by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
While it is possible to reduce waste, all waste, including food waste, to a minimum, zero waste, in that we do not produce any waste at all, just is not possible, regardless of what some people may think or claim, in the same way as there can be no sustainable consumption.
Whatever we do we are going to produce waste in some way, shape or form, though ideally, and that is the operative word and challenge, that waste should be recycled by whichever way. In addition to that we must change the way that we produce things and also produce food and use all the food grown, not just those vegetables, for instance, that have the right shape, size, etc.
As far as products are concerned they must be made so as to keep waste in production to the minimum and made in such a way that they can be kept going ad infinitum, almost, by being repairable, ideally user-repairable. But that is not a model that industry (and, it would appear, government) does not want.
Going further, however, we all must find ways, aside from just reducing waste, to make use of the waste that is still there especially the kind that can, in some ways, be reused, reworked, repurposed and upcycled, and that before we even think whether or not it can be (commercially) recycled.
This is also where upcycling as an economic activity, especially by small workers, comes in. Far too much of commercial recycling destroys the product and does not actually recycle anything but downcycles rather. But I am beginning to digress.
Zero Waste is a nice idea but it just will, I am afraid to say, never really work because there will always be some waste that is being produced though a more-or-less circular process might just reduce it is a very small percentage.
However, the latter process will only work if everyone, from government to every individual person, pulls on the same rope, so to speak. The problem is that already now in the case of ordinary recycling things are not always the way they appear and are made to appear.
While recyclables may be collected by the municipalities they may not actually always end up being recycled even if that means that they are downcycled. Quite frequently, for a variety of reason, one of them though being that at some time the price for the recyclables may be too low, they are sent to landfill.
The problem is that all our individual efforts come often to nothing because there where we can do nothing about things are not on the same level. It is therefore much more important that we see that we can reuse more of the stuff that runs under “waste”, from composting to reworking and upcycling, even in a semi-commercial enterprise, than believing the, let me call them, powers-that-be that they will take care of it.
There has always been waste, with the exception, maybe, in the case of Nature, and there always will be, in some way, shape or form. What way, shape and form this waste is going to be, however, and what we do with it though, is another question in point and that is up to us. Reusing, repurposing and upcycling whatever can be treated in this way needs to be done, up to and including doing this as a business. Those three have to become an economic activity, even if only on a small scale, but in many small enterprises.
We cannot keep pretending to be able to tackle waste by claiming that we can go “zero waste” because we cannot truly and fully. To believe otherwise is conning ourselves. Only Nature knows no real waste as in Nature everything is recycled, truly recycled, in one way or the other.
© 2017
