Zero Waste Reduces “Consumption Emissions”

Nearly half of our global greenhouse gas emissions come from the extraction and processing of materials, fuels, and food (not including climate impacts related to land use). This means adopting a Zero Waste system and changing the way we produce, consume, and dispose of our stuff is critical to reducing global carbon pollution. Yet too often, Zero Waste is not even a part of the climate discussion.

A Zero Waste system can reduce carbon pollution in three ways:

• saving energy (and thus emissions) by using recycled materials to make new products;
• reducing methane emissions from landfills, which results when organic matter is landfilled; and
• pulling carbon out of the atmosphere by applying finished compost to our soils to increase their ability to sequester carbon.

Together, these solutions offer a tremendous opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By 2030, Zero Waste strategies could reduce GHG emissions by more than 400 million metric tons of CO2 per year, the equivalent of taking over 80 US coal-fired power plants off the grid! To put this in context, Zero Waste offers greater annual GHG savings than many other prominent climate strategies such as expanding nuclear power or significantly improving vehicle efficiency.

This video highlights the importance of Zero Waste as a local and global climate solution, and offers four critical steps to moving forward. (PS—Share it with your community leaders to help introduce Zero Waste into the climate discussion.)

Zero Waste Is One of the Fastest, Easiest, Most Cost-Effective Short-Term Climate Solutions

Solving our climate crisis means completely transforming our energy sources and transportation systems. These are both big and complex problems, and time is needed to develop comprehensive solutions. Unfortunately, time is in short supply as the impacts of climate change accelerate. Fortunately, Zero Waste strategies can be implemented TODAY, using existing technologies and proven programs, to produce immediate results. Zero Waste can essentially help buy us some time as we work to implement other systemic changes around energy use and transportation.

Zero Waste strategies are also cost-effective climate solutions. ICLEI, one of the leading networks of local governments for sustainability, recognizes recycling and composting as some of the most cost-effective actions local governments can take to reduce community GHG emissions.

Communities around the world are actively investing in Zero Waste as a priority climate action. One of California’s first actions in its landmark statewide climate change policy was to require businesses and apartment complexes to recycle, a move that will reduce GHG emissions by five million metric tons.

Zero Waste addresses the entire system of how we make, consume, and dispose of our stuff, and can substantially reduce climate emissions by changing what and how much we buy, what resources went into making it, how long it’s designed to last, how much gets reused, recycled, or composted, and what we throw away.

Three Ways Zero Waste Reduces Carbon Pollution

Zero Waste reduces carbon pollution in three critical ways: saving energy, reducing methane emissions from landfills, and pulling carbon out of the atmosphere by applying finished compost to our soils. These solutions are covered in detail below.

Zero Waste Saves Energy 

The immediate and largest climate savings from Zero Waste come from the energy we save when we use recycled materials to make new products. Using recyclables such as old newspapers, plastic bottles, and aluminum cans to make new products requires 30–90% less energy than making products from trees, fossil fuels, or metal ores. This means we burn fewer fossil fuels—including oil, natural gas, and coal—and produce fewer GHG emissions. Recycling one ton of materials saves an average of three tons of carbon emissions.

Composting Can Reverse Damage from Carbon Pollution

Composting is a critical part of a Zero Waste system and provides two tremendous benefits for reducing climate pollution. First, we can reduce GHG emissions from landfills by composting organic materials instead. Then, when we add finished compost to our soils on our farms and gardens, these healthier soils and plants are better able to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it in our soils. This means composting not only reduces the emissions going up into our atmosphere, but it can actually decrease our current levels of carbon dioxide, making composting one of the easiest actions a community can take to reduce its climate footprint.

Zero Waste Reduces Methane Emissions

Modern landfills are designed so there is no oxygen inside the landfill once it’s covered. This means biodegradable materials, such as leftover food and grass clippings, decompose anaerobically, or in the absence of oxygen. This process creates methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 84 times more heat in our atmosphere than carbon dioxide in the short term. By contrast, composting breaks down biodegradable materials in the presence of oxygen and water, just like what happens in nature, and doesn’t produce potent methane emissions.

Landfills are the third largest source of methane emissions in the US. In 2017, they emitted 107 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMTCO2e) as measured in terms of climate warming potential over 100 years. However, because warming from methane happens over a shorter period of time than warming from CO2, it is more meaningful to look at the impact of methane over the short term (e.g., over 20 years), than to average it over 100 years. When we consider the impacts of methane over the short term, we see that landfills are emitting 308 MMTCO2e every year—the amount of CO2 that would be produced annually by 79 coal-fired power plants.

Reducing methane emissions from landfills represents a huge opportunity to fight climate change, and the timing couldn’t be more important. There is global consensus that we need to rapidly reduce climate emissions by 80% by 2050. We need fast solutions to meet this rapidly approaching deadline, and reducing methane has been flagged as a critical focus in the next decade.

Methane is one of three special greenhouse gases called Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs). True to their name, these gases are very short-lived, but they have an outsized impact on our climate: SLCPs are responsible for 40–45% of global warming to date. The good news is that if we can reduce SLCPs such as methane in the near term, we can see rapid results. Aggressive actions to reduce SLCP emissions could cut in half the amount of warming that would occur over the next few decades.

The best way to reduce methane emissions from landfills is simple: keep organic materials OUT of landfills by composting leftover food and yard debris and reducing food waste.

• See our fact sheet on the short-term vs. long-term impacts of GHG emissions and why we should measure methane emissions over their 20-year impact

Composting Can Pull Carbon Out of Our Atmosphere

Composting not only reduces the powerful climate impacts of methane, it also creates an incredible carbon sink.

When compost is applied to soil, it provides several important benefits. First, compost creates healthier soil by adding carbon to the ground, which in turn grows healthier plants that photosynthesize more, thereby directly pulling more carbon out of the atmosphere. In addition, these healthier plants store more carbon in the soil and directly nourish soil ecosystems. All told, soils store three times more carbon than our atmosphere, making soil carbon storage one of our best strategies to reduce carbon levels in our atmosphere.

Modern agriculture has greatly depleted the amount of soil carbon around the world, which opens up the possibility to restore carbon in our soils through better agricultural practices and land use management. In addition to adding compost, manure, or other soil amendments that directly add carbon to the soil, other primary ways to increase carbon storage in our soil include:

• Reduced-tillage or no-tillage practices, which reduce carbon loss by lowering decay rates and building stronger, healthier plant roots.
• Use of cover crops to reduce carbon loss and increase carbon storage through enhanced plant photosynthesis.
• Reduce erosion and carbon loss by contour plowing, terracing, and other techniques.

Increasing soil carbon produces other important benefits as well, including improving soil fertility, water retention, and greater crop resilience, all of which would help agriculture adapt to a warming world. More soil carbon would also reduce the amount of fertilizer needed, decreasing emissions of another powerful GHG—nitrous oxide.

Research out of California shows that widespread compost use could make a big dent in our carbon emissions. Applying compost to 25% of California’s grasslands would sequester 21 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere—equivalent to taking nearly 4.5 million cars off the road each year.

This dual-action benefit of reducing methane emissions and pulling carbon dioxide down out of the atmosphere makes composting one of the most important, immediate actions a community can take to reduce its climate impacts.

• Learn more about carbon farming and how applying compost to our soils can help pull carbon out of the atmosphere and fight climate change

Zero Waste Programs Create Green Jobs and a Strong Local Economy

Zero Waste programs can create jobs in your community—whether you’re in a large or small, urban or rural area. And, Zero Waste programs strengthen your economy by keeping dollars and materials circulating through your region. Here’s why everyone from small towns all the way up to the United Nations is embracing Zero Waste programs as a strategy to drive economic development.

Zero Waste Creates More Jobs Than Trash

Zero Waste programs that reuse, repair, recycle, and compost materials create more jobs than landfills and incinerators per ton of materials handled:

• Recycling creates an average of nine times more jobs than trash.
• Composting creates at least twice as many jobs as landfills and four times as many jobs as incineration facilities.
• Reuse creates as many as 30 times more jobs than landfills.

On a national level, the US recycling industry generates $117 billion in economic activity annually. According to the EPA’s 2020 Recycling Economic Information (REI) Report, recycling and reuse activities in the United States accounted for:

• 681,000 jobs;
• $37.8 billion in wages; and
• $5.5 billion in tax revenues

This equates to 1.17 jobs for every 1,000 tons of materials recycled.

Economic Impacts of Recycling at the State Level

More than a dozen states have reports on the economic benefits and job creation from recycling within the state. Here are a few highlights and resources for more information:

• South Carolina: The state’s investment in recycling businesses has been highly successful in driving job growth—from 2006 to 2014, the economic impact nearly doubled and job growth grew 44%. Recycling in SC now accounts for $13 billion in total economic impact, pays $329 million in state and local taxes, and provides 54,121 jobs.
• Minnesota: Almost 46,000 people are directly employed by the state’s reuse sector, which annually generates more than $4 billion in gross sales, amounting to 1.6% of Minnesota’s gross domestic product and employment base.
• Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania: Recycling and reuse drive a $35 billion per year industry in these 5 states with more than 11,000 recycling and reuse businesses that employ more than 100,000 individuals and pay over $4.2 billion in wages.

Use this tool to estimate the economic impact in your state and check out this summary report on the economic impacts of recycling in various states.

The US Could Create 1.1 Million New Jobs by Recycling 75% of Our Discards

Recycling, reuse, and manufacturing jobs are critical to meeting our local, state, and national goals to create more green jobs. Recycling creates strong job growth and opportunities for entry-level and mid-level workers, and can replace jobs lost in manufacturing. Jobs in the recycling industry typically have a low barrier to entry and offer an average of over $70,000 in wages and benefits.

To learn more, check out the report “More Jobs, Less Pollution: Growing the Recycling Economy in the U.S.,” which details how transforming the “waste” sector into a “materials management” sector will support the economy and the environment.

Zero Waste Strengthens the Local Economy

In addition to providing jobs directly in the recycling sector, Zero Waste gives value back to the community by keeping materials—and dollars—out of the landfill. Every ton of trash that gets buried in your local landfill contains products like paper, plastic, and metal that could have been sold for recycling. That’s money that could have supported community and local businesses. The US buries over $11 billion every year in potential revenue from materials that were trashed instead of being sold for recycling.

Three Ways Zero Waste Creates Jobs

• 1) Collecting, processing, and preparing materials. Your discarded materials are picked up and then brought to processing facilities where they are sorted and prepared to sell to markets.
• 2) Making new products from recycles materials (remanufacturing). Your recyclables then head to paper mills, metal smelters, and plastic manufacturing facilities that use recycled materials to make new products. Compost facilities turn your discarded yard and food scraps into valuable soil amendments or energy (through the anaerobic digestion process).
• 3) Reuse and repair businesses that sell reclaimed products. These include antique stores, thrift stores, tailors, auto salvage yards, computer refurbishers, used book stores, and more.

Examples of Jobs from Recycling and Reuse

• Blue Star Recyclers: Electronics Recycling and Local Job Creation
  Blue Star Recyclers in Colorado and Illinois is a social enterprise that employs people with autism and other developmental disabilities through electronics recycling. Blue Star has provided over 40 local jobs through its three Front Range locations and contributed $4 million in new local revenues while saving taxpayers $1.5 million. In places without permanent recycling facilities, such as Steamboat Springs in Colorado, Blue Star partners with local communities to put on annual collection events. Blue Star demonstrates how social enterprises can align environmental goals with social and fiscal contributions.
• Rebuilding Exchange: Building Materials Reuse and Job Training
  Rebuilding Exchange, a social enterprise in Chicago, Illinois, was founded in 2009 to repurpose building materials and provide job training to people with barriers to employment. Since then, the organization has diverted over 9,400 tons of building materials from the landfill and created a strong local market for reclamation and reuse. Rebuilding Exchange has trained over 80 people with barriers to employment for jobs in an increasingly circular economy and serves over 16,000 customers each year with access to reclaimed building materials and educational workshops. The Rebuilding Exchange illustrates how sustainable enterprises can strengthen every facet of a community.
• Florence, Alabama: Local Recycling Program Leading the Way in Serving Rural Communities
  The city of Florence, Alabama, began curbside recycling in 1988, founding one of the oldest recycling programs in the state. The recycling center in Florence is owned and operated by the city and processes about 3,300 tons of material per year from the city, nearby institutions, and surrounding rural areas. Mayor Steve Holt has noted that Florence avoided more than $1 million in landfill fees from 2009 to 2019 while bringing in revenue from the sale of materials to nearby manufacturers. The program contributes to regional jobs, including the 1,200 people employed at the aluminum recycling center Florence delivers to, and is a leading model of a recycling program that serves rural areas while supporting local economies.