No one aspires to waste anything – we all want to make the best use of what we have. Waste is regret – think of “wasted time”, “a waste of potential”, “a life wasted”. Most tangibly, though, waste is anything we throw away – and waste is costly:
- First we pay for something we don’t use.
- Then we pay a second time to have it disposed of.
- We often pay a third time – without realizing it – through environmental damage and adverse health impacts.
- Resources – natural and manufactured – are finite, and many are scarce. Scarce resources increase in cost.
Green Needham’s “Toward Zero Waste” initiative aims to use the four R’s – reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink – to address problems of waste. We are focused initially on three areas we believe can have the greatest impact and benefit locally – food, community-wide recycling and reduce/reuse.
