Breaking the Barriers to Zero Waste: The Role of the Community

Join the UK Zero Waste Alliance to end waste through community action.

 

This conference will bring together people from across the UK to  understand how we can work together to change the way we think about “waste” and to challenge the systems that create it.   Whilst we still need to change our waste habits, it’s hard to zero our waste when many areas don’t have good kerbside collections,  there is a mountain of packaging on our food and wall-to-wall adverts urging us to buy.     Where are the main areas that the community can make a difference?   What works? And how we can make more impact by working together through community action.

 

Zero Waste Alliance UK Conference and AGM, 11.00- 3pm Saturday 10^th November

Greenpeace, Canonbury Villas, Islington, London N1 2PN

The conference will be followed by a short AGM to which all are welcome.

 

Please click here to reserve your free place    http://www.zwallianceuk.org/

 

Speakers from Wastewatch, Bioregional, Cwm Harry, Rubbish Diet, Transition Town Shrewsbury.

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Launch of Zero Waste Romania - Cluj Napoca

During October 19 and 20 an International Zero Waste meeting will take place in Cluj Napoca, Romania. This will be the first event to promote Zero Waste in the country and it aims to bring together national and local stakeholders including activists, waste experts and operators, ecodesign specialists, city planners and architects, public authorities, policy-makers with the participation of international observers.

One of the main objectives of the meeting will be to set up solid grounds for collaboration between all the main stakeholders in order to create long term sustainable change. In this context, the industry must rethink and redesign their products in order to be repaired, reused and/or recycled. Also, local municipalities could ease the implementation of the Zero Waste system through supporting legislation.

Presentations will highlight concepts such as cradle to cradle, circular economy, ecodesign and extended manufacturer responsibility promoting the 5 R’s: Rethink. Redesign. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

For registration please email elena@zerodeseuriromania.ro by October the 12th.

To see the agenda click here

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The art of Zero Waste!

Waste and art have always gone hand in hand. It was the fantastic artist Leonardo Da Vinci who 500 years ago wrote "there is no such thing as waste" and he knew what he was talking about! Artists have long been using second-hand materials, waste and reused objects to shape their creations.

In this post we want to render hommage to the relationship between artists and waste in yet another demonstration that it doesn't make sense to burn or bury those materials that still can serve a purpose.

[caption id="attachment_1237" align="alignleft" width="450"] Picasso - Bull's head 1943[/caption]



 

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Florence Zero Waste Altermeeting: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and REDESIGN

The inclusion of the 4 R to the group of the old "big 3” is one of the main conclusions of the Zero Waste Altermeeting that took place in Florence from 15 to 17 September.

 
Indeed, more than 60 speakers of the highest level (including academia, researchers, policy-makers, businesses and activists) agreed that instead of using the best minds to design machines to destroy resources such as incinerators and landfills our efforts should go to Redesign the way our economy works in a way that it is possible to Reduce the size of our waste-bin, Reuse as much as possible and Recycle what is left. The R to Redesign waste out of the system was one of the stars of the gathering.

 
The conference served to present a big number of Zero Waste projects and local solutions to Redesign, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle waste. For instance Claudio Germans CEO of DISMECO explained how in his company they manage to recover up to 98% of the materials in used washing machines and how that has created 30 new jobs. In the services sector the organisation of Zero Waste Hotels in the Island of Capri presented how they have practically phased out waste from their hotels. Also, a number of virtuous municipalities such as Capannori and Monterspertoli presented their successful collection systems. Right now only in Italy 91 municipalities (representing 2,5 million people) have adhered to the Zero Waste goal!

 
Besides Italy, on Monday there were a number of international speakers explaining interesting experiences from around the world. The meeting was a success with the participation of hundreds of people from several different backgrounds and geographical origins during the 3 days of the conference. The message to the city of Florence and to the region of Tuscany was clear: your region is one of the pioneers in Zero Waste in the world with Capannori as first European town to declare the goal of Zero Waste for 2020, follow the example and lead the road to a world without waste No-burn, no-bury there is a better way!

 

For a more in depth report in Italian click here

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Zero Waste Week 2012 in the UK, 3 to 6 September

The Zero Wasters in the UK are celebrating their 5th year of Zero Waste weeks in which many brits pledge to improve their recycling skills and renewe their commitment for a world without waste. So far this this is a solely UK initiative but it would be great to have it in other EU countries. If you are interested in running these kinds of actions elsewhere in Europe contact us and we can help you coordinate!

For the moment feel free to join the initiative from our friends from the UK, happy Zero Waste week!

National Zero Waste Week takes place week beginning 3rd September 2012.

This year’s theme is ‘One More Thing‘ which reminds us that the collective impact of taking baby steps can add up to significant change.

How can I join in?

This year we’re focusing on improving our recycling habits because if every household in the UK recycled ‘one more thing’, the total amount collected for recycling could increase by more than three quarters of a million tonnes.

So decide on your activity and leave a comment below telling us what you pledge to do, then come back during National Zero Waste Week and let us know how you are getting on.

Be sure to bookmark this page! If you have a blog or webpage, please help spread the word by writing about National Zero Waste week – you can grab one of our images below!

If you’re on twitter or facebook, encourage your friends and family to join in too.

FACEBOOK – Join our zero waste facebook page and check out the events page

TWITTER – Use the twitter hashtags #onemorething and #nzww and follow My Zero Waste.

 

What can I pledge to do?

As long as you end up increasing your recycling in order to reduce landfill waste in some way, you can choose anything you like. Here are some ideas:

• Find out what can be recycled at your kerbside and make full use of facilities


• Check your local bring banks to see what you can recycle locally


• Take home fruit peelings and cores to compost at home or set up a compost heap or bokashi bin at work


• Perhaps you’ve noticed battery recycling in your local shop; start using it!


• Take home your recyclables instead of using litter bins when out and about

Keep us updated in the comments section below – let us know what you are doing to improve your your recycling habits and how your actions are inspiring others!

Promote National Zero Waste Week 2012 by putting a click through image in your page

Below are two images that you can easily place in your web page Each image will have a click through to our page here where visitors can read more about the event and participate.



For the above 300x300px image, copy and paste this code into your html page

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1	<a href="http://myzerowaste.com/zero-waste-week-2012"><img title="Click here for National Zero Waste week 2012" src="http://myzerowaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/nzww-300x300.jpg" alt="Click here for National Zero Waste week 2012" width="300" height="300" /></a>

For the above 468x60px image, copy and paste this code into your html page

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1	<a href="http://myzerowaste.com/zero-waste-week-2012"><img title="Click here

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Zero Waste Altermeeting in Florence, September 2012

The Italian Zero Waste network & GAIA  is organising a national and international conference in Florence from 15th to 17th of September 2012. The event is organised at the same time as the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) World Solid Waste Meeting in order to send a message to the waste industry to move away from incinerators and landfills and embrace the Zero Waste concept. NO BURN, NO BURY there is a better way!

The goal of this Zero Waste conference is to share the latest best practices from Europe and the world on the 5 Rs; REDUCE, REPAIR, REUSE, RECYCLE & REDESIGN showing that another way to manage waste is possible.

The three days conference will gather more than 50 speakers from Italy and the world and will bring together social movements, policy-makers, waste experts and innovators. To see the draft programme click here.

 

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The first European university to ban bottled water?

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="400"] Ban the bottle campaign in Olympia Campus, Washington[/caption]

In the US and Canada many universities have banned bottled water in their campus. Who will be the first one in Europe?

In 2009 Washington University in Sant Louis became the 1st city to ban bottled water and since then many other campuses have followed the example. In Canada the first campus to ban bottled water has been the University of Winnipeg also in 2009.
Why is banning bottled water important? As a student of Winnipeg , Canada, put it:

Banning bottled water is simply a step in a broader acknowledgment that water is a basic human right, rather than a commodity. Rejecting the commodification of water by refusing to purchase and sell bottled water is a first, and important step. Putting the focus on clean, safe, healthy public water encourages our decision makers to invest strongly in public water infrastructure, and also pushes governments in Canada to extend that infrastructure to Northern communities. As students, we are in a unique situation within our institutions where there is a pool of critical minds, willing to take initiative and leadership on campus. We hope that other campuses across Canada will be willing to take the same initiative, and push back against water as a commodity.

 

[caption id="attachment_1194" align="alignleft" width="233"] Official sign in University of Winnipeg, Canada[/caption]

In contrast to tap water, which is delivered through an energy-efficient infrastructure, bottled water is an incredibly wasteful product. It is usually packaged in single-serving plastic bottles made with fossil fuels. Indeed, milions and milions of tones of European plastic waste are the being disposed of every year. According to the European plastic industry in 2009 45% of the EU plastic was landfilled and 31% was incinerated which means that only a 22% was actually recycled. Increasing the recycling rates it’s important but in the case of bottled water it only makes sense to work on the prevention side. There is a great potential to reduce waste at source by just shifting from bottled to tab water.
There are examples of administrations and schools that have replaced bottled water, even in the European Parliament a group of MEPs demanded to stop the nonsense of providing bottled water in meetings –which causes 160tn of CO2 emissions per year-. However so far no European University has made the step. Any volunteers to follow the north-amercan example? What about the European institutions?

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