If we think of a city as a living organism, energy and waste are essential parts of the urban metabolism. Join us for an enlightening conversation with zero waste consultant, Alisa Shargorodsky as we explore the challenges of recycling programs, and the impact of recyclables, compostables and single-use packaging on the urban ecosystem.
While they may seem a responsible and sustainable alternative to plastic, you’ll discover the shocking and disappointing truth about compostable single-use items as they currently exist and the threat they pose to both health and environment. This is an eye-opening and myth-busting interview, exposing some uncomfortable truths and challenging us to better solutions. A deeper understanding of the single use product life-cycle makes it clear that sustainability can’t happen until we dispose of disposables and our “convenience-driven” lifestyles to embrace reusables and renewables. In other words, the path to sustainability starts with conscious consumption, voting with our dollars and making a cultural shift to products that sacrifice single-use and serving-size convenience in service to the social good.
When we purchase anything, we must think about its extended life, particularly when we are talking about polymer based materials such as plastic. Plastic has many negative impacts on humans and the biosphere but we aren’t encouraged to think about this. Plastic
is a wonderful invention when we are talking about using it in automobiles or airplanes to make them light weight. However our market place has become a cash cow for the petroleum industry and we should understand that our habits and silence contribute to this.
Scientists find that the plastics developed when polymer sciences started to boom, are still here today. Can we imagine globally what that looks like?
Here in Pennsylvania, we experience a high level of resource degradation because much of our trash gets burned in an incinerator. Please follow this link to learn more.
The word Zero Waste has become coopted by the waste to energy industry to make us think it’s ecological, but that is not the case and these myths should be dispelled. In addition to this, many of us think that recycling is the best thing we can do to divert our
trash. Recycling markets are not stable. They vary from place to place. Did you know that for more than forty years we have been sending most of our recycling materials to China for processing? Can we imagine the fuel consumption of millions of bales
of materials crossing the ocean? Please follow this link to learn more.
Correction: Paul Hawkins book is called Natural Capitalism. I’m not sure why my brain was glitching out. Sorry to the listeners.
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