Zero Waste Community Planning Workshop **NEW**

GENERAL COURSE DESCRIPTION
What is Zero Waste? How is different than Recycling?
Garbage is not inevitable. It is the result of bad design. It can be designed out of the system.

Community Organizing & Political Strategies for Zero Waste Zero Waste is systemic change. Change comes from the outside.

Overview: The Four Keys to Zero Waste

Key #1: New Rules & Economic Incentives
Rules make us and we make the rules. We need new rules because the old ones are not working. Economics is not a matter of immutable laws, but human-made rules and institutions.

Key #2: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) & Local Producer Responsibility (LPR)
Local Government can't control design, manufacture and distribution of products, but it can control what is sold and disposed within the community (LPR), and it can collaborate with other local governments to drive for changes at the state and national level (EPR).

Key #3: Purchasing for Zero Waste & EPR
One of every five purchasing dollars are spent by government. We should use our tax dollars to purchase the future we want. The combined power of government/large contractor purchasing will dictate changes product design and manufacture that we cannot legislate.

Key #4: Financing & Transitioning to a Zero Waste Future
What infrastructure do we need in a world without landfills and garbage? Who will pay for it? What alternatives to landfills and incinerators do we need right now?

Closing: Elements of a Zero Waste Plan & Resources
PREREQUISITES: None.

CLASS TEST
There will be a 30 minute test will cover the materials presented in the course.

CLASS PROJECT
Interactive Exercise: 30 minutes

INSTRUCTOR
Linda Christopher

Linda Christopher is the Executive Director of the GrassRoots Recycling Network. While attending college Linda started the Sonoma State University Recycling Program and became the first campus recycling coordinator.

In 1989 she became the Education Director at Garbage Reincarnation Inc, a nonprofit recycling center in Sonoma County, California. Linda researched issues, wrote papers and newsletter articles, taught home composting courses, worked with neighborhood activists, and testified on behalf of recycling and waste reduction at local hearings.

In 1988, she joined the Materials for the Future Foundation, a nonprofit recycling market development organization in San Francisco, CA. As MFF's Program Director Linda focused on recycling's role in sustainable development, healthy communities, and jobs. In addition Linda has served ten years as a board member of the Northern California Recycling Association (NCRA) a 200 member trade association of recyclers and environmentalists. Linda is regular cast member of the NCRA Players, a performance troupe that uses theatre to lampoon waste, and landfilling and to educate the industry about zero waste.