Challenges and Opportunities in Transforming a City into a “Zero Waste City”

Atiq Uz Zaman and Steffen Lehmann
Additional contact information
Atiq Uz Zaman: Zero Waste SA Research Centre for Sustainable Design and Behaviour (sd+b), School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia (UniSA), GPO Box 2471, SA 5001, Australia
Steffen Lehmann: Zero Waste SA Research Centre for Sustainable Design and Behaviour (sd+b), School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia (UniSA), GPO Box 2471, SA 5001, Australia

Challenges, 2011, vol. 2, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: The currently consumption-driven society produces an enormous volume of waste every day. Continuous depletion of natural finite resources by urban populations is leading the globe to an uncertain future. Therefore, to prevent further depletion of global resources, sustainable consumption and a strategic waste management system would be required. It is evident that a significant number of global non-renewable resources such as cadmium, mercury and tellurium will experience permanent shortfall in global supply within the next two to three decades. Astonishingly, the current recycling rate of these very scarce metals is significantly low in all cities around the globe. The concept of the zero waste city includes a 100% recycling of municipal solid waste and a 100% recovery of all resources from waste materials. However, transforming currently over-consuming cities into zero waste cities is challenging. Therefore, this study aims to understand the key factors waste management systems in cities such as consumption, resource depletion and possible decoupling opportunity through implementing the “zero waste city” concept. The study proposes five significant principles for transforming current cities into zero waste cities in the context of long-term sustainability. A simultaneous and harmonized application of sustainable behaviour and consumption, product stewardship, a 100% recycling and recovery of resources, legislated zero landfill and incineration are required to transform current city into a zero waste city.

Keywords: resource depletion; sustainable consumption; waste management; behaviour change; zero waste city; zero waste principles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A00 C00 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/2/4/73/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/2/4/73/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jchals:v:2:y:2011:i:4:p:73-93:d:14626

Access Statistics for this article

Challenges is currently edited by Ms. Karen Sun

More articles in Challenges from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().