The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time

by Paul Connett

Waste is something we all make every day but often pay little attention to. That's changing, and model programs around the globe show the many different ways a community can strive for, and achieve, zero-waste status.

Scientist-turned-activist Paul Connett, a leading international figure in decades-long battles to fight pollution, has championed efforts to curtail overconsumption and keep industrial toxins out of our air and drinking water and bodies. But he’s best known around the world for leading efforts to help communities deal with their waste in sustainable ways—in other words, to eliminate and reuse waste rather than burn it or stow it away in landfills.

In The Zero Waste Solution, Connett profiles the most successful zero-waste initiatives around the world, showing activists, planners, and entrepreneurs how to re-envision their community’s waste-handling process—by consuming less, turning organic waste into compost, recycling, reusing other waste, demanding nonwasteful product design, and creating jobs and bringing community members together in the process. The book also exposes the greenwashing behind renewed efforts to promote waste incinerators as safe, nontoxic energy suppliers, and gives detailed information on how communities can battle incineration projects that, even at their best, emit dangerous particles into the atmosphere, many of which remain unregulated or poorly regulated.

An important toolkit for anyone interested in creating sustainable communities, generating secure local jobs, and keeping toxic alternatives at bay.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment, Sustainability, Science, Green

531 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 9, 2013

About the author

Professor of Chemistry
St. Lawrence University
New York

Dr. Paul Connett is the Director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and the Executive Director of its parent body, the American Environmental Health Studies Project (AEHSP). He has spoken and given more than 2,000 presentations in forty-nine states and fifty-two countries on the issue of waste management. He holds a bachelors degree from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Dartmouth College and is a retired professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at St. Lawrence University. He lives in Canton, New York.

Reviews

[Maia]

Finally finished this. It took me about 6 weeks to read it, not because it's dense- it's actually quite conversational or even informal in tone- but it's packed with information. I learned a lot. The previous book I had read on this topic ended on a pro-waste-to-energy incineration note. This book rips up the concept of safe waste incineration. Even the most well monitored, carefully run incinerators are probably releasing nano-particles, ash and dioxins, destroying potentially re-usable resources and creating pollution. Paul Connett has been campaigning against waste incineration since 1985, and that fight lead him into the larger global struggle for sustainable waste management focused on composting, reducing, reusing, repairing and recycling to cut down the residual waste stream as much as possible. Another big take-away from this book is that Zero Waste is not a new trend. I would almost say that the more current use of zero waste by bloggers like Bea Johnson is co-opting a term that is a lot more powerful and effective went implemented on a community scale, rather than in a single house hold. It's good when individuals or families make a commitment to aim for zero waste; but as a movement that started in the late 80s/early 90s, Zero Waste has historically been about wider scale change. This book calls for limiting the extraction of virgin materials, the production of single use items, reducing the pollution caused by manufacturing and waste of resources caused by landfill and incineration. They present case studies of many communities, particularly in the US, Canada and Italy, that have made practical changes on the level of policy and infrastructure over the past few decades. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this issue, especially if your community is currently debating a new waste management system; the appendix includes a list of questions to bring up at city council meetings about planned incinerator projects.

[Jacqui]

Connett provides a thoroughly researched book on the continued fight for Zero Waste. Written in 2013 this book marks a difficult journey of success and failures as proposals of incinerators and landfills are proved time and time again as instigators of global warming, decreased quality of life and undeniable causes of major environmental disrepair. The tone was hopeful as an array of experts discussed the environmental and economic gain of moving towards Zero Waste as an alternative to incineration and landfill, while providing real examples of this happening in communities around the world. Living in the age of a Zero Waste trend, where being Zero Waste within the home is exemplified as the singular way to impact change, The Zero Waste Solution, provides pressure for the need of societal change - in order to see Zero Waste implemented on multiple levels, from the consumer to the manufacturer. While this book has provided insight beyond belief into the Zero Waste movement, I felt true fear, we are nowhere near the goal of "Zero Waste by 2020", as of reading in 2019. I truly wonder what Connett's perspective is on the rise of the selling and trade of plastics for apparent "off-shore recycling", with China a former lead receiver of plastics, as of 2019 they are no longer accepting plastics from many "Western Countries". All of a sudden many States have found a problem that once remained out of sight out of mind, to once again forced back into the periphery, with the cyclic proposal of more landfills and incinerators. Maybe we should send our policymakers a copy of this book to help them with this problem.

[Chris Anderson]

This is a well-researched account of the zero waste movement and it’s various manifestations around the world. The author spends a fair amount of time arguing against incinerators (rightly so) and perhaps too much time on history. Even so, there is substantial discussion of practical strategies and examples of zero waste initiatives, but I often found myself wanting more details.

[Andrea]

This book was a lot more research then I expected. I was not looking for scientific information, just info a regular person can use on a day to day basis.

[Jedi]

Not bad but not interesting enough for me

[Isabelle]

Inspirational

[Joomi Lee]

I have not yet read this from cover to cover yet.

[Joomi Lee]

Holy spirit can make trash disappear into clean air.

I haven't read this book yet from cover to cover, if at all.

[Darby]

Only 42 pages in and so informative already. Clearly we have a huge problem on our hands with a linear society and it is ugly, but the enthusiasm and common-sense approach that Paul and his colleagues take to tackle these issues head-on is so inspiring. 2020 doesn't seem so idealistic after all.

[Tamara]

Academic/activist. Not practical/everyday tips. Maybe one day I'll be an international crusader for the cause...

[Danny]

Great dive into the zero waste movement, history and steps towards solutions for communities. Especially enlightening is the topic of trash incinerators and why they are the wrong way to go.

[Kimberly]

Must read! So much information and a great tool to educate yourself more on the Zero Waste initiative: where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.