, so there is a precedent to build from it.

Reduce requires less energy again, by designing out waste before it is created. Waste, in all its guises, is an indicator that systems and processes could be designed better. It makes no sense to pay both financial and energy/greenhouse costs for waste twice – first to create it, then again to dispose of it.

Avoid is the ultimate zero waste challenge, the highest point on the hierarchy. The volume and rate at which resources are being channelled through the human economy needs to be slowed, along with a recognition that all our material goods have an energy 'price tag'.

To effectively address the zero waste and climate change agenda, there needs to be a move beyond recycling into the largely unchartered territory of the higher end of the hierarchy, to reuse, reduce and avoid, with a particular emphasis on ecoefficiency (same or greater utility from less material input).

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