Why is being a Zero Waste community important?
Reducing waste significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and is extremely important in addressing climate change. Excavating raw materials, manufacturing products and containers, and transporting products to market uses huge amounts of energy and thus generates huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Downstream activities such as landfilling also cause greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As an added benefit, recycling materials uses less energy than the production of new items thus saving energy, reducing consumption of resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy use. Zero Waste supports local economic development and job creation. Recycling and other waste reduction activities result in up to 10 times more jobs than landfilling, and these jobs are arguably more productive and meaningful. More recycling and composting will increase the cost efficiency of publicly and privately supported facilities and programs. Boul
