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 Zero
Waste and Climate Change
Imagine how difficult it
would be to shut down 20 percent of our coal-fired power plants. Now
imagine how much less difficult it would be to divert all biodegradable
materials from our landfills and send the materials to compost
facilities instead. According to new research by Eco-Cycle, the
short-term climate impact is the same!
When biodegradable
materials such as paper products, food scraps and yard trimming are
tossed in the garbage and sent to the landfill, those lettuce heads,
grass clippings and paper boxes don’t just break down as they would in
nature or in a compost pile. They decompose anaerobically, without
oxygen, and in the process become the number one source of human-caused
methane and a major player in climate change. In fact, methane is now
understood to be 72 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year period.
This means our landfills emit the greenhouse gas equivalent of 20
percent of U.S. coal-fired power plants every year!
Current
accounting protocols for greenhouse gas emissions fail to address the
short-term risks and opportunities of methane (CH4) emissions.
Correcting the time horizon—a policy, not scientific decision—launches
methane abatement from a climate afterthought to an essential first step
forward in the fight against global climate change, and recognizes
landfill methane emissions as a source equivalent to 20% of U.S.
coal-fired power plants. Based on the data from the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we believe keeping organic materials out
of the landfill and avoiding potent methane emissions to be the
quickest, easiest and cheapest first step for a community to immediately
reduce its GHG emissions while working toward longer-term reduction
strategies.
Click here for more information on zero waste from
Eco-Cycle:
www.ecocycle.org
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