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ZERO WASTE POLICIES:How to Advocate for Zero Waste |
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ZERO WASTE POLICIES:How to Advocate for Zero Waste |
Zero Waste
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Unit Two: Policy and Legislation
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Improving our ability to reduce waste and recover materials requires a long-term commitment of individuals, business and industry, community organizations and governments. The policies needed to change the way we value and use resources have already begun to be implemented in many communities. We no longer talk about whether such change is possible, but rather when and how it will occur.
Many of the policies described in this section represent efforts which can be effective at the local level, like buy-recycled purchasing policies, support for green building, and construction/demolition material recovery. Other policy changes, such as product stewardship and extended producer responsibility (EPR), will ultimately require action at the state, national and global level.
Moving closer to Zero Waste requires a fundamental shift from waste management to resource management. It creates linkages between wide-ranging issues such as environmental and worker justice, and explores the cross-media impacts of both waste management and discard recovery systems. But it also requires that we redefine the role of consumption in creating stable and healthy economic systems.
Like much of the recycling movement, this change is occurring at the grass-roots level, from the ground up. While the adoption of policy and legislation is essential to the process of institutionalizing and managing this change, there are many barriers to the creation of such policy and legislation. As is often the case, the actual adoption of the needed policy and legislation may not take place until after the changes they govern are already taking root in the public consciousness.
In many areas, there is no clear separation between policy and program. Local staff may often be reluctant to devote time and resources to the development, discussion and approval of policies, especially if this impacts the time available to spend implementing programs.
But the development and adoption of policy is an important step in creating change, because it provides a unique opportunity to educate both the public and the decision-makers, and to establish a meaningful dialogue within the community. In addition, once these policies have been adopted, they provide continuing guidance to local staff for the implementation of the programs that will ultimately be responsible for moving us closer to eliminating waste. Without such guiding policies, staff may be required to seek approval for each new program and action to be implemented.
Whether at the local, state or national level, regulatory mechanisms, from resolution to legislation, are created in response to public pressure. Including members of local business, citizens’ and environmental organizations in the development of regulations, policies and legislation is good public policy and will ultimately result in more effective outcomes for the community.
If there is an ongoing local waste reduction or recycling task force, this group may provide the nucleus of stakeholders involved in the process. However, it is advisable to conduct outreach beyond the bounds of such a task force to a wider segment of the community, in order to ensure that all perspectives are considered.
Before a resolution or policy is drafted and adopted, a group of stakeholders must first agree that a resolution, policy or law will help to achieve a renewed commitment of the community to the goal of preventing waste and recovering resources. As in the planning process, it is important to spend the time needed to involve a variety of representatives from local jurisdictions, businesses, environmental groups, service providers and the general public. Building this constituency not only ensures that the document will reflect community values, it provides an effective means to communicate to the wider community, increasing the likelihood that your vision can be transformed into future reality.
Many communities have created websites to provide information to residents about waste prevention and recycling programs. These websites often include model resolutions developed and adopted by the communities on a variety of topics, including the creation of zero waste goals, support for product stewardship and legislation, banning products and materials from landfill disposal, support for the development of specific waste prevention and recycling programs, and many more. Your task force can review existing examples, and adapt them as needed to fit local circumstances.
Not only do you need to consider the views of stakeholders and members of the public, your document must also go through an internal review and approval process involving other affected government agencies and departments, including the appropriate department heads and attorneys. Providing an early draft to these agencies will allow opportunity to identify and resolve potential issues before the direction is firmly set.
Several revisions may be needed in order to address and resolve the concerns of the majority of affected parties. In reality, your work plan may look like this...
Repeat these steps as often as required. If your document gets stuck at a particular point in the process, you may be able to address the issues by gathering together a smaller group of stakeholders to brainstorm solutions to the problem.
In some cases, you may find it necessary to go back to step one, two or three in order to work around specific obstacles to approval and adoption.
Once the document has been drafted, discussed and reviewed, it is time to prepare for the adoption process. If this is a local resolution, policy or ordinance, it may require presentation to local city councils and/or boards of supervisors. In the case of a countywide or regional agency, your document will be presented to the governing board for that agency. You may want to consider a two-step approval process, so that you can make an educational presentation at one meeting, including thorough background information and support from members of the community who have been involved in the development process, with adoption scheduled for a later meeting. This provides an opportunity to address and resolve any questions from board or council members before voting actually takes place.
At the state or national level, each of these tasks becomes increasingly complex, as the range of stakeholders and their interests grows.
Several examples of model policies and resolutions are located on the CD-rom available from CRRA.
