Why we should move towards zero waste

“Waste not, want not”, an old proverb, originating in the 16^th century, reminding us to be mindful of what we consume. Today, we favour convenience in our busy daily lives from packaging to take aways and single use plastics. Australians throw away on average 312kg of food per person a year * which is about 20% of all food purchases. Our behaviour is increasingly consumeristic, buying more of what we want rather than just what we need.

We are a throwaway culture and are now recognizing that this behaviour is simply unsustainable. Throwing things away, that are made from non-renewable sources is a waste of resources and creates a burgeoning problem in our environment.

The first step towards positive change is obvious- reduce. We should use less and be more mindful about what we buy. Manufacturers need to redesign products and packaging to be less wasteful. But, where waste is unavoidable, we do need to look at how we dispose of the waste we create.

What’s wrong with landfills?

Originally landfills were seen as a good way to control rubbish by sending it to a designated area for disposal rather than littering the streets. There was no better motivator than the Bubonic Plague to encourage people to look for systematic and sanitary ways to discard rubbish.  Initially just holes in the ground, landfills have evolved and are better managed to reduce environmental damage. Many landfills are governed by regulations to ensure they are self -contained. Landfills are lined with an impermeable layer to prevent the migration of materials into air, soil and waterways. However,  in landfill, waste is compacted which creates an environment devoid of oxygen. When material breaks down in this anaerobic atmosphere landfill gas is created, in particular, high concentrations of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more deadly than CO₂ when it comes to global warming. Some landfills have a system for capturing theses greenhouse gas emissions,  harnessing them for energy. Methane can be burned off in the same way as oil or coal but this process still results in the production and release of CO₂ as a by- product, into the atmosphere.

Landfills are all well and good while they are monitored, but eventually, they will reach capacity, be closed off and no longer tightly managed. Toxic leachates, chemicals and gases will continue to be produced within and eventually will break out. As such landfills are not the best long-term solution for waste.

What about Waste- to energy (WtE)?

Waste to energy technologies vary. The most well known and recognized is incineration, or rather the combustion of waste materials. For WtE, the incinerator incorporates technology that generates energy from the heat produced during the combustion process.

It sounds like a great concept to get rid of waste and use it for energy instead of fossil fuels. WtE is even sometimes touted as the harnessing of energy from a renewable resource. The goal of WtE is to divert waste away from landfill however waste incinerators do not completely eliminate waste. Incineration simply converts existing waste from its existing form into another form - ash, heat and gases.

While waste is reduced by weight and volume, the ash waste still needs to be disposed of. Additionally a large amount of waste is needed to produce a very small percentage of our power needs, so WtE is really a waste management solution as opposed to a solution for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Debate is ongoing in whether investing more heavily in WtE is the best solution. While a better option then landfill, WtE is still a lineal disposal method. Resources that could be recovered and used by a secondary industry via recycling are destroyed and therefore wasted.

Recycling for true zero waste.

Recycling is the Holy Grail of waste disposal for inorganic materials. Creating a circular economy where the resources we extract from the earth are reused, delivers long term benefits to the environment by preserving non-renewable materials and reducing pollution.  It takes a lot less energy to reuse raw materials then it does to harvest them in the first place. Thoughtfully considering end of life solutions before a product is manufactured, then designing it so that raw materials can be recovered and recycled, is the best and most productive way to reduce waste. Recycling is a value-add strategy and completely the opposite of landfilling. We need to move away from the concept of “single-use”.  

A recent survey of members conducted by the New Zealand Sign and Display Association showed that the majority of materials our industry uses are going to landfill. Corflute, vinyl, application tape, backing paper and protective films being the biggest offenders. **

So why is it that our recycling figures are so bad?

There are a number of reasons.

• Lack of local infrastructure to collect and process potentially recyclable materials.
• Continued manufacture of materials that are not recyclable such as PVC
• Cost Sensitivity from businesses when considering alternative media for their advertising spend  (both material and recycling costs).
• Education – customers are either not fully aware that green alternatives are available or they do not understand the environmental impact of their existing print media.

Some barriers to recycling are outside of our control, and some are not.  As consumers of material, we can be more selective in what we use and design projects to be less wasteful from the start. The cost barrier to green alternatives is nowhere near as high as it was years ago. Products like PVC are cheap because they are used and manufactured in high volume. When we apply the same scale to green media the price will decrease. If you want costs to come down, support businesses who are introducing sustainable products.

Cost is directly related to value. Some of your customers may not care about sustainability but there are an increasing number of businesses with strong sustainability objectives who will pay the premium for solutions that align with their business goals. A 10 to 20% increase in material cost doesn’t translate to a 10 to 20% increase in the overall job. The end percentage increase will be less and may well be within the client’s budget especially if they see the value of what they are getting.  This is more easily achieved if you can substantiate the sustainable benefits and make the recycling process easy and transparent. Customers are much more likely to engage with a user- friendly take back model and one where they know the products will be recycled and used locally, rather than shipped offshore into the unknown.

Change requires collective effort. Zero waste is not a technology but a vision to create a sustainable society. Reducing waste is a good start but not a stand- alone strategy. It is simply a means of just buying a little more time.  Landfill and Waste- to- energy solutions get rid of our waste but they are the mindset of a linear economy. The best outcome is recycling for zero-waste. Using substrates and media that can be recycled end of life ensures that finite and valuable resources are preserved and the environment protected.

References:

*www.awe.gov.au

**Closing the Loop on Sustainability Report- 2021

Written by Denise Kirby

Denise Kirby has over 27 years experience as a supplier of self adhesive products to the sign and print industry. Initially starting out in the family business as a distributor of  consumables she went on to work for leading self adhesive manufacturers in marketing , business and product development roles across Australia and New Zealand.  She now has her own business, Kirbyco, which focuses on environmentally friendly, recyclable and sustainable print solutions.

Denise is highly passionate about the industry and enjoys writing about applications and opportunities in print in and signage with the goal of inspiring people to explore new creative and functional opportunities with film as well as educating the industry on products, trends and new innovations.