Unlike in nature, where all “waste” is actually “food” for something else and systems are cyclical, human economic and manufacturing systems are highly linear. We extract raw materials from the environment, expend enormous quantities of fossil fuel energy shipping and processing these raw materials, combine these into useful products (with as much as 95% of the original material extracted from the environment ending up as waste in the process), market and sell these products, use them and then dispose of them in a landfill. After this we start the same process all over again. This not only puts undue strain on limited landfill space, it also represents an enormous waste of useful material and energy.
Environmental scientists and others are designing and developing new approaches to manufacturing and marketing consumer products that “mimic” natural systems. The idea is to develop a manufacturing system where all waste is treated as a potential resource, and to “design waste out of the system.” Such approaches go by many names: zero waste, industrial ecology, cradle-to-cradle design, extended product responsibility, and so on. But they all have one thing in common, they represent a fundamental transformation of the way we make and use products, they are the “next industrial revolution.”
All of the approaches to re-designing industrial systems described above could fall under the approach known as Natural Capitalism. This is an approach to capitalism that recognizes that natural systems are fundamental to human economic survival, and that therefore strives to invest in rather than deplete sources of natural capital (e.g. ecosystems, resources). Read this excellent primer on Natural Capitalism.
A new movement known as Zero Waste argues that waste is not inevitable, it’s just a sign of bad design. Here are a couple of short readings from a web page focusing on the Zero Waste concept:
The Zero Waste group mentioned above has an interesting video on the concept. I had trouble increasing the size of the video, but you can still see most of the movie here.
McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) is a company that is at the forefront of re-designing industrial systems. Their web page has a lot of interesting information and examples of ways to do this.
The European Union has recently launched the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive which will require manufacturers of electrical devices to “take back” all of the products they sell after their useful life is up. This is already having a major impact on the way companies manufacture and market their products. An explanation of the WEEE Directive can be found here. A REALLY COOL work of art made from waste electronic equipment is called the WEEE Man; check out pictures of this thing here.
The Grassroots Recycling Network has a page on Campus Zero Waste with ideas for what college students can do.
If you have electronic waste don’t just throw it away! I did a quick Google search with the keywords “computer recycling” and “electronic recycling” and there are dozens of programs out there to help you find ways to recycle products you no longer need. Some companies like Dell, HP and Apple have their own recycling programs. Ideally, computer and electronic equipment recycling would be even easier (and some day it will), but in the meantime, take the extra effort to recycle rather than toss that electronic product.