I agree with the statement. Some key advantages of zero waste management necessitate adoption of stringent approaches to waste management. These advantages can be categorized into environmental, social, and/or economic benefits. Some of the benefits include improved responsibility by companies where the public and investors usually demand that companies adopt proper methods of disposing the waste they generate in order to preserve the environment. Companies that do not embrace the zero waste management end up compromising their status. As such in order to ensure that the reputation of the company remains intact, companies are likely to take deliberate measures towards aiding in compliance of the set waste management standards.
Another key advantage is with regard to reduction of pollution. Landfills are a common way of disposing waste materials, but when wastes remain at the same place for a long time they start emitting harmful gases. Embracing zero waste management will ensure that companies that generate waste begin to look for ways of reprocessing waste products thus reduce the pollution of the environment. Zero waste management is also likely to encourage companies to develop profitable ventures aimed at utilizing waste products through recycling. Strict management of waste is therefore likely to encourage recycling of products thus enhancing the manufacturing of useful products from reusable materials. By selling items made from reusable materials, companies are able to generate revenue to themselves and to the government in terms of taxes while creating more employment opportunities.
Disadvantages
It is a fact that the current approaches towards the waste management are not completely effective. One of the reasons why the approaches are not as effective as they should is because they are based on the desire of maintaining sustainability. There is an almost classical slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle” that is geared towards encouraging companies to recycle waste products. There is also a scientific consideration, which is largely based on the way of manufacturing the materials, which are initially developed but are likely to end up in the waste stream an example being the materials used for purposes of packaging.
Incomplete reusing of waste materials through composting or recycling shows some level of inability to return products back to the economic cycle. However, such ability is minimized within particular technologies. For example, it is impossible to recycle the rigid plastics because it contains certain additives, which are added to the resin – as it is implied by the corresponding technological process. More than that, there are some materials, which cannot be recycled such as the hazardous household wastes and the major part of such materials end up in landfills.
Even if there is a technological option of recycling some materials, the process by itself cannot be 100% effective given the challenges of separating composite materials as some level of the residue is generated at each particular stage of the recycling process. This is because there are cases when it is impossible to reuse materials that has been recycled once or those that have been contaminated by the recycling process.
There is no thermodynamic possibility of achieving the 100% effective recycling. That is why the most effective approach in such case is to minimize the scopes of waste stream to the maximally possible extent, as it is logically that there is no actual option for zero waste. Thus, there is an urgent need of development of the disposal mechanism for the remaining the non-zero waste (Staley 1).
Works Cited
“Benefits of zero waste to landfill”. Windsor Waste. 2016. Web. 17 May 2016.
http://www.wasteconfidence.co.uk/why-zwtl/benefits-of-zero-waste-to-landfill
Staley, Bryan. “Less than Zero”. 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 17 May 2016.
http://waste360.com/waste-reduction/less-zero
