Zero-Waste: Reconsidering Consumption

Written by Camille Cater

Last weekend Precious Plastic Texas volunteered with Texas Athletics and the Sustainability Squad to sort through the waste generated at the last home UT football game of the 2018 season. Texas Athletics has been on a zero-waste mission since 2014 in conjunction with the University of Texas campus’s goal of reaching zero-waste by 2020. The Athletics Department has been a leader in advocating for zero-waste at the University of Texas and has made significant progress towards their goal. For example, Texas Athletics achieved the first-ever zero-waste collegiate baseball season in the nation in 2017. Although game-day crowds still make mistakes with recycling and composting properly, student staff and volunteers ensure UT sporting events are zero-waste.

So, what is zero-waste? Zero-waste is the pursuit to avoid sending any waste to landfills. We live in a consumer society that operates within a linear economy which promotes a “take-make-waste” model. Raw materials are taken from the Earth and turned into commodities which are quickly disposed of, only to inevitably repeat the cycle. This process is exacerbated by our constant desire for the newest and trendiest products. We internalize the ceaseless bombardment of advertisements from the clothing or technology industries and find ourselves equating our worth with material possessions. Pursuing zero-waste is the conscious decision to take back your power as a consumer and a citizen on our finite, delicate planet. The ultimate objective of zero-waste is to mimic the cycle exhibited in nature where nothing is wasted and resources are infinitely reused.

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is the mantra of zero-waste. But recycling should be seen as a last option, as the amount of waste we generate simply cannot be handled by current recycling infrastructure. As the number one trash-producing country, Americans produce more than 250 million tons of garbage each year or roughly 4 lbs per person. According to the EPA only 34% of the waste generated in the United States gets recycled, with the rest overflowing in landfills. Mismanaged landfills impact the environment in a nasty plethora of ways including methane and carbon dioxide emissions contributing to global warming, groundwater contamination, and exposure to adverse health conditions such as cancer and birth defects.

An image of Thilafushi, Maldives, an artificial island created to serve as a landfill ᐧ Source: Imgur

Going zero-waste means recycling less because you’re generating less waste in general, but more importantly, zero-waste also means that you should be recycling better. It’s important to know what can and can’t be recycled in your area. Improper recycling can actually contaminate entire bales of recyclable material, sending them to the landfill. Your local waste management system should have all the information you need on proper recycling, composting, and disposing of hazardous material available on their website. Luckily, the city of Austin has a goal to be zero-waste by 2040, so recycling information is increasingly transparent and accessible city-wide. But, it’s evident from the trash sorting event we attended last weekend that many Austinites still struggle with recycling and composting correctly.

A comprehensive recycling guide for the city of Austin, Texas provided by the Resource Recovery Department

Clearly, recycling and composting are the best options when the product is already in your hands. But waste minimization is the real name of the game- that’s where ‘reduce’ and ‘reuse’ come in. Maybe we don’t need everything we think we need. Not to say we should all stop purchasing things we want, use, and like to have. But we can easily reduce our consumption of things we absolutely don’t ever need that are merely convenient such as single-use products. We could reduce a significant amount of trash from mounting in landfills and clogging our oceans if we all rejected disposable straws, plastic bags, to-go containers and cutlery, styrofoam cups, individually wrapped products, etc. We live in a throwaway culture but we fail to realize that what we throw out never actually goes away, it just goes somewhere else- landfills, oceans, and coastlines. Reusable products just make more sense. Bring your own mug to your favorite coffee shop, use canvas bags for your groceries, look for second-hand clothing and furniture before buying new- simple and affordable ways to make a positive impact on the environment.

If you want to learn more about living a zero-waste lifestyle, here’s a list of instagram pages recommended by Precious Plastic Texas members which have a ton of awesome information:

Can one person really make a difference? Well, one individual's impact is relatively small. But there are 7.5 billion people living on Earth. That's 7.5 billion individuals who hold the power to change the world- we all just have to do our part.