Zero Waste

"Recycling is America's favorite environmental activity--100 million of us do it every day--but while there have been dramatic successes in many areas, overall recycling rates have declined slightly. An impressive 53 percent of plastic soda bottles were recycled in 1994, but only 35.6 percent in 1998. So why are these environmentalists so confident? Because, they believe, reducing the waste stream to a mere trickle is in everybody's interests, even benefiting the very corporations that have been screaming the loudest about the burden of recycling...One city that seems to be 'getting it' is Seattle, which in 1998 adopted zero waste as a guiding principle in its solid waste plan. "