Zero Waste City

This article explores the notion of the Zero Waste City, which takes the concept of sustainable cities further to optimize all urban material flows toward 100% resource recovery and reuse of building components and materials. The construction sector uses a huge amount of raw materials and has high inefficiencies, eg, material and energy inefficiencies. Implementing material efficiency in the construction sector requires a change in how materials are approached throughout the supply chain. What is required is transformative change at a systemic level toward sustainable consumption, shifting people from being merely consumers to responsible citizens. Therefore, this article argues that influencing values and behavior is an important, but often neglected, part of a low carbon urban future. This includes starting a transition phase of reduced, decoupled consumption, eg, using products and buildings for longer, producing more durable products that take advantage of prefabrication, modularity, adaptability, and durability. Cities need to be reengineered with material flows in mind to become more sustainable and resilient. Keywords: Zero waste city; sustainable urban development; material flow; resource recovery; transition strategies; consumption; waste avoidance

[1]  Steffen Lehmann.  Optimizing Urban Material Flows and Waste Streams in Urban Development through Principles of Zero Waste and Sustainable Consumption , 2011 .

[2]  Paul-Marie Boulanger,et al.  Three strategies for sustainable consumption , 2010 .

[3]  J. Pichtel.  Waste management practices : municipal, hazardous, and industrial , 2005 .

[4]  Walter Kloepffer,et al.  Life cycle sustainability assessment of products , 2008 .

[5]  David M. Evans,et al.  Consuming conventions: Sustainable consumption, ecological citizenship and the worlds of worth , 2011 .

[6]  Steffen Lehmann,et al.  Designing for Zero Waste : Consumption, Technologies and the Built Environment , 2012 .

[7]  N Caid,et al.  Decoupling the environmental impacts of transport from economic growth , 2006 .

[8]  Salah El-Haggar.  Sustainable industrial design and waste management : cradle-to-cradle for sustainable development , 2007 .

[9]  Volker Quaschning.  Renewable Energy and Climate Change: Quaschning/Renewable Energy and Climate Change , 2010 .

[10]  Gauhar Mahmood,et al.  Municipal solid waste management in Indian cities - A review. , 2008, Waste management.

[11]  Lu Dong,et al.  The current situation of solid waste management in China , 2006 .

[12]  Christine Hannemann.  Zukunftschance Schrumpfung — Stadtentwicklung in Ostdeutschland- eine Skizze , 2000 .

[13]  Bruno Milanez,et al.  Extended producer responsibility in Brazil: the case of tyre waste , 2009 .

[14]  Simon Clay,et al.  Sustainability Victoria: influencing resource use, towards zero waste and sustainable production and consumption , 2007 .

[15]  D. Jamieson.  A Companion to Environmental Philosophy , 2003 .

[16]  François Grosse,et al.  Is recycling “part of the solution”? The role of recycling in an expanding society and a world of finite resources , 2010 .

[17]  Steffen Lehmann,et al.  Book Review: The Principles of Green Urbanism: Transforming the City for Sustainability , 2013 .

[18]  O. Mont.  Institutionalisation of sustainable consumption patterns based on shared use , 2004 .

[19]  C. Kennedy,et al.  The Changing Metabolism of Cities , 2007 .

[20]  Stephen Pullen,et al.  Transport, Housing and Urban Form: The Life Cycle Energy Consumption and Emissions of City Centre Apartments Compared with Suburban Dwellings , 2009 .

[21]  James Rice,et al.  Material consumption and social well-being within the periphery of the world economy: an ecological analysis of maternal mortality. , 2008, Social science research.

[22]  W. Rees.  Revisiting carrying capacity: Area-based indicators of sustainability , 1996 .

[23]  Paul S Phillips,et al.  A critical review of a key waste strategy initiative in England: Zero Waste Places Projects 2008-2009 , 2011 .

[24]  Carlo Vezzoli,et al.  Design for Environmental Sustainability , 2008 .

[25]  A Karagiannidis,et al.  Developing a holistic strategy for integrated waste management within municipal planning: challenges, policies, solutions and perspectives for Hellenic municipalities in the zero-waste, low-cost direction. , 2009, Waste management.

[26]  Steffen Lehmann,et al.  Challenges and Opportunities in Transforming a City into a “Zero Waste City” , 2011 .

[27]  O. Mont,et al.  Sustainable consumption progress: should we be proud or alarmed? , 2008 .

[28]  Soon Keat Tan,et al.  Municipal solid waste management in China: status, problems and challenges. , 2010, Journal of environmental management.

[29]  Matthew Leach,et al.  A Systems Approach to Materials Flow in Sustainable Cities: A Case Study of Paper , 1997 .

[30]  William McDonough,et al.  Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things , 2002 .

[31]  Sigrid Stagl,et al.  The role of social processes for sustainable consumption , 2006 .

[32]  Marina Alberti,et al.  Advances in Urban Ecology , 2008 .

[33]  Stefanie Hellweg,et al.  Municipal solid waste management strategies and technologies for sustainable solutions , 2003 .

[34]  O F Kofoworola,et al.  Recovery and recycling practices in municipal solid waste management in Lagos, Nigeria. , 2007, Waste management.

[35]  James Rice,et al.  Ecological Unequal Exchange: Consumption, Equity, and Unsustainable Structural Relationships within the Global Economy , 2007 .

[36]  J. Foster,et al.  Valuing nature? : ethics, economics and the environment. , 1997 .

[37]  M. R. Dileep,et al.  Tourism and Waste Management: A Review of Implementation of “Zero Waste” at Kovalam , 2007 .