Waste. Waste, especially organic waste, is a significant part of the world’s volume of GHG emissions.
1. Encourage your city’s mayor and council to become a Circular Economy (CE). Embrace CE in all department throughout the City. www.deladenergi.se .
2. Determine what percentage of your city’s waste goes to landfills or incinerators. Pledge to reduce that number by a lot. “Towards Zero Waste Accelerator” www.c40.org
3. Cities should collect food and other organic waste separately and operate their own composting operations, as opposed to simply trucking it away to landfills and incinerators. “Residential Food Waste Collection Programs by State” www.biocycle.net
4. Encourage your city’s officials to ban all single-use plastics – clamshells, plastic drink accessories, single-use plastic bags, etc. “16 Times Countries and Cities Have Banned Single-use Plastics” www.globalcitizen.org 4/25/18.
5. Update your city’s waste-handling methods by determining how best to involve robotics and AI in the process. “Waste Robotics” www.wasterobotics.com .
6. City government should pursue powering its wastewater treatment plant with renewable energy (solar, or biogas generated on the site). “Novel Waste Treatment Efficiently Converts Sewage to Biogas” www.wsu.edu .
7. Adopt a Pay-as-you-Throw (PAYT) policy for urban trash, where compost and recycling are the standard waste collection service, and trash is charged by the weight/size of the trash container chosen by the customer. www.payasyouthrow.org .
8. Require all multifamily buildings and businesses to recycle and compost. “Multifamily Recycling Requirements” www.austintexas.gov “Collection for Businesses & Large Buildings” www.minneapolismn.gov .
9. “Require minimum waste diversion rate for construction and demolition as part of the building code for those products that have viable end markets, such as cardboard, clean wood, and metal. “Construction and Demolition Debris Program” www.woodsidetown.org .
10. Cities can create compost from the aerobic processing of food waste and making it available to local farms, nurseries, etc. “Charleston County’s Composting Program” www.charlestoncounty.org .
11. An increasing number of cities are making biogas and other useful products out of tons of food waste via anaerobic digestion. “Turning Food Into Fuel” www.politico.com 11/21/19.
12. Explore the local use of vermiculture (involves worms) to make compost from food and other bio-waste materials. “Vermiculture Improves Urban Farming in Argentina” (city of Rosario) www.idrc.ca and “Vermicomposting For Municipal Organic Waste Disposal” www.kerrcenter.com .
13. Cities should separate out clothes, shoes, and other textiles and leathers from general trash, and partner with companies such as Helpsy (www.helpsy.co) . The higher grade textile items collected by Helpsy are resold to thrift stores and second-hand markets. The lower-grade items are converted into rags for industrial use. For information on a similar program, contact Town of Arlington MA Recycling Coordinator Charlotte Milan cmilan@town.arlington.ma.us or www.arlingtonma.gov/recycle .
14. San Francisco Leading by Example. “San Francisco Reaches 80 Percent Landfill Waste Diversion” www.sfenvironment.org .
15. Recommendations of Boston’s Zero Waste Advisory Committee. www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/embed/file/2019-06/zero_waste_bos_recs_final.pdf .
16. The Bin-e Smart Waste Bin (Poland). It is designed for use in public spaces and enables simplified recycling. It sorts glass, plastic and metal, compresses the waste automatically, controls the fill level, and processes data for convenient waste management by the City or its waste contractor. www.bine.world .
17. “Examples and Resources For Transforming Waste Streams in Communities” (Examples 1 – 50 and Examples 51 – 100). www.epa.gov .
18. Waste Dive. An online magazine to help you keep up with what’s happening to improve the world’s waste-handling operations. www.wastedive.com .
