Chapter 3

Waste

The Coffee Cup Debate

• The average ceramic mug requires 25.5 times more energy to make than the average paper cup—14 mega Jules (MJ) versus 0.55 MJ per cup.

• The embedded energy disparity is even greater with foam cups, 14 MJ compared to 0.20 MJ per cup—that’s a difference of 700 percent.

Break-even point?

Recycling is “green”…

relative to what?

3 Rs of environmentalism: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

Food Waste

• Half of all food in the United States wasted ($100 billion+ annually).

• US per capita food waste has increased by 50 percent since 1974, to more than 1,400 kcal per person per day.

• United Kingdom: Roughly 7 million tons—one-third purchased by consumers—discarded annually. – CO2 equivalent of 18 million tons—an amount equal to one-

fifth of total British car fleet emissions. • The total amount of food wasted in the United Kingdom

from industrial, commercial, and agricultural sources: 94.6 million tons.

• Illegal to send food to the landfill.• Must separate all food waste and place it in a

special 100 percent compostable bag. • Country removed over 98 percent of food waste

from its MSW stream.• That’s the opposite of the United States, where

just 2.6 percent of food waste is composed.

South Korea

Extended Producer Responsibility

Designing products that can actually be recycled