The Need

Images by Chris Jordan, from Running the Numbers: An American Self Protrait [1], used with permission

Local governments are struggling to keep up with the growing volumes of waste in their communities. Consider these figures from US EPA for 2007:

• Nearly three-quarters (73.3%) of the waste we generate is throw-away products and packaging;
• Despite municipal recycling efforts, we are sending more throw-away products and packaging to landfills and incinerators today (122.9 million tons) than we did in 1990 (117.5 million tons);
• Since 1960 throw-away products and packaging waste has tripled – growing at more than twice the rate of population growth.

These facts are hard to reconcile with reduced budgets for the provision of waste management services. Recycling is subject to changing political winds, but the growth in our society’s consumption continues unabated.

Costs and risks

Local communities incur not only costs but risks in the provision of waste services. Many common household products contain toxic substances that can cause injury to recycling and sanitation workers and harm the health of communities living near disposal facilities.

Excess production and consumption of throw-away products is a major driver of climate change [2].

Give up on waste reduction?

We know that waste prevention and recycling are the best way to reduce all of these harmful impacts. And yet many communities are declaring that waste reduction and recycling have reached their limits. They are contemplating investment in waste incinerators in hopes of recovering some value from non-recyclable waste. But this introduces new risks to public health and safety in their communities and also creates an ongoing demand for waste to feed the incinerators.

How can we break the cycle of wasteful production, consumption and disposal?  We believe that local governments -- and the communities they serve -- hold the key to transforming the waste management system.
 

The Story of Stuff  (20 min video)

The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard is an engaging, funny presentation of the "global materials economy" that leads to over-production, over-consumption and over-wasting. Local governments have been unwitting "enablers" of throw-away products and packaging for the past century (see History of Waste [3]).

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