Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Minimizing the increasing solid waste through zero waste strategy

Qingbin Song, Jinhui Li*, Xianlai Zeng
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 19 January 2014
Received in revised form
13 June 2014
Accepted 11 August 2014
Available online 21 August 2014

Increasing population, booming economy, rapid urbanization and the rise in community living standards
have signicantly accelerated the solid waste generation in the world. Solid waste has become one of the
global environmental issues. Continuous depletion of natural nite resources is leading the globe to an
uncertain future. To prevent further depletion of global resources, sustainable consumption and a strategic waste management system would be required. One approach that has been suggested as a means of
addressing these concerns is that of the concepts of Zero Waste. However, transforming currently overconsuming activities into zero waste is still challenging. In this study, the challenges of solid waste
(focusing on industrial waste e-waste, food waste and packaging waste), zero waste practices, and zero
waste strategy were discussed to analyze the challenges and opportunities to transform traditional waste
management toward zero waste vision. Zero Waste is a good solution to minimizing the increasing
solid waste. However, in order to minimize the solid waste, there are still more endeavors need to be
done in future.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Solid waste
Zero waste practices
Waste management
Zero waste strategy
Challenges and opportunities

1. Introduction
Increasing population, booming economy, rapid urbanization
and the rise in community living standards have greatly accelerated
the solid waste generation in the world, especially in developing
countries (Minghua et al., 2009; Guerrero et al., 2013). Solid waste
has become one of the global environmental issues (Seng et al.,
2010; Sharholy et al., 2007). Waste is the symbol of inefciency of
any modern society and a representation of misallocated resources.
The global solid waste volume is estimated about 11 billion tons per
year (using 2.5ton trucks can turn 300 circles around the equator)
in 2011, and per capita solid waste generation is approximately 1.74
tons/year in the world. On the other hand, along with the large solid
waste generation, an enormous amount of natural resources are
depleted everyday due to the high demand for new product demand (Menikpura et al., 2013; Plaganyi et al., 2013). Globally, 120130 billion tons of natural resources are consumed every year and
produce around 3.4 to 4 billion tons of municipal solid waste
(Giljum et al., 2008; Chalmin and Gaillochet, 2009). Creation of any
waste depletes natural resources, uses energy and water, places
pressure on land, pollutes the environment and, nally, creates an
additional economic cost for managing the waste.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 86 (0)1062794143; fax: 86 (0)1062772048.

E-mail address: jinhui@tsinghua.edu.cn (J. Li).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.027
0959-6526/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This large amount of waste has also created a huge pressure for
the authority to manage waste in a more sustainable manner
(Shekdar, 2009; Cheng and Hu, 2010). Solid waste management
becomes necessary and relevant when the structure of the society
changes from agricultural with low-density and widespread population to urban, high-density population. Furthermore, industrialization has introduced a large number of products which nature
cannot, or can only very slowly, decompose or digest. Hence, certain
industrial products contain substances which, due to low degradability or even toxic characteristics, may build up in nature to levels
representing a threat to humanity's future use of the natural resources e that is, drinking water, agricultural soil, air and so on
(Desmond, 2006; Menikpura et al., 2012; Troschinetz and Mihelcic,
2009). Waste management systems have not received as much
attention in the city planning process as other sectors like water or
energy. Therefore, many gaps of waste management can be
observed in current planning. Global climate change and its various
effects on human life drive current society toward more sustainability. Depletion of nite global resources also forces us to consider
resource and product stewardship. One person's trash, the saying
goes, is another person's treasure (Johnson et al., 2009; Boudreau
et al., 2008). In recent years, one approach that has been suggested as a means of addressing these concerns is that of the concepts of Zero Waste (Bartl, 2011; Phillips et al., 2011). Zero waste is
a philosophy that encourages the redesign of resource's life cycles so
that all products are recycledhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reused
(Zaman, 2014; Zaman and Lehmann, 2011; Young et al., 2010).

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Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

No trash is sent to landlls and incinerators. The process recommended is one similar to the way that resources are reused in
nature.
The term zero waste was rst used by Dr. Paul Palmer in 1973
for recovering resources from chemicals (Palmer, 2004). In a zero
waste system, material ow is circular, which means the same
materials are used again and again until the optimum level of
consumption. No materials are wasted or underused in circular
system (Murphy and Pincetl, 2013; Mason et al., 2003; Colon and
Fawcett, 2006). Therefore, at the end of their lives products are
reused, repaired, sold or redistributed within the system. If reuse or
repairs are not possible, they can be recycled or recovered from the
waste stream and used as inputs, substituting the demand for the
extraction of natural resources. Fig. 1 shows the symbolic material
ow of a circular waste system, where the end-of-life product or
output waste are treated as resources and used as inputs in the
metabolism process (Curran and Williams, 2012; Matete and Trois,
2008). Zero waste represents a shift from the traditional industrial
model in which wastes are considered the norm, to integrated
systems in which everything has its use. It advocates an industrial
transformation, whereby businesses minimize the load they
impose on the natural resource and learn to do more with what the
Earth produces. From Fig. 1, it can also be known that the zero waste
concept include the 3R ruledReduce, Reuse, Recycling, which
have been considered to be a base of environmental awareness and
a way of promoting ecological balance through conscious behavior
and choices. It is generally accepted that these patterns of behavior
and consumer choices will lead to savings in materials and energy
which will benet the environment.
The concepts of Zero Waste have been implemented in a
number of countries (e.g. South Africa, New Zealand, China, India),
provinces or states (Nova Scotia, California), as well as a range of
companies (e.g. DuPont, Fuji Xerox and Toyota) (Greyson, 2007;
Matete and Trois, 2008). But how to transform our existing situation into zero waste, and how to measure the performance of a
zero waste city are the prime questions. This study focuses on
industrial waste, electrical and electronic waste (e-waste), food
waste and packaging waste to analyze the challenges and opportunities, achieving a shift from traditional waste management to
zero waste.

Fig. 1. Linear and cyclical resource ows.

2. The challenge of solid waste

2.1. Industrial waste
2.1.1. Industrial waste generation
Industrial waste is generated by industrial activity, such as that
of factories, mills and mines. It is still often a signicant portion of
solid waste. In 2011, the global generation was about 9.2 billion tons
(including construction waste) (See Table 1), and per capita industrial waste is approximately 1.74 tons/year in the world. As
shown in Table 1, more than 50% was generated in Asia and the
Pacic, especially in China (3.2 billion tons in 2011) (Frost and
Sullivan, 2012; Wang et al., 2010).
As is indicated in Fig. 2, industrial waste in developing countries
(such as China) has a fast increasing trend in the foreseeable future,
while for the developed countries, industrial waste generation is
tending to stability or will decrease slowly (such as in Spain) (NBSC,
2013; Frost and Sullivan, 2012). In addition, comparing with the
developed countries (more than 90% collection rate), many developing countries remain at lower collection and recycling rate
(China 67% in 2010; India less than 50% in 2010). Thus, the developing countries are facing with more challenges from industrial
waste.

2.1.2. Environmental concerns

Regarding the industrial waste (especially for hazardous waste),
illegal dumping and transboundary movement commonly attracts
more attention due to their potential threats on environment and
human health.
Illegal dumping is a persistent problem because it threatens
human health and the environment, imposes signicant costs on
communities, and has an adverse effect on public welfare (Lega
et al., 2012; Penelope et al., 2010). Illegal dumping often attracts
more illegal dumping. Due to large generation of industrial waste,
not all the waste can be collected and treated, therefore enormous
industrial waste was illegally dumped, especially in the developing
countries (Chartsbin, 2013).
Industrial waste producers are continuously faced with the
problem of disposing of their waste and must choose from a
number of different disposal and treatment options. Increasingly,
they are choosing to export the waste to other countries (most are
developing countries) (Huang et al., 2012; Kojima et al., 2013). It is
very difcult to estimate how much hazardous waste is exported
every year. The transboundary movement not only refers to the
waste export, but also means environmental pollution transfer
from the developed countries to developing countries. This is
because most developing countries often own poor waste recycling
and treatment facilities, and most waste was treated in the informal
recycling sectors or directly dumped into the surrounding environment (Salihoglu, 2010; Thomas and Fannin, 2011).
Some serious environmental events occurred due to the illegal
dumping and transboundary movement. In 2011, a chemical industrial company in Yunnan Province illegally dumped 5222.38
tons chromium slag (Peoples, 2011). In 2006, a ship registered in
Panama, the Probo Koala, chartered by the Dutch-based oil and
commodity shipping company Tragura Beheer BV, ofoaded toxic
waste at the Ivorian port of Abidjan (Maantay and McLafferty,
2011).
The reasons, why illegal dumping and transboundary movement happened, mainly associated with the potential economic
benets (Havocscope, 2013), e.g., the cost to a European company to
properly dispose of toxic waste can cost around $1000 per ton, if
illegally dumping the materials, the cost would be about $2.50 for
one ton; The cost to legally incinerate trash in the Netherlands is 4

Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

201

Table 1
The generation amount of industrial waste in 2011(million tons).
Items

Europe

Americas

Africa and Middle East

Asia Pacic

Global

Generated
Collected
Key countries

1933.19
1531.71
Germany, UK, France,
Russia, Bulgaria

914.7
765.8
US, Brazil, Canada,
Chile and Columbia

921.24
270.91
South Africa, Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates,
Egypt and Tunisia

5357.46
3346.02
China, Japan, India,
South Korea, Australia

9176.68
5914.50
e

times more expensive than to smuggle it to China for illegal

dumping.
2.2. E-waste
2.2.1. E-waste generation
E-waste is a term used to cover all types of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) that has or could enter the waste stream. In
the last ten years, e-waste has become one of the world's fastest
growing waste streams (In EU, historically, WEEE increases by
16e28% every ve years, which is three times faster than average
annual municipal solid waste generation) (Huisman, 2010; Zeng
et al., 2013). In 2011, the global e-waste is estimated that global
e-waste generation is growing by about 40 million tons a year
(about 0.63 kg/year*capita, EU: 16e18 kg/year*capita) (Song et al.,
2013; Wang et al., 2013). The e-waste generations in the selected
countries are shown in Table 2 (Pariatamby and Victor, 2013;
Terazono et al., 2006).
2.2.2. Problems and concerns of e-waste
Electronics are complex devices which are made of a wide variety of material constituents. These unwanted electronic products
are made up of plastics, metals, glass and other materials and additives, of which some are toxic. If they are improperly recycled,
toxic substances, such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and
dibenzofurans (dioxins; PCDD/Fs), ame retardants, and heavy
metals (e.g. lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, and hexavalent chromium) can be released and could cause serious environmental pollution (Duan et al., 2011; Lundgren, 2012).
The majority of electronic equipment is sold in developed
countries, such as the United States, Japan, Australia, and Europe,
and it is estimated that between 50% and 80% of e-waste collected
for recycling in the United States is shipped to less developed
countries (Kahhat et al., 2008; Namias, 2013). It has also been found

that the UK is the dominant European exporting country, followed

by France and Germany (Basel Convention) (Torretta et al., 2013).
Certain regions have become centres for informal electronic waste
recycling areas, the most prominent in Asia and in Africa, as shown
in Fig. 3. Informal electronic waste recycling has also been reported
in: Qingyuan, Guiyu, Fengjiang, Zhejiang province, Guangdong
Province, China; Manila, Philippines; Bangalore, Chennai, India;
Seoul, South Korea; New Territories, Hong Kong; and HaiPhong city,
Dong Mai and Bui Dau, Vietnam (Sthiannopkao, 2013). Generally,
the e-waste export market is quite diverse, ranging from small
family-based networks to large and well-organized trading rms.
Table 3 shows us the transboundary movement of e-waste from
January 2006 to October 2008 in Hong Kong, which indicated that
Japan and US were the main exporting countries. As we know, no ewaste imported from other countries were treated, therefore it can
be known Hong Kong has become one important transfer center of
e-waste transboundary.
Workers and local residents are exposed to toxic chemicals
through inhalation, dust ingestion, dermal exposure and oral
intake. Inhalation and dust ingestion impose a range of potential
occupational hazards including silicosis (Grant et al., 2013; Qu et al.,
2007). Overall, human health risks from e-waste include breathing
difculties, respiratory irritation, coughing, choking, pneumonitis,
tremors, neuropsychiatric problems, convulsions, coma and even
death (Samarasekera, 2005; Wang et al., 2011).
In recent years, the media and environmental group shave
regularly exposed the smuggling and dumping of e-waste from the
developed countries to developing countries. The illegal trade is
primarily driven by prot, with a multimillion dollar turnover.
According to the US EPA, it costs 10 times more to recycle a CRT
monitor in the United States than it would to illegally ship the
monitor on the black market to Ghana, due to lower labor cost and
environmental cost (USEPA, 2011; Xu et al., 2013). The lack of
reliable data on illegal waste activity is recognized to be a problem

Fig. 2. Industrial waste generation trends.

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Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

Table 2
E-waste generation in the selected countries.

Table 3
Transboundary movement of e-waste between 2006.1 and 2008.10.

Country

Total E-waste generated (tons/year)

Year

Exporting countries

No. of convictions

Waste types

Global
Switzerland
Germany
United Kingdom
USA
Taiwan
Thailand
Denmark
Canada
China
India
Philippines
Nigeria

40,000,000
66,042
1,100,000
1,200,000
3,160,000
14,036
60,000
118,000
67,000
2,300,000
380,000
58,000
60,000

2011
2003
2005
2010
2008
2003
2003
1997
2005
2008
2011
2010
e

Japan
US
Canada
Korea
Ghana
United Arab Emirates
Other places

31
26
14
10
7
6
44

Batteries
Batteries
Batteries
Batteries
Batteries
Batteries
Batteries

as the most common methods of illegal export are to disguise

second-hand goods, mislabel containers and mix waste with
legitimate consignment (Ogunseitan, 2013). Another primary
driver of this trade is that e-waste contains valuable components, is
easy to source and relatively cheap to ship, and the risk of being
caught is generally low.

2.3. Food waste

2.3.1. Food waste generation
Food waste is food material that is discarded or unable to be
used. Food lost takes place in the ve stages: Agricultural production, Postharvest handling and storage, Processing, Distribution and
Consumption. Within the global context of increasingly scarce
natural resources, more than one-third of the food produced today
is not eaten, which is about 1.3 billion tons per year (Gustavsson
et al., 2011; Hall et al., 2009). Overall, on a per-capita basis, much
more food is wasted in the industrialized world than in developing
countries.

and
and
and
and
and
and
and

Cathode
Cathode
Cathode
Cathode
Cathode
Cathode
Cathode

ray
ray
ray
ray
ray
ray
ray

tubes
tubes
tubes
tubes
tubes
tubes
tubes

Source: Press Release of Hong Kong Government news

The per capita food loss in Europe and North-America is

280e300 kg/year. In Sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia,
it is only 120e170 kg/year. Per capita food wasted in Consumption
phase in Europe and North-America is 95e115 kg/year, while this
gure in sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia is only
6e11 kg/year (Gustavsson et al., 2011; FAOSTAT, 2010).
Food losses in industrialized countries are as high as in developing countries, but in developing countries more than 40% of the
food losses occur at post-harvest and processing levels, while in
industrialized countries, more than 40% of the food losses occur at
retail and consumer levels (Gunders, 2012; Kantor et al., 1997), such
as north American (talbe 4). Food waste at consumer level in
industrialized countries (222 million ton) is almost as high as the
total net food production in sub-Saharan Africa (230 million ton).
2.3.2. Environmental impacts
Food lost after harvest and food wasted along the distribution
and consumption chain, or food waste, has a dual negative environmental impact: Land, Water, Climate change, and biodiversity
(Lundie and Peters, 2005; Collins and Fairchild, 2007).
2.3.2.1. Land. Intensive farming, without allowing elds to lie
fallow and replenish, diminishes oil fertility. Not using roughly onethird of the food produced globally means that soil is unnecessarily

Fig. 3. Global e-waste export.

Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

pressured. Decreased soil quality leads to further use of synthetic

inputs that cause pollution and eventually, loss of arable land. In
2007, almost 1.4 billion hectares of land were used to produce food
not consumed. This represents a surface larger than Canada and
India together.
2.3.2.2. Water. Agriculture already uses 70 percent of the global
freshwater withdrawal and any increased production will likely
mean more water use. Water will be a key constraint to global security and when food is wasted, the water is squandered. In 2007,
the global blue water footprint for the agricultural production of
food waste was about 250 km3; 3.6 times the blue water footprint
of total USA consumption. In terms of volume, it represents almost
3 times the volume of Lake Geneva, or the annual water discharge
of the Volga River (FAOSTAT, 2013).
2.3.2.3. Climate change. Food and agriculture systems heavily
depend on fossil-fuel energy. Petroleum is used in almost every
aspect of food production, from creating fertilizers, to mechanized
planting and harvesting, irrigation, cooling and transportation.
Furthermore, when food is discarded in a landll and decomposes
anaerobically, it yields methane emissions, a gas more than 25times
as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat. In 2007, the global
carbon footprint, excluding land use change, of food waste has been
estimated at 3.3 G tons of CO2eq. This amount is more than twice
the total GHG emissions of all USA road transportation in 2010
(Takase et al., 2005; FAOSTAT, 2013). Food is the primary source of
landll gas and the largest component of materials sent to landlls.
In USA, landll gas is responsible for 17 percent of USA methane
emissions.
2.3.2.4. Biodiversity. The food not eaten is one of several factors
that contribute to biodiversity loss through habitat change, overexploitation, pollution and climate change.
Prompted in part by global food production inefciency, 9.7
million hectares are deforested annually to grow food; this
represents 74 percent of total annual deforestation (FAOSTAT,
2013).
Food waste contributes to agricultural expansion into wild areas
and increased shing efforts that unduly overexploit forest and
marine habitats. This results in loss of wildlife, including
mammals, birds, shes and amphibians. Up to 70 percent of all
sh caught by certain types of trawling is discarded.
2.4. Packaging waste
2.4.1. Packaging waste generation
Packaging waste means all the abandoned products made of any
materials to be used for the containment, protection, handling,
delivery and presentation of goods (Marsh and Bugusu, 2007). As
estimated, the global packaging waste volume is about 420million
tons (about 40 kg/year*capita; China: 12 kg/year*capita; EU
27:161 kg/year*capita in 2011 (Li et al., 2013; Xie et al., 2013).
Packaging waste mainly includes paper and board (40%), glass
(20%), plastics (19%), wood (15%), and metal (6%) (Huang et al.,
2007).
2.4.2. Environmental impacts
2.4.2.1. Plastics packaging waste pollution. A large amount of plastic
packaging waste currently going in to the landlls, and these materials break down very slowly, thus creating a signicant waste
disposal impact in the Landlls. This results some environmental
problems: an increase in landll burdens; an increase in toxic
emissions to the environment; an increase in the use and

203

production of non-renewable resources. The non-biodegradable

plastics packaging waste have been associated with a visual
dilemma called White Pollution in China. There is also a lack of
environmental awareness amongst the citizens contributing to the
adverse impact caused by plastic materials; the materials are
thrown away resulting in foam boxes everywhere, unaware of the
effect on their city's image and more importantly their environment (GTE, 2010; SHG, 2008).
2.4.2.2. Excessive packaging. Extravagant packaging has become so
prevalent in developed countries that unwrapping three layers of
plastic and paper to eat a piece of chocolate is a regular practice (Ji,
2013; Zheng, 2013). While product packaging may seem trivial, it
actually has immense impact across the supply chain. Resource and
wastage problems relating to packaging are signicant given the
vast quantities of products that are over dressed for no other reasons than to please the eye. Excessive packaging necessitates more
materials, more resources to manufacture, so entailing more costs;
over packaged products incur a hefty toll on the environment as
product packaging is usually discarded quickly, ending up in
landlls. Naturally excessive packaging are physically larger and
heavier which place greater burden on logistics, thus incurring
higher nancial and environment costs.
3. Zero waste practices of solid waste
As shown in the above, it can be known that we are facing with
the large challenges of solid waste. In a world with nite resources,
achieving a state of Zero-waste may eventually become an imperative due to the great environmental pressures in future. At present,
some good zero waste practices has been put forward and implemented through the cities, companies, individual, and the waste
reycling industry (GAIA, 2013). The case studies are meant to
inspire these cities, companies, individual, and the waste reycling
industry to further their own zero waste efforts and the other organizations and individuals to develop the new zero waste investment and implementation plans.
3.1. Zero waste cities
3.1.1. Adelaide, Australia
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and comprises 19
local council areas. A total of 1,089,728 inhabitants live in an
841.5 km2 urban area (UN-HABITAT, 2010). Adelaide City Council
(ACC) is responsible for waste management in Adelaide. Zero Waste
SA (ZWSA) is a South Australian state government organization
established by legislation called Zero Waste SA Act (2004). ZWSA
enables people to improve their recycling and waste avoidance
practices at home, work, and industry (ZWSA, 2011).
In the context of waste management systems, Adelaide has a
high percentage of waste collection systems compared to other
capital cities in Australia. Container deposit legislation was adopted
in 1977; therefore, recycling of different packing containers has
been practiced for more than three decades. Zero Waste SA is
working to achieve a zero waste area in South Australia (Zaman,
2013).
3.1.2. San Francisco
San Francisco has established itself as a global leader in waste
management. The city has achieved 77% waste diversion, the
highest in the United States, with a three pronged approach:
enacting strong waste reduction legislation, partnering with a likeminded waste management company to innovate new programs,
and working to create a culture of recycling and composting
through incentives and outreach (Zaman and Lehmann, 2013).

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Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

3.2. Companies
Regarding zero waste, the rst most important element is to
reduce the generation of waste, which not only eliminates the
problem but also reduces the use of resources, energy, water, etc.
3.2.1. Coca-Cola Company
Packaging is a great example of where some good work has been
done. Companies are using new materials and new technologies to
provide the same protection with less material and therefore less
waste (Coca-Cola Company, 2013). Coca Cola reports that they have
done many benecial works, such as:
Trimming the weight of their 20-ounce PET plastic bottle by
more than 25%;
Shaving 30% from the weight of their 12-ounce aluminum can;
Lightening their 8-ounce glass bottle by more than 50%.
And better yet, in their 2011/2012, Coca Cola reported saving
$180 million from reducing their packaging.
3.2.2. Subaru US
Subaru US has done a great job at their Lafayette site in Indiana,
and Subaru reports that they are recycling or reusing 95% of their
waste, through the following practices.
Copper-laden slag left over from welding is collected and shipped to Spain for recycling.
Styrofoam forms encasing delicate engine parts are returned to
Japan for the next round of deliveries.
Even small protective plastic caps are collected in bins to be
melted down to make something else.

3.2.3. DuPont
In 2012, the DuPont Building Innovations business carried out
Zero Landll and was able to nd ways to recycle many of the
materials from the Corian site (DuPont, 2012):
Scrap sheet & trim e ground back into 1st grade or ground into
rock;
Carrier lm e recycled into glue;
Metal e melted down and recast;
Banding e melted and recast into same;
Pallets e repaired and repurposed;
Scrap wood e ground into animal bedding;
Paper & Cardboard e recycled back into same.
3.3. Individual
3.3.1. Door-to-door collection program, Hernani, Spain
The regional waste management consortium in Spain's Gipuzkoa Province, faced with a nearly full and ll in 2002, proposed
building two new incinerators (Allen, 2012a). The waste generation
was about 0.86 kg/capita/day. Citizens strongly opposed the incinerators and prevented one from being built. Although the second is now under construction, Hernani and two other small cities
in the region have established an ambitious program of door-todoor collection of source-separated waste, including organics,
which has been enthusiastically embraced by residents. The
amount of waste going to the landll has been reduced by 80
percent, and waste diversion rate was 79%. Public spending per
capita in solid waste management was US $115 per year With new
political leader ship opposed to incineration, door-to-door collection is poised to expand throughout the region.

3.3.2. Community action, Taiwan, China

The island of Taiwan faced a waste crisis in the 1980s because of
lack of space to expand its landll capacity. When the government
turned to large-scale incineration, the community's erce opposition not only stopped the construction of dozens of burners, but
also drove the government to adopt goals and programs for waste
prevention and recycling (Allen, 2012b). These programs and policies were so effective that the volume of waste decreased signicantly even while both population and gross domestic product
increased. Its waste diversion rate was about 48.82%, and the
spending on waste management per capita was $25.40 per year.
However, the government, by maintaining both pro-incinerator
and waste prevention policies, has capped the potential of waste
prevention strategies because large investments in incineration
drain resources that could otherwise be used to improve and
expand them.
3.3.3. Waste pickers, Pune, India
Over the last 20 years, Pune's waste pickers have created a
remarkable transformation in their city's municipal waste management system and in their own lives. These informal sector collectors of recyclable materials formed a union to protect their rights
and bring dignity to their work (Tangri, 2012). The union has been
so successful that it has allowed them to implement door-to-door
collection, source separation, and separate treatment for organics,
all while improving waste picker livelihoods and working conditions. Nowadays, the waste pickers' own cooperative is pioneering a
wider-reaching and more rigorous zero waste program. Avoided
costs to city were about $2.8 million per year Table 4.
3.4. E-waste recycling
As mentioned above, e-waste are made up of plastics, metals,
glasses, other materials and additives, as shown in Table 5. At the
same time, the e-waste recycling processes exist the potential
environmental and human health effects.
Though e-waste recycling belongs to the end of life stage, it need
to solve the issues from the pespective of the whole life cycles.
Firstly, in order to recycling the e-waste more efcient, the ecodesign and new technologies should be adopted to simplify and
normalize the structure of e-products; Secondly, new environment
friendly materials should be applied to reduce utilization of the
hazardous materials in the new e-products, which can decrease the
potential environmental and human health risk. e.g. the Directive
on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in
Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS), whose aim is to reduce
the use of hazardous substances, such as lead, mercury, cadmium,
hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), in electrical and electronic
products. Thirdly, source reduction is also a good way to realize the
zero waste strategy. For source reduction of e-waste, the reuse of
old products are very important. The reuse extends the lifecyle of eproducts, and reduce the e-waste generation, which is very helpful

Table 4
Food losses in North America.
Phases
Production
Postharvest handling
and storage
Processing,
Distribution
Consumption

Seafood

Fruits &
vegetables

2%
2%

11%
0.5%

20%
3%

3%
2%

3%
0.25%

10%
2%
27%

5%
9.5%
33%

1%
12%
28%

4%
4%
12%

0.5%
0.25%
17%

Grain
products

Meat

Milk

Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

205

However, these practices are very limited, and there was still no the
effective ways to establish the zero waste system.

Table 5
Main components of typical e-products (% wt).
Styles

Plastic

Aluminum

Copper

Steel

Glass

Others

PC(CRT monitor)
Air conditioner
TV set
Refrigerator
Washing machine

23
11
23
40
36

14
7
2
3
3

7
17
3
4
4

21
55
10
50
53

30
0
57
<1
<1

5
10
5
3
4

for realizing the zero waste. In China, when the e-products are
abondoned, the residents often send these old ones to their relatives, which often have relatively poor economic conditions. In
addition, the products that can't work will be repaired in the
second-hand shop, and then are sold to the consumers. Finally,
most of the e-waste can be recycled as the renewable resources,
and Fig. 4 presented the e-waste recycling processes in China.
Comparing with the mechanical treatment in the developed
countries, using more mannual dismantling processes in China can
reach to a higher resource utilization rate. In the formal enterprises
of China, the waste diversion rate was more than 95%, and only
small part waste was processed for Incineration and Landll.
Through the perspectives of the whole life cycle and utilization
of eco-design, new technologies, new materials, high-efcient
reycling technologies, and suitable laws and legislations, e-waste
recycling in the world, especially the China, was marching toward
realizing the zero waste strategy.
Zero waste practices have been explored to provide some
precious experiences for realizing the sustainability of waste
management by governments, companies and individuals.

4. Zero waste strategy of solid waste

There is no straightforward path for a solution to current waste
problems. On one hand, the consumption of resources has been
increasing over time and hence, the generation of waste has also
been rising (Section 2). On the other hand, cities, companies and
other organizations want to realize zero waste goal despite
continuous increasing per capita waste creation. Therefore, without
a comprehensive and strategic roadmap, the zero waste goals may
not be achieved in the desired timeframe. Here, we summarized the
zero waste researches to put forward the four requirements for
realizing the zero waste strategy: zero waste roadmap, zero waste
principles and indexes, zero waste key strategies, and the waste
management hierarchy.
4.1. The road of zero waste
Zero waste can represent an economical alternative to waste
systems, where new resources are continually required to replenish
wasted raw materials. It can also represent an environmental
alternative to waste since waste represents a signicant amount of
pollution in the world. Zero waste concepts describe very nice and
ideal image of environment and resource utilization. However, the
pursuit of zero waste for an organization or community can be
extremely challenging. Regardless, the social, economic and environmental benets of zero waste provide tremendous returns if
you can do the work in a clear and cohesive manner.

Fig. 4. E-waste recycling processes.

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Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

In the world, there was no consistent and standard road to

realize the goal of zero waste. The Zero Waste Alliance (ZWA) has
worked with a wide variety of organizations and communities to
help them successfully develop and implement zero waste initiatives (ZWA, 2013). While each of these engagements was unique,
ranging from specic products to entire cities, the process follows a
consistent path, shown in Fig. 5. Though not all the organizations or
communities can realize the zero waste through the 8 steps, it
provides a systematic approach for these organizations who want
to establish the zero waste.
4.2. Zero waste principles and index
Zero waste is one of the most visionary concepts for solving
waste problems. When zero waste is linked with the specic cities
or companies, we often want to know whether a city or company
reaches the zero waste, therefore, how to evaluate the process will
become very important.
4.2.1. Zero waste principles
Fig. 2 shows that how to evaluate if the organizations, especially
for the business companies, achieve the zero waste. These Zero
Waste Principles in Fig. 6 will be the basis for evaluating the
commitment of companies to achieve Zero Waste. The detail of the
principles can be obtained as reported by ZWIA, 2013. These
Principles will also enable workers, investors, customers, suppliers,
policymakers and the public in general to better evaluate the
resource efciency of companies (ZWIA, 2013).

There are many ways to measure the waste management systems

in a city. Decision makers and waste experts use various indicators
such as the per capita generation rate, collection rate and recycling
rate to measure the performance of the waste management systems. In the last decade, the waste diversion rate has been used as
an important indicator to measure the performance of a city.
Recent research on the environmental performance of cities has
been initiated by Siemens through a project called Green City Index
(Siemens, 2012). The Green City Index measures and rates the environmental performance of cities from Asia, Europe, Africa and North
America. In the study, Siemens considers around 8 different environmental indicators including environmental governance, CO2, energy, buildings, transport, waste and land use, water, air quality. For
example, the European Green City Index evaluates 16 quantitative and
14 qualitative indicators. In Europe, Copenhagen leads the Index, with
the neighboring Nordic cities of Stockholm and Oslo close behind.
Waste diversion from landll has been widely accepted by the
governments, waste authorities and city corporations. The diversion rate can be dened as the percentage of total waste that is
diverted from disposal at permitted landlls and transformation
facilities such as incineration, and instead is directed to reduction,
reuse, recycling and composting programs (CalRecycle, 2012). The
waste diversion rate can be formulated as in Equation (1).

Diversion rate

Weight of recyclables
Weight of garbage Weight of recyclables
 100%
(1)

4.2.2. Zero waste index

Recently, most researches on zero waste mainly focused on the
city zero waste. Many studies have been conducted on urban
metabolism. Researchers worked on different contexts to understand urban metabolism such as material ow, energy ow, and etc.

whereas: Recyclables waste that is reused, recycled, composted

or digested; Garage waste that is landlled or incinerated.
Considering that the waste diversion rate does not indicate the
virgin material replacement efciency of the waste management

Fig. 5. The road map to zero waste.

Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

207

Fig. 6. Zero waste principles.

system, which is very critical in conservation of global natural resources, Zaman and Lehmann (2013) proposes a zero waste index
(ZWI) as a new tool to measure waste management performance.
The zero waste index is a tool to measure the potentiality of virgin
materials to be offset by zero waste management systems. The zero
waste index can be formulated as in Equation (2).

Pn
ZWI

1 WMSi 
Pn
1 GWS

SFi

(2)

whereas: WHSi amount of waste managed by system i (i 1, 2, 3

n amount of waste avoided, recycled, etc); SFi Substitution
factor for different waste management systems based on their
virgin material replacement efciency; GWS Total amount of
waste generated (tons of all waste streams).

4.3. The management strategies of zero waste

For the products, from the extraction of raw materials to nal
disposal, there are many approaches, methods, tools and principles
that have been used to tackle different problems in the eld of solid
waste and resource efciency. The key strategies identied for
applying zero waste in solid waste management will mainly
include four levels, as shown in Fig. 7.
The rst level is the design processes before the manufacturing,
and the methods of energy and environmental analysis can be used
to characterize the rst level, which mainly refers to eco-design,
new technologies, life cycle assessment (LCA), closed-loop supply
chain management, and product stewardship. These strategies will
reduce the usage of materials (especially the hazardous materials)
and energy, optimize the product function, and clearly dene the
responsibility of producers.

Fig. 7. Zero waste systems.

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Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

Eco-designdddesigning waste out of the system is acknowledged to be of particular importance to achieving real improvements in waste reduction across the system (Li et al.,
2014).
Use of new technologiesddinnovative technologies in new
products and industrial processes can have powerful environmental as well as economic impacts.
LCAddit is now accepted that obtaining the true environmental impact of products requires measuring the impacts
across the whole physical life cycle from raw materials through
production and use phases to end of life, and that consideration
in this way can lead to more sustainable patterns of production
and consumption. Carbon footprint measurement has also been
identied as being important with the future increase in use of
carbon targets and budgets in Europe.
Closed-loop supply chain managementddincorporating
reverse logistics to close the loop and optimize the ows of
materials, products and wastes in the procurement, distribution
and recycling functions.
Product stewardshipddextended producer responsibility
(EPR) and particularly individual producer responsibility (IPR),
are regarded as important tools to enforce producers to take full
responsibility for their products, especially at their end of life.
The second level refers to the manufacturing processes, and
mainly includes the clean production strategydda way of
designing products and manufacturing processes in harmony with
natural ecological cycles. It is intended to minimize waste and
emissions and maximize product output. By analyzing the ow of
materials and energy in a company, one tries to identify options to
minimize waste and emissions out of industrial processes through
source reduction strategies.
The third levels (sale and use stage) refers to the eco-labeling
and environmental awareness strategies. Without proper environmental awareness, it would not be possible to achieve zero
waste goals. As the current trend of consumption is unsustainable
and cannot be continued for ever, it is important to understand the
reality and act accordingly. Indeed, 25% of the reduction in emissions will have to come from behavioral change. Eco-label programs are certication programs in which a product, process, or
management system is certied to meet specic environmental
criteria as established by an assessment body, which can lead the
consumers to buy the environmentally friendly products. Manufacturers wishing to achieve certication to an eco-label program
may enjoy marketing advantages because the certication positively differentiates their products as environmentally sound.
The fourth level is the end of life stage, and the most important
for this level is to establish an effective environmental management
systemddplans, schedules, implements and monitors, those activities, including material recovery, pollution prevention, aimed at
improving environmental performance. It is a problem identication and problem solving tool that provides organizations with a
method to systematically manage their environmental activities,
products and services and helps to achieve their environmental
obligations and performance goals.
For the mentioned strategies, there were no obvious limits
during the four levels, e.g. the LCA method can be also used in the
manufacturing, recycling and disposal phase; and EPR also refers to
the recovery and treatment of the abandoned product.
4.4. Solid waste management hierarchy
In the above contents, more attention focused on how one
companies or one city can achieve zero waste. Here, we will consider
how the generated solid waste can be easier to realize the zero waste.

When the solid waste was generated from industrial, commercial,

mining and agricultural operations, and community activities, there
will be several measures to be used to treat and disposal these waste.
The waste management hierarchy is a nationally and internationally accepted guide for prioritizing waste management practices with the objective of achieving optimal environmental
outcomes and resource utilization. It sets out the preferred order of
waste management practices, from most to least preferred (waste
prevention, reuse, recycling, composting, incineration and nal
landll) (Zeng et al., 2010, 2012). The waste management hierarchy
is one of the guiding principles of the Zero Waste, which has been
regarded in South Australia's Waste Strategy 2011e2015 as a key
element for guiding waste management practices in South
Australia (Zero waste SA, 2013).
Waste preventiondoften called source reductiondmeans
reducing waste by not producing it. Examples of waste prevention
would include purchasing durable, long-lasting goods and seeking
products and packaging that are as free of toxic substances as
possible. It can be as simple as switching from disposable to reusable products, or as complex as redesigning a product to use fewer
raw materials or to last longer. Because waste prevention actually
avoids waste generation, it is the most preferred waste management activity. To reuse is to use an item again after it has been used.
Reuse requires less energy than recycling, although designs which
are both adaptable and durable are essential to its success. Other
factors, such as the consumer desire for newness, can conspire
against reuse. Recycling is a process to change materials (waste)
into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials,
reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution
(from landlling). For the waste disposal, the compost, incineration
and landll will be used, with a less preferred hierarchy.
In order to effectively address the zero waste for solid waste,
there needs to be a move beyond recycling into the largely uncharted territory of the higher end of the hierarchy, to reuse, reduce
and prevention, with a particular emphasis on eco-efciency (the
same or greater utility from less material input).
4.5. Discussion
Zero Waste strategy is a sound business tool that, when integrated into business processes, provides an easy to understand
stretch goal that can lead to innovative ways to identify, prevent
and reduce wastes of all kinds. It strongly supports sustainability by
protecting the environment, reducing costs and producing additional jobs in the management and handling of wastes back into the
industrial cycle. Zero Waste strategy may be applied to businesses,
communities, industrial sectors, schools and homes.
Zero waste not only refers to the mentioned environmental, and
technological aspect, but also includes socio-economic and political
aspects, and have many stakeholders. All these aspects are interrelated and dynamic in nature. Therefore, waste management systems create a complex cluster of different aspects, and functions of
this complex cluster are also dynamic and interdependent. Global
climate change and its various effects on human life drive current
society toward a more sustainable one. Depletion of nite global
resources forces us to consider resource and product stewardship.
Therefore, zero waste management is a holistic view of preventing
and managing waste and resources from the sustainable perspective.
The strategies (Section 4.3) developed for recycling or managing
waste should be affordable in the socio-economic context, regulatory or manageable in the socio-political context, applicable in the
policy and technological context, effective or efcient in the context
of economy and technology, and nally all these aspects should be
directly related to environmental sustainability. The established

Q. Song et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 104 (2015) 199e210

zero waste should be a sound strategy, which can be easily understood by engaged people, save money from economic aspect,
promote the waste prevention through the redesign, reuse and
repair process, improve the waste recovery using the recycling and
composting, and nally lead to conservation of resources and energy. In the effective zero waste system, it also can create jobs in
return logistics and reprocessing activities.
In fact, the real zero waste (all discarded materials are
designed to become resources for others to use) cannot be realized
in the real world. First, it has the limits of thermodynamics, which
state that totally closed cycles are not possible, losses are bound to
occur if energy resources are limited. Second, a complete recycling
society would also mean that all products we use contain recycled
materials. Since many of today's wastes contain substances of the
past, some not even legally accepted today, recycling must eliminate these hazardous substances in order to protect men and the
environment. The primary goal of zero waste focuses more on how
to guide people in changing their lifestyles and practices to emulate
sustainable natural cycles, where more discarded materials are
designed to become resources for others to use.
Solid waste contain many categories, such as industrial waste, ewaste, MSW, packaging waste, food waste, and etc. However, the
current researches pay more attention on MSW, which only accounts for less than 20% of the solid waste. Future studies should
consider zero waste system of other wastes, in order to more
comprehensively realize the zero waste strategy.

5. Conclusions
With the fast economic development and globalization, a great
mount of solid waste was generated, and has attracted the global
focus, due to the potential environmental impacts and waste of
resources, such as the illegal dumping and transboundary movement of industrial waste, the informal recycling of e-waste, the food
loss and greenhouse gas emission, the resource consumption of
excessing packaging. Today, we are facing with more serious solid
waste issues than the past, and how to address solid waste issues
brings the huge challenge for the whole world.
The concept of Zero Waste is an effective way to solve the solid
waste issues. Zero waste is to encourage the redesign of resource life
cycles so that all products are reused. In order to better understand
the zero waste, the typical practices of zero waste were presented in
this study. At present, many meaningful efforts have been carried out
in the cities, companies, and individual, which provide many good
suggestions for us to realize the zero waste in future.
From the zero waste practices, the zero waste strategy has also
been summarized in the study. A systematic approach to realizing
the zero waste was introduced, and in general 8 steps were often
utilized in the consistent path mentioned. Expect the road, the Zero
Waste Principles were also put forward to evaluate if the companies
and organizations achieve Zero Waste. These Principles will also
enable workers, investors, customers, suppliers, policymakers and
the public in general to better evaluate the resource efciency of
companies. In addition, decision makers and waste experts use
various indicators to measure the performance of the waste management systems. In the last decade, the waste diversion rate, green
city index, and zero waste index have been used as an important
indicator to measure the performance of a city. In order to realizing
zero waste, some key strategies should be applied from the
extraction of raw materials to nal disposal, such as eco-design,
eco-labeling, closed-loop supply chain management, and clean
production, etc. To effectively address the zero waste for solid
waste, there needs to be a move beyond recycling into the largely
uncharted territory of the higher end of the waste management

209

hierarchy, to reuse, reduce and prevention, with a particular

emphasis on eco-efciency.
Though many zero practices and zero waste approaches have
existed in the current world, zero waste management includes
socio-economic, political, environmental, and technological aspects
and has many stakeholders. Zero waste is a very complex system,
and there are still mountains of works need to done in future. In
order to minimize the solid waste to zero waste, it needs all of
people together to act to reduce, reuse, and recycling them for
getting rid of waste from our land. Zero waste is indeed a desirable
goal. However, although a path towards zero waste may already
have been forged, there is still a long road ahead of us.
Acknowledgments
The work was nancially supported by the National Nature
Science Foundation of China (20131351422), China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation (2013M540966), and a special fund of the State
Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution
Control (11Z02ESPCT).
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