From a meeting in Stroud, England – ideas on waste.

British-born scientist Dr Connett, who is professor of chemistry at St Lawrence University in New York, offered the stark warning that we would need an additional four planets of space to handle the waste generated in America alone.
“We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to,” he said.
“Waste is evidence that we are doing something wrong.”
He then outlined the damaging system of extraction, production, consumption and waste that has created the world’s spiraling problems, and argued that incineration does nothing to break the trend.
He also described the technology as wholly uneconomical – citing one Italian plant that cost 300 million euros to build with the creation of just 80 jobs.
Dr Connett became more animated as he delved into the damaging health implications of incineration – describing how four tons of waste emits one ton of toxic air emissions.
These, he warned, remain airbourne for lengthy periods and often slip through air pollution control equipment.
Having summed up the dangers to start, the second half of his talk explored the solutions as he outlined his ‘10 simple steps’ to zero waste.
Chief among these is the need to compost and reuse as much as possible.
He also called on industries to radically reduce packaging, as he put it: “If it can not be recycled, reused or composted, industry should not be making it in the 21st Century.”
Each point he made was backed up with real-world examples, such as San Francisco’s aim to achieve zero waste status by 2012, and how the Spanish town of Usurbil managed to radically reduce its residual waste levels in just seven months by recycling, reusing and composting.
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