From reforming municipal recycling to promoting backyard composting to putting the onus on producers to pay for the recovery of product packaging, Powell River is taking small steps toward reducing waste. Zero waste is not something that will be realized in the short term and it will require buy-in from all residents before it is achieved.
While recycling is an important component, zero waste is a whole-system approach to the vast flow of resources and waste through human society. Zero waste re-imagines product use. Current industrial manufacturing can be thought of as linear—when the product has reached its end-life it is disposed of. Zero waste puts this process into a more cyclical fashion. Each material must be used as efficiently as possible. It must be chosen so that it may either return safely to a cycle within the environment or remain viable in the industrial cycle. Nothing becomes trash until it is thrown away. Zero waste emphasizes waste prevention over end-of-the-pipe management.
It used to be that the three Rs—reduce, reuse and recycle—were all that was needed to understand how to deal with waste, but now that list has been expanded to include refuse and rot (compost).
As noted in Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce, consumers have a great deal of power to push change as they vote with their dollars every visit they make to the checkout. If consumers want to see products with less or no packaging, then companies will be obliged to provide that.
During the recent zero waste forum, Let’s Talk Trash team spoke about how Powell River could potentially be a leader in the zero waste movement. Because of our relative isolation and awareness that our trash has a larger carbon footprint than most communities (ours travels more than 700 kilometres to be disposed of in south eastern Washington State) it could be that residents will find it easier to make changes that continue to be in line with zero waste.
Indeed, the Peak learned that Powell River has one of the highest levels of acceptance to BC’s product packaging program in the province. The community’s recycling consistently comes in under the three per cent contamination limit. Aiming toward the development of more extended producer programs and community organics compost collection will further reduce Powell River waste, making steps toward zero waste more achievable.
