The Road to Sustainable Materials Management Does Not Go Through Business As Usual
By Rob Watson, Chief Strategy Officer, EcoHub; Founder & Co-Chair SWEEP Steering Committee [Rob also is the founding chair of the LEED Green Building Rating System of the U.S. Green Building Council AND he moonlights as the steward of the Elizabeth (Betty) Hubbard Memorial Garden in Sara Roosevelt Park]
Recap and Foreword
In Part 1 of this article, we discussed how landfill diversion rates are stagnant, single stream contamination is growing, waste stream composition is changing and asked the question: What can we do to make greater use of the more than 400 million tons of materials that are discarded each year in the U.S.? Part 2 described problems with the half-way solutions proposed for improving diversion through reducing consumers’ involvement in separation, including initial attempts to separate and recycle mixed waste and suggests that the EcoHub’s Circular Integration approach is a better model for 21st century smarter resource management.
In this final piece we argue that mixed waste processing—done right—can 1) ensure 100% participation, 2) divert up to 95% of materials from worthless disposal and 3) refocus consumers on things they do better, such as make purchase decisions…almost sounds too good to be true!
Read more here.