1/31 Zero Waste Newsletter

Author

Zero Waste Coalition
January 31, 2024

We’re back!!! Hope everyone’s adjusting well to spring semester!

Coalition Updates

  • Our first Coalition Meeting of the semester is on Monday 2/5 from 5-6PM in the SERC Space! You can also join online at this link. Remember that our meetings are required for coalition members and a great chance to promote events, build community, and participate in the discussion on Zero Waste at Cal. Peep the agenda here!

  • Ongoing projects!

    • Our textbook exchange, collaborating between Calpirg, ASUC Eco-office, and Reuse took place last week!

    • We’re hoping to plan a Zero Waste Retreat, Upcycling Workshops, and Zero Waste Classes this semester 🙂 

    • We’ll be working on planning Cooperative Reuse, the annual furniture exchange that happens at the end of the school year!

Weekly Waste Wisdom!

America’s not-so-great history with Recycling

America’s plastic waste is not super cleanly or efficiently processed, oftentimes shredded and melted by impoverished families in unsafe unhealthy conditions. 90% of our plastic waste used to go to China, since we don’t have the capacity to actually deal with our own waste, we end up shipping our trash on other countries who also struggle with their own waste management.

In 2018, China enacted the National Sword Policy to stop accepting our plastic waste in order to protect their own environment and develop their own domestic recycling capacity. Now, our plastic continues to get shipped to a bunch of other countries, including Malaysia, Vietnam, and India, in a form of “waste imperialism.”

The constant push for “diversion” from landfills to meet waste goals in the US sometimes means that more plastic simply ends up in “recycling,” while the US still lacks capacity to actually recycle it.

Read more on this topic here!