Zero Waste – a conundrum

While perusing Earth 911 the other day, I stumbled on an article about zero waste. Interesting reading. The basic concept is that everything can be made into something else and that something can be re-made and so on.

I’m an earth-conscious person – we recycle, tote our own fabric grocery bags, turn off lights and send batteries to the appropriate recycling facility – but for some reason this concept made me wonder.

Just how many times can one product be recycled? It’s not an indefinite process is it? How long before the actual tensile strength of the product in question reaches the breaking point? When does it lose its efficiency?

I’m envisioning a bar of soap – it gets smaller and smaller as you use it, eventually eroding to a small sliver that can be inserted into a foam sponge and squeezed out into a few more scrubbings. It takes a while, yes, but eventually its usefulness is gone.

I’m not saying it’s possible or probable but what happens if the aluminum used in the construction of a new plane – crafted from recycled metal of course – has metal that’s been through the wringer 5, 10 or 200 times?

Just something to think about.

-- Jennifer

Comments

[Neil]

It is not about zero waste. Look at nature, incredibly wasteful. Where? Think about reproduction - Thousands of sperm or seeds are used to fertilize the egg or plant another tree. The difference is the waste organic, eatable by someone else. It is not about eliminating waste it is about making a lot of it and making it organic.