A history of US cities adopting zero waste goals

The concept has become a mainstream part of municipal waste planning, experts say, even as targets largely remain aspirational and some recent efforts have faced pandemic-related setbacks.

Approaches and definitions to the term “zero waste” may differ, but one thing is clear: the concept has become an increasingly mainstream part of local government policy.

“Zero waste has taken over,” said Neil Seldman, former director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Waste to Wealth Initiative. “Zero waste is now, I would say, the conventional wisdom.”

However, the term’s definition and the strategies to achieve it can differ widely. While local government recycling initiatives and grassroots efforts to reduce the generation and disposal of waste date back many decades, the term zero waste first gained prominence in the U.S. around the early 2000s. 

A history from ILSR attributes the shift from phrases such as “total recycling” or “no waste” to American recycling professionals’ engagement with counterparts in Australia and New Zealand, who were pursuing their own efforts in the late 1990s. The Zero Waste International Alliance, organized in 2002, adopted what it describes as “the first peer-reviewed internationally accepted definition” of zero waste in 2004. 
 
“Zero waste: The conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.”

Momentum toward zero waste continued to build in the early 2000s as climate change became a greater focus for local governments at the time, said Gary Liss, a longtime city consultant and vice president of Zero Waste USA. Liss cited the 2005 Urban Environmental Accords (signed in San Francisco as part of a United Nations event) as one key milestone, as well as the 2006 climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“That translated via the 2010 period to cities ... finding that solid waste was one of the quickest, easiest, most effective ways to address climate change at the local level,” Liss said. “It used to be a West Coast phenomenon, particularly for Washington and California, but now most of the major cities on the East Coast have adopted zero waste.”

It can be quicker to adapt waste systems than other systems with large greenhouse gas emissions footprints, Liss said, such as transportation or energy. Another recent example of this emerging as a municipal climate priority is the C40 Cities initiative coming out in support of zero waste, with more than two dozen major cities (including some from the U.S.) signing on.

As more local governments set zero waste or high diversion rate targets, it has also become clear that some targets will have a more direct effect on local waste systems than others.