The Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s joint report with Eco-Cycle and the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA) was released on 5th June 2008, United Nations World Environment Day.
The report, Stop Trashing the Climate, provides evidence that preventing waste and expanding reuse, recycling, and composting programs – that is, aiming for zero waste – is one of the fastest, cheapest, and most effective strategies available for combating climate change.
The report documents the link between climate change and unsustainable patterns of consumption and wasting, dispelling myths about the climate change benefits of landfill gas recovery and waste incineration, while offering a roadmap for change.
The 92-page full report and the 20-page Executive Summary are available from http://www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org/
Main findings from Stop Trashing the Climate include:
- A zero waste approach based on preventing waste and expanding reuse, recycling, and composting is one of the fastest, cheapest, and most effective strategies to protect the climate.
- Significantly reducing the amount of materials landfilled and incinerated has climate benefits comparable to closing one-fifth of all U.S. coal-fired power plants.
- The one-way flow of materials from extraction, processing, and consumption to disposal directly contributes to climate change. Waste disposal is linked to more than one-third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions; new resources must be continually extracted to replace those buried or burned.
- Landfills are a top source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and landfill gas capture systems are not an effective strategy for preventing methane emissions to the atmosphere. The global warming impact of methane emissions in the short term is 72 times greater than CO2 and is three times greater than reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
- Incinerators emit more carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour than coal-fired power plants, and waste 3 to 5 times more energy than recycling conserves.