Zero Waste
In nature, there is no waste. Or, perhaps a bit more accurately, "waste" from any source becomes the feed for another. Everything is a raw material for some other process or system. Sometimes the changes are minor, as with the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in respiration, while at other times they are hugely transformative, such as the use of soil to grow into a structure like a tree.
We're glad to find opportunities to increase efficiency in systems, as a method of waste reduction. Capturing energy is an easy way of improving efficiency and reducing waste. Co-generation systems get double use by generating both electricity and heat, the heat being a waste product of the electrical generation system.
A wide range of companies are pushing to reduce their waste, and "zero waste" is a concept that is being discussed in more and more boardrooms. A recent article in the Boston Globe discusses how this idea is spreading.
In this perfect system, each unit of energy consumed would be somehow offset. Every industrial byproduct would reassemble into something useful and benign. Every beam of sunlight, scrap of garbage, and flush of the toilet would be pressed into service. No exceptions. Humankind would make obsolete the very concept of "waste."
This is the environmental philosophy of "zero waste," a total vision of sustainability for our eco-panicked age. "Zero waste looks at what nature has given us as a model," says Larry Chalfan, executive director of the nonprofit Zero Waste Alliance in Portland, Ore. "Everything at the end of its life, whether it's a flower or a dead body, is recycled; there are no toxic substances or 'waste' built up anywhere to cause harm to future generations. Everything is a resource to be used again."
I've recently written a couple of articles elsewhere, and Patrick wrote here last week, about using what are thought of presently as waste streams and turning them into useful products. The most audacious one is a group of researchers looking at turning cow manure into a construction board like fiberboard.
This sort of thing already goes on more often than you may think. Fly ash, a waste byproduct from burning coal, turns out to be a good ingredient to use in concrete. Not only does it take up some of the volume of rock and sand in the concrete — meaning that less mining, processing, and hauling of those materials needs to take place — but it also behaves like cement so that less cement is needed. This is especially beneficial because cement is very energy intensive to produce. Many green builders have been taking advantage of this, and often LEED-rated buildings will have fly ash content specified for the concrete used in them. Despite these advantages, fly ash is still treated as a waste product in some localities.
Fly ash is a great example to cite, but not everything will be locked into such straightforward combinations. Zero waste means more than simply finding an alternate use for every byproduct of every process. What is waste from one process needs to be seen as an opportunity, but reducing the materials needed in those processes is also part of the program. After all, it is better to be able to eliminate the packaging material for a product altogether than it is to have the packaging become a raw material for some other process.
