Research - the Zero Waste movement

The Zero Waste movement aims to reduce the amount of plastic we need, reuse what we can, recycle what we can and compost what we cannot. 

Simply put, following the movement means you aim to send nothing to a landfill. You buy as little packaging and even products as you can, only what you need and what you do need, you dispose of properly and consciously.

The movement doesn't just aim to reduce plastic consumption, it aims to redesign the system. 


Even before the term zero waste was coined, people were living in this way. For example, during the war, when almost everything was rationed, people reused food in every way they could, using one food in a variety of ways to make lots of different dishes. Nobody could afford to waste a thing, and didn't wish to because of the expense. Similarly, if an appliance or item of clothing or toy was broken, the effort would be made to fix it instead of throwing it away and purchasing a new one.

In industry, a person called Paul Palmer founded Zero Waste solutions in the 70's, who sourced excess chemicals from laboratories and sold them onwards to companies and scientists as he didn't want them going to waste.
Recently the term has been made more popular due to bloggers and lifestyle guides who have tried to restart this way of thinking.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

An important element of the zero waste movement is aiming for a circular economy. We currently live in a linear economy which seemed fine until our consumption habits changed. Nature has a circular system, where every waste product is reused in some way. Animals eat eachother, create waste which fertilizes the ground to grow plants, which then feeds other animals. Even dead animals break down and decompose back into the ground which again, fertilizes the ground to create new life. We need to repeat this in our way of life through consumption habits.

Nowadays the world's consumption habits are ridiculous. Brands such as Apple contribute to this by designing their products to break/be out of date after only a few years so that the consumer will buy another to replace it. This concept is called planned obsolescence. This is so damaging as we only have finite resources, and we are just throwing the wasted materials into a hole in the ground.

By recycling/reusing the materials found in these products, they can go on to be used in different products instead of being wasted, therefore becoming a circular economy.