A journey to zero waste for RTP
By Jared Goldman, UNC Math and Computer Science student
“Zero waste” is often perceived as a lofty goal sought by radicals who have no interest in profit, but this is a misconception. Dozens of companies and municipalities including Coca-Cola; Walmart; Austin, Texas; and Napa, California are embracing zero-waste goals to generate value for their customers and constituents.
To quantify its decision, Austin released a strategic plan demonstrating that over $40 million of value was being shipped to landfills, away from the local economy. Using the techniques pioneered by other major cities and corporations, we can employ tried and true methods to eliminate waste and generate value within the Triangle.
The benefits of creative waste redirection will be threefold. It will create local jobs for innovators, generate value for companies, and reduce natural resource consumption. There are several promising ways to eliminate the need for landfills. It won’t happen overnight but deliberate, iterative processes have been proven to achieve zero waste in as few as 20 years.
Recology is an organization poised to make a massive impact in the mission to achieve zero waste within the US. They partner with communities to educate and advocate for zero waste solutions in classrooms, boardrooms, and everywhere in between. Recology uses their massive pool of passionate and experienced talent to provide real solutions to pain points in local waste streams. For instance, they reduced the cost of waste management for a housing complex in Foster City, CA by 22% over the course of 4 years through targeted approaches to the development's unique problems.
If the Research Triangle called on Recology to troubleshoot local waste management, we could see massive benefits. The power of their insight would compound over time due to the massive growth of the region and subsequent waste generation. By identifying proactive solutions to waste management and reuse, we can mitigate the environmental impacts of further expansion.
The city of Austin also implemented a practical approach to achieve zero waste waste in a high growth region. Their plan could serve as a model for the RTP area as both of the regions have similar demographic compositions in terms of industry and population. One of the many aspects of the plan that Austin employed was their policy on construction and demolition projects.
They mandate that large building or demolition projects (5,000ft2or more) must recycle at least half of the byproduct. This generates a significant amount of valuable raw materials for other building projects and organizations that would have been landfill bound otherwise. The Research Triangle area could greatly benefit from pursuing some of the policies laid out by the city of Austin. These plans offer centralized strategies to save money and resources for many stakeholders designed for a similar socio-economic demographic as the RTP region.
The journey to zero waste requires targeted approaches designed to eliminate specific sources of excess. While it can be difficult to identify the changes that need to be implemented, there has already been significant work in the field across the United States and around the world that we can learn from. By using the knowledge of established innovators, we can create solutions for the Triangle that address our region’s unique needs by leveraging existing technology, policy, and methodology.
