• Home
• >
• Welcome
• >
• Services
• >
• Waste Management
• >
• Zero Waste

Zero Waste

What is Zero Waste?

Zero Waste :

• aims to eliminate rather than “manage” waste.
• is a whole system approach that aims for a massive change in the way materials flow through society - resulting in NO WASTE.
• is both an end of pipe solution which encourages waste diversion through recycling and resource recovery, and a guiding design philosophy for eliminating waste at source and at all points down the supply chain.
• is a unifying concept or “brand” for a basket of existing and emerging technologies aimed at the elimination of waste.
• resets the compass with new tools and new ways of thinking so that normal, everyday activities contribute to the answer rather than the problem.
• redesigns the current, one-way industrial system into a circular system modelled on Nature’s successful strategies.
• helps communities achieve a local economy that operates efficiently, sustains good jobs, and provides a measure of self-sufficiency.
• maximises recycling, minimises waste, reduces consumption and ensures that products are made to be reused, repaired or recycled back into nature or the marketplace.
• is a powerful new concept that enables us to challenge old ways of thinking and inspires new attitudes and behaviour - the hallmarks of a breakthrough strategy.

Is it possible to achieve Zero Waste?

At first, Zero Waste seems impossible. How can we expect to eliminate all waste and, if we could, wouldn’t it be prohibitively expensive? Even if we could afford it, where would we start?

Fortunately, Zero Waste isn’t something that we need to invent from scratch. After all, it builds on the longest running, most successful Zero Waste model of all - Nature. Even in our human-made world, many of the building blocks are already in place, with many successful models throughout the world. Zero Waste is a goal - like the manufacturing goals of Zero Emissions, Zero Accidents and Zero Defects – or like the ‘Smoke Free’ and ‘Nuclear Free’ campaign goals. All of these were adopted as ‘impossible’ targets at the beginning but have since proved their worth by dramatically changing industry and society.

Visit www.zerowaste.co.nz for further information.

In this section