Paying and Scraping in Pursuit of Zero Waste

In order to encourage people to properly dispose of their waste, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has installed smart vending machines for recyclable waste at Connaught Place and India Gate. In return for making the sustainable waste choice, users receive monetary rewards via e-wallet.

Buying local and in bulk, carrying her own containers, planning ahead and making her own food has resulted in this woman's weekly trash output being contained to a single 2.5-inch-tall Mason jar.

Philabundance, a nonprofit organization aimed at fighting food insecurity, has a sustainable and creative solution. They launched a line of cheeses, known as Abundantly Good, and proceeds will help pay farmers to turn extra milk into cheese for people grappling with hunger. The process will engage ethically-minded consumers, support local farmers, make use of food waste, help the planet, and provide high-quality food to those who are food insecure. It’s a solution that benefits everyone involved.

Incentivizing good behavior is a tried and true tactic often used in child development. However, as the need for better behavior around issues such as recycling and public discord rises, some are finding that going back to a system of incentivizing the preferred behavior is the most successful pathway to creating habits that are crucial for the betterment of society and the environment.

What do you get when you combine the efforts of an engineering company with an energy company? In the Netherlands, you get a new type of environmentally sustainable roads. PlasticRoads, a piloted initiative in the city of Zwolle, uses discarded plastic to build bike paths that help cut down on plastic waste.

Billions of people around the world lack access to safe sanitation, causing disease and deaths. In Ecuador a foundation developed a cheap, dry, composting toilet for poor rural families.

Across the country, projects that mine landfills for reusable metals and soils are underway. Can such mining prove profitable enough to spur similar efforts on a grand scale? So far, some projects have seen profits while others have not. But as society increasingly values pollution and greenhouse gas reduction, incentives for refuse mining can only grow.

In Eskilstuna, Sweden, there is a different kind of shopping mall – one that sells used and upcycled goods. In an effort to combat consumerism and bolster sustainability, the mall, called ReTuna, is nicely curated and organized, making second-hand shopping mainstream. The mall sees 700 people each day, on average, and has sold nearly $3.5 million worth of items.

Two organizations in Pakistan are working to tackle the country’s waste problem. Saaf Suthra Sheher in Islamabad set up partnerships with offices and schools to process their dry waste like plastics and glass. TrashIt, a Karachi-based group, collects organic waste from vegetable sellers and restaurants and then processes and sells it as compost. Although the two organizations can only process so much of the waste produced in cities, they argue that until an effective municipal waste collection system is implemented, they can educate individuals and businesses about how to recycle properly.

In 2020, a devastating explosion in Beirut that came from a warehouse released 800,000 and one million tons of construction and demolition waste and 20,000 tons of shattered glass into the city. The waste was being thrown into landfills. However, landfills are notoriously bad for the environment. Out of that rubble an idea was created; disposing waste sustainably. Rubble Mountains was created specifically to do this. They've been able to restore four quarries, use materials to create public amenities, and diverting up to 50 tons of demolition waste from landfills.