Here’s how Wayne Edwards put it in his opening remarks for the public consultation. “We’re talking about a complete change in the way people do business,” he said. “We’re putting a stake in the ground. And when we look back at this stake ten years from now, we’ll be looking from a place that’s very different from where we are today.”

Wayne is vice president of the Electrical Equipment Manufacturers Association of Canada (EEMAC). The business change he was referring to? BC’s proposed takeback program for fluorescent lights (tubes and CFLs), which launches province-wide this July.

The program will be the complete responsibility, administratively and financially, of the companies that make the products and put them on the market. Eight of EEMAC’s members (EiKO, GE, Liteline, Osram Sylvania, Panasonic, Philips, Standard and USHIO) have banded together to form a non-profit stewardship agency to oversee and fund this new takeback program. (Actual program management has been contracted out to Product Care, the agency that manages BC’s stewardship programs for paint, pesticides, solvents and gasoline.) Municipalities? Not responsible. As Wayne reminded the audience, this is the first full producer responsibility program for fluorescent lights in the country. (Indeed, in North America.)

One thing I like to point out is that, although these manufacturers needed a regulatory nudge, they’re not fighting it. As one colleague said to me after the meeting, “Ten years ago, industry was throwing their lawyers at some of BC’s first stewardship programs. Now, instead of fighting it, they’re working with it. It makes it a lot easier to roll out a program.”

Companies are recognizing, then, that they can stall or shape their takeback programs. Fortunately, industry associations like EEMAC are stepping in to shape them. Especially in BC, where they have the flexibility to design them their way, provided they meet the environmental targets in the Recycling Regulation.

In future posts, I’ll explore some key features of the program (and, of course, offer my perspective on strengths, and opportunities for further strengthening). For now, I’ll leave you with the sense of possibility I left with that day.

At the end of the meeting, I was chatting with a few other sweet tooths who stayed behind to polish off those frisbee-sized cookies (the ones that got blocked behind all the extra chairs). That’s when an industry rep made this prediction. “In ten years, everybody’s going to be cradle-to-cradle,” he said. “Everybody.”

Instead what I’m doing is writing a letter to the editor of the Vancouver Sun, rebutting an Earth Day Challenge letter published today by the company that operates the Burnaby incinerator. (Burnaby is one of the 21 municipalities that make up Metro Vancouver).

This is how it goes these days for some of us waste reducers and recyclers in BC. We would much rather work on positive, progressive, waste-reducing projects, from rolling out green bins (yes, BC is still catching up), to establishing resource recovery parks, to laying the groundwork for new takeback programs. Not to mention creating financial incentives to develop recycling technologies, make it easy for consumers to make less wasteful choices, and help companies phase out toxins and design out waste. The problem is, we’re splitting our time by fending off an influx of waste-to-energy interests. (Incineration companies are flocking to BC on the whiff of Metro Vancouver’s billion-dollar bait for more incinerators – which is backed by a provincial Energy Plan that rebrands garbage as a clean, renewable source of energy.)

It’s not all bad. I enjoy a healthy debate. But I am hoping we can turn things around soon and pour our attention into reducing, reusing and recycling.

Tomorrow, I will post the letter that I just sent the editor tonight. We’ll see if it gets published. Meanwhile, I’m hoping that if you have exciting zero waste examples from your home, business or community, you’ll share it with us in the comments.

Happy Earth Day!

I’m not 100% comfortable with the term “zero waste.”

Four years ago, when Fin Donnelly, now Member of Parliament, then Metro Vancouver director, made a motion for Metro Vancouver to adopt the ZWIA definition of zero waste, I’ll admit it – I rolled my eyes.

It’s not that I disagreed with it. (I was Metro’s waste reduction analyst at the time.) It’s that I didn’t want to get caught in the debate over the “zeroness” of zero waste.

The “zero” in zero waste invites infinite ridicule: “No industrial system is 100% efficient.” “There will always be waste.” “Ever heard of entropy?”

I wanted to keep my head down. Focus on building cases for new takeback programs. Work towards the intent of zero waste without necessarily calling it that.

(What’s interesting to me, now, is how a growing number of people – and businesses – are getting excited about zero waste. The more the people get excited, the more the politicians get excited about an opportunity to lead a movement. The greater the sense of movement, the more acceptable the term zero waste.)

How I became a defender of zero waste is a story for another day. For now, suffice it to say that I subscribe to the “darn close” camp. And darn close, to me, is best captured in the city of Oakland, California’s 90% less waste to landfill goal. It’s concrete, it’s necessary, and for where I live here in Metro Vancouver, I would apply it like this: 90% less garbage to landfill per year by 2030 (without incineration).

That’s what I mean when I talk about zero waste.

(By the way, I mean the same when I say “waste-free economy.” Yes, it’s hyperbole. It’s also more elegant than a “10%-of-the-garbage-we-incinerate-or-landfill-now economy.”)

What’s your take on zero waste?

But that’s not why I took this picture.

What made me pull out my camera is this: It struck me, instantly, that the sign isn’t just celebrating dreams being lived. It’s more of a command, an urging to bring about the dreams that need to be lived. Even if you have to step nicely around the naysayers.

My dream is to work in a bright green, waste-free, recycling-based economy, one that’s powered by carbon-free energy. My dream is to prove that the most livable city in the world can achieve zero waste to landfill within 20 years (and no, that does not include incineration). My dream is to make that happen by creating systems that reward reducing and penalize wasting, so that doing the right thing is the most convenient, cost-effective, no-brainer choice. My dream is to do business in a commerce where doing business is not just a function of putting products on the market, but also a function of, when the time comes, closing the loop by taking those products back. My dream is to create an economy that’s so efficient, we’ll have to erase the word garbage from the English language, and I’ll have to figure out a new company name.

This blog is part of that dream. For years now, I’ve wanted to create a place to bring together those who work in the waste-reducing field, and those who want to live waste-free. To create a place to popularize the concept of producer responsibility and takeback programs by bringing together policy shapers, business leaders, planners, recyclers, industrial designers, politicians, journalists, and, of course, waste-reducing lifestylers, so we can cross-pollinate our ideas and experiences, and drive this change. It’s my belief that if people knew what they could ask for, they would. And the more they ask for it, the faster we who work in this field can make it happen.

This then, is a gathering place for Team Zero.

Rule #32.

Here we go.