S P E C I A L   I S S U E 
--------------------------------
from The Jobs Letter No.118
a subscriber-based letter 
published in New Zealand 18 February 2000   
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J O B S   F R O M   W A S T E
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"The world works by adherence to our departure from big 
ideas. And we organise ourselves around them, and then 
people do real well when they figure out how to improve 
on them, modify them, find a little niche in which to move.  

"But if we stay with a big idea that's wrong too long, no 
matter how good the rest of our creativity is, we all get in 
trouble. And no matter how hard we work, we get in 
trouble because we work harder and harder and harder at 
the wrong things.  

"One of the big ideas the world has to abandon is the idea 
that the only way to build a modern prosperous economy 
is with the industrial energy use patterns of the former era. 
This is not true." 
-- US President Bill Clinton speaking to the Auckland Apec 
Business CEO Summit, 12 September 1999  

"We are the only species that is using resources faster 
than we can replace them. We are the only species that is 
not using resources that we can recycle. And we are the 
only species that has large unemployment ..." 
--Don Riesterer, Mayor of Opotiki District Council  

"Waste is a social issue before it is a technical issue. The 
trouble is we've been trying to get the technicians to solve 
it. But our whole thesis is that you solve the waste problem 
through employment.  

"Waste is centrally an economic development issue. The 
way you get your waste reduction outcomes is by creating 
the business opportunities and giving people work in this 
field..." 
-- Warren Snow, manager of the Tindall Foundation and 
co-founder of the Zero Waste NZ Trust  


BILL CLINTON ON A BIG IDEA 
*       When US President Bill Clinton was in Auckland for 
Apec in September last year, he spoke to the Business 
CEO Summit at the America's Cup Village. During his 
speech, he departed from his notes to talk about his 
enthusiasm for a "big idea" which he believed was going 
to transform international business.  

Clinton had been reading a copy of Natural Capitalism, by 
Paul Hawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins, a book which 
the Wall Street Journal credits as sparking a series of 
presidential speeches on business and the environment. 
Clinton's view is that developing countries in the new 
millennium won't need to be "energy hogs" to become 
rich ... but we all will need to depart from some of the old 
ideas of the industrial era. Clinton: "I have been very 
convinced for years that it is no longer necessary to 
choose between growing the economy and preserving, 
and even improving, the environment ... But it is quite 
necessary to abandon the industrial age energy use 
patterns."  

One of the most obvious industrial age energy use 
patterns which is undergoing a major revolution is our 
attitude towards waste. As the global economy makes 
ever-greater demands on the natural environment, 
political, business and community leaders around the 
world are pointing to our waste stream and recycling as 
areas of new business and employment potential. 
Consequently, the waste issue has moved from the 
economic margins into the mainstream.  

*       The battle cry for this new revolution is "Zero Waste" 
... a concept that goes well beyond traditional recycling 
and composting schemes. As well as an expression of 
concern for the environment, Zero Waste is an emerging 
design principle for business and the community. It is 
about planning for elimination of waste rather than 
managing or hiding it. It is about designing products for 
recycling and reuse, and then building up an infrastructure 
for the repair and redistribution of these resources. And it 
is about the jobs and economic development 
opportunities that come from following these principles.  

Zero Waste is also part of a "materials revolution" which is 
taking shape in the new economy. While the use of 
recycled materials is not new, the new opportunities 
opening up in this field are leading to the development of  
new technologies which are breaking down barriers to 
materials recovery. This, in turn, is leading to some 
spectacular productivity and efficiency gains in the 
business sector.  

But, as Bill Clinton points out, all this starts with a change 
in mindset. It means addressing our waste not just 
because it would be better for the environment. We need 
to look again at waste because it also represents a flow of 
materials and resources which is gaining great value to 
our economy.  

*       The Zero Waste revolution will go much further than 
the older recycling and composting programmes, 
because it applies "systems" thinking to the dual 
challenges of environmental degradation and resource 
recovery.  

Tom Bentley, Director of the Demos think tank in London, 
argues that previous recycling activities failed to take off 
because the different parts of the overall system failed to 
combine "... in a victory of short-term over long-term 
thinking". Bentley says the solutions to waste and 
resource recovery lie in understanding the role of the 
productive system as a whole. He also observes that this 
change in thinking is bringing together two spheres of 
society that, at first sight, seem like strange bedfellows.  

Bentley: "These two spheres include the leading edge of 
the knowledge economy, with its emphasis on networks, 
collaboration, and creativity, and the emerging global 
movement of Greens, community enterprise and local 
economic development, which exemplifies innovative 
capacity, self-reliance and sustainability. Between them 
they are helping shape a new path for capitalism which 
shows how radical changes in resource and material 
productivity can improve long-term business prospects 
and achieve real environmental progress..."  


ZERO-WASTE IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT 
*       Perhaps the clearest sign that attitudes towards waste 
disposal in New Zealand are changing can be found in the 
numbers of district councils who are signing up to the 
challenge of Zero Waste in their communities.  

In early December, there was a national meeting in 
Kaikoura of the first fourteen district councils (see list) 
which have pledged to achieve as close as possible to 
100% recycling and reuse of their waste streams by the 
year 2015. The point is to make disposal to landfills the 
absolutely last option for their local waste.  

*       One of the keynote speakers at the meeting was 
Warren Snow, co-founder of Zero Waste NZ, a trust which 
has become an important resource in supporting councils 
to move towards a Zero Waste vision. Snow: "This was 
probably the first time that councils, recyclers and 
advisors on waste have ever got together without the 
influence of those groups who have a vested interest in 
keeping putting our waste into landfills. The meeting heard 
that there are a lot of emerging trends, interventions and 
opportunities that these councils can take advantage of ... 
to address and eventually eliminate every aspect of the 
waste stream. The knowledge of how we can now all get 
on with it ... is being spread much quicker."  

*       Zero Waste NZ Trust has been distributing 
information on the strategies and interventions that 
councils can put in place to achieve the target of zero 
waste to landfills. The trust has also offered to fund each 
council $20,000 towards helping develop a strategy for 
change. This has meant that council engineers now have 
some discretionary money needed to explore their 
options in this field. The councils can also take advantage 
of the network of Zero Waste advisors who are available 
to show local politicians and engineers how to put in place 
an alternative waste management strategy.  

*       Opotiki District mayor Don Riesterer is a passionate 
advocate for the Zero Waste challenge in local 
government. Riesterer: "It is the way New Zealand has to 
go if we are going to maintain our clean green image that 
is so precious to our markets overseas. We haven't been 
going long enough to see if all this is actually going to 
save councils money ... but if it saves the environment, 
and if we don't put in place a huge timebomb in landfills 
for future generations, it will be certainly worth it ..."  

Don Riesterer is particularly keen on the employment that 
can be gained from a council's commitment towards the 
goal of Zero Waste: "In Opotiki we have high 
unemployment, sometimes up to 30% unemployed in the 
district, so the development of our Resource Recovery 
Centre has created some permanent jobs in this area. It's 
significant for the young unemployed people to get 
involved in creating a new set-up for our community. 
What's happened is that these young people have picked 
up the vision of Zero Waste for themselves. Not only has 
it increased their mana ... but it has also increased their 
employability later on..."  


HOW MANY JOBS? 
*       Warren Snow predicts that if every council tomorrow 
decided to make their transfer stations into resource 
recovery centres ... then they would immediately create 
2,000 jobs throughout New Zealand. Snow: "That's just 
stage one. In five years, you can multiply these jobs by a 
factor of ten. These jobs are created by the niche 
recovery opportunities that flow from the recovery centres. 
These will be jobs in all the community groups and small 
businesses who would rise to the opportunities created 
from this waste.  

"In ten years you can multiply the jobs by a factor of 
twenty. As the infrastructure grows around recycling as an 
alternative technology to landfilling, then still more 
opportunities for employment are created. So I'm 
predicting at least 40,000 jobs after ten years coming 
from a Zero Waste strategy..."  

*        In 1998, a survey of 64 recycling businesses in 
Auckland, undertaken by Waste Not Limited, showed that 
the numbers of people employed in this sector were 
already greater than many observers were picking. The 
Waste Not report found that:  

-- about 1,700 employees were directly involved in 
recycling in the Auckland region. This figure is of similar 
size as the forestry, fishing and agriculture sector in the 
region.  

-- a quarter of these jobs have been created since 1993. 

-- almost 300 more jobs are expected to be created in this 
local sector in the next few years.  

-- on average, each business in the reuse and recycling 
industry directly employs 18 people.  

-- approximately one third of the employment positions 
were involved in the sorting and upgrading of recyclable 
materials.  

-- one fifth of the reuse and recycling workforce was 
employed in the collection of materials for recycling.  

-- the manufacturing industries employed a further third of 
those employed in this sector.  

-- the average wage in the recycling industry in 1998 was 
approximately $12/hr.

-- nearly two hundred of the employment positions were 
involved in administration of the recycling businesses.  

*       The Waste Not report says that the ability of the 
recycling industry to add new jobs for relatively low input 
makes it a great prospect for local investment. The report: 
"Recycling is not yet a major employment sector in the 
local economy, but in terms of job growth and the 
numbers employed per businesses it is quite spectacular 
... If councils were to encourage the development of the 
industry, for example through the development and 
promotion of waste minimisation targets, the economic 
and local employment advantages alone could be 
significant."  


GLOBAL TRENDS 
*       The Auckland Waste Not report is characteristic of a 
growing international interest in the benefits that can be 
gained from alternative waste management strategies.  

The global trends are to replace the older low-level 
recycling initiatives with more intensive schemes, centred 
on better doorstep collections. The challenge for local 
communities and small businesses is to build an 
infrastructure for the re-use, repair and redistribution of the 
collected resources.  

Example: the City of Canberra in Australia has a policy of 
"No Waste by 2010". It is developing an infrastructure to 
meet this policy and is breaking its waste stream down 
into "resource streams" including building and demolition 
materials, paper and cardboard, organic materials and 
garden wastes, naturally excavated soils, hard and soft 
plastics, glass and textiles. These resources are then 
publicised to attract and develop new industries.  

*       Germany has been the leading innovator for the Zero 
Waste revolution in Europe. German policy makers now 
speak in terms of "the closed loop materials economy" 
(CLME) whose aim is defined as establishing "circular 
processes by recycling products, materials, and energy 
which make it possible to lengthen the service life of 
resources..." The Germans have directed regulations, 
technology and financial resources to establishing 
German industry as leaders in this field.  

The CLME philosophy has seen Germany applying 
modern production technology to such processes as 
mixed glass and mixed plastic sorting, to cleaning testing 
and refurbishing materials, to the automated recovery of 
materials from electrical and electronic goods, and to 
automobile disassembly. BMW, for example, now designs 
its cars to be 80% recyclable and has built a disassembly 
line near Munich to apply to dis-assembly the principles 
which Henry Ford applied in assembly. Similarly German 
construction firms are designing buildings which can be 
80% recycled.  

*       In the United States, the advances in domestic 
collection, coupled with improved recycling of commercial 
and industrial waste, are leading to high rates of recovery 
in the US for the main recyclable materials: over two thirds 
(68%) of old newspapers in the US are now recycled, 
73% of cardboard, 67% of aluminium cans, and 61% of 
steel cans. Plastic bottles still remain low (22%) but glass 
is rising (37%) as is the composting of organic waste 
(35%).  

*       In California, the Integrated Waste Management Act 
of 1989, requires cities to divert 50% of their solid waste 
from landfills by the year 2000. This act alone has spurred 
enormous activity in the recovered materials sector. 
Millions of tons of recovered materials are entering the 
economy, and millions of dollars are being invested in the 
businesses needed to collect and process these 
materials. Existing businesses are expanding, new 
businesses are starting up, and out-of-state businesses 
are relocating to California in response to the market 
demand for their services.  

Local officials are calling the recycling trend the "New 
Gold Rush"... describing the new processing firms 
"...coming to the Golden State to mine California's newest 
natural resource -- garbage".  


ALL THIS LEADS TO JOBS ... 
*       All this is leading to more jobs ... because labour 
intensive recycling systems can be smarter and more 
productive than centralised, capital-intensive alternatives. 
Intensive recycling programmes depend on an army of 
workers, volunteers and householders acting together to 
bring multiple streams of waste that can be fed back into 
the economy as a resource. A London Demos report, 
entitled "Creating wealth from waste", concludes that an 
intensive recycling programme in Britain would provide the 
scope for  15,000 jobs in collection and sorting and at 
least 25,000 to 40,000 jobs in manufacturing and 
reprocessing: 40- 50,000 jobs overall.  

The Demos report: "At a time when the conventional 
wisdom declares that governments can no longer create 
jobs using macro- economic levers, this is profoundly 
important. Because they are both practical and knowledge 
intensive, combining manual work with information 
management, the kind of jobs created also point to a new 
tier of employment that can help replace traditional 
manufacturing and industrial jobs..."  

*       A study by the US Institute of Local Self Reliance has 
found that one job is created for every 15,000 tons of 
solid waste landfilled each year. For a similar amount of 
waste composted, seven jobs are created. If recycled, 
that material would generate nine jobs in collection and 
processing alone. This does not include the number of 
jobs that can then be created or retained in manufacturing. 
 

*Recent German studies estimate that the national waste 
and recycling industry has more than 1000 firms 
employing an average of 150 people each, with a turnover 
of between 80-100 billion DM per year. This is larger than 
employment in either steel or telecommunications in 
Germany. Of these 150,000 German jobs, 17,000 have 
been created through packaging recycling alone.  

*       Besides diverting waste from landfills, recycling- 
based manufacturing can also form the basis of a regional 
revitalisation. The Materials for the Future Foundation 
(MFF) in California proposes that rural areas, experiencing 
job losses due to declines in core industries like timber, 
could benefit from new manufacturing enterprises that 
utilize recycled materials collected in the region. And 
since secondary materials are generated in population 
centers, plants that use recycled materials have incentives 
to locate in urban areas near both the material supply and 
the labour supply - -helping to address problems of urban 
unemployment.  

MFF: "Studies show that the value added to the economy 
from recycling can be in the hundreds of millions of 
dollars just from manufacturers using recycled feedstock. 
A local economy based upon materials reuse can also 
create many types of other jobs. At the front-end, 
research and development efforts provide employment to 
engineers, chemists, and other material specialists. At the 
back-end, construction workers, architects and engineers 
are needed to design and construct the facilities to handle 
the new supply of discard materials. Jobs and dollars also 
flow on to the other businesses in the communities such 
as the retail outlets, real estate and others."  

*       The MFF also points out the new jobs in the 
recovered materials industry will probably come through 
the development of small businesses ... because the 
recycling and reuse industry tends to be diverse and 
labour-intensive. This is in sharp contrast to the virgin 
materials extraction industries (timber, mining, drilling, 
etc.), and traditional disposal industries (land-filling and 
incineration), which tend to be highly centralized and 
capital intensive and provide fewer local job opportunities. 
 


THE QUALITY OF THE WORK 
*       What is the quality of the work generated from the 
waste stream? Waste has traditionally offered jobs which 
has been low on the ladder of prestige. The dustman, the 
street sweeper, the rag and bone man, the office cleaner 
have found themselves classified as unskilled, and their 
social status affected by the material they handle.  

But the quality of the work generated depends on the type 
of recycling methods chosen by the local authorities. The 
1998 ground- breaking "Reinventing Waste" report, 
written for the London Planning Advisory Council (LPAC) 
by industrial economist Robin Murray, describes three 
choices:   

-- a capital intensive route, with wheeled bins, mechanised 
sorting and composting.  

-- a low skilled labour intensive route, with jobs 
concentrated in centralised sorting facilities  

-- a skilled labour intensive route, with jobs focused on 
kerbside sorting, householder communication, and 
system improvement.   

*       Germany, for example, has chosen a capital intensive 
means of collection, but with low skilled sorting of the 
mixed packaging waste. In 1996 there were 360 sorting 
stations employing 17,000 workers mainly on manual 
sorting from conveyor belts. But a study by the Federal 
Agency for Workplace Safety and Health concluded that 
these sorting stations are among Germany's most 
unhealthy workplaces, and noted the poor air quality as a 
result of bacteria from rotting foodstuffs and the frequent 
small cuts and wounds suffered from the sharp edges of 
cans.  

A different route has been taken in Denmark. The Danish 
Trade Unions, foreseeing the loss of traditional waste jobs 
as the result of recycling, have established courses to 
upgrade refuse workers, developing skills in customer 
relations, materials handling, and data gathering and 
analysis.  

*       The London/Murray report observes that in the UK, 
and in the early periods of recycling in North America and 
continental Europe, this "upskilling" alternative has 
attracted a new type of "green collar worker".  

The report: "These people are committed to the 
environmental impact of recycling, they have designed 
systems with a substantial degree of collector-household 
interaction, with kerbside recycling operatives separating 
recyclable materials. Bulking and sorting of materials at 
most existing London recycling depots involves operating 
forklifts and bulking and sorting source separated 
materials, not hand sorting mixed waste on a dirty 
conveyor-belt system. In the same way that a single 
kerbside recycler collects materials worth £200,000 once 
it is remanufactured, his or her job supports three 
additional jobs. At a time when new jobs are being 
created, it is important to ensure these are high quality 
jobs ..."  

*       The London/Murray report also points out that the new 
jobs are seeing more women employed in the resource 
recovery fields: "A system of household environmental 
advisory visits -- covering energy, water and waste -- 
involves a further set of skills, and like "green collar work" 
more generally, has provided job opportunities for women 
in what has traditionally been a predominantly male 
occupation. Women have also played a leading role in 
composting, and in the management of recycling 
programmes. One third of recycling officers in London are 
women..."  


THE TINDALL FOUNDATION 
*The backer behind the Zero Waste NZ Trust is the 
Tindall Foundation -- the charitable trust set up by Stephen 
Tindall, founder of the Warehouse retail chain. This 
foundation has been providing grants for the last five 
years -- with half the funds going to voluntary sector 
organisations operating in their own communities, and the 
other half going to employment and the environmental 
initiatives.  

Wherever possible, the Tindall Foundation tries to link 
these categories to achieve a "double dividend". This 
means they prefer to fund employment initiatives that have 
an environmental dimension, and environmental initiatives 
that also create employment opportunities and have a 
focus on local economic development.  

*       The Tindall Foundation has also helped establish the 
NZ Recovered Materials Enterprise Fund. The main 
purpose of this fund is to help expand the market 
penetration for recycled products by encouraging and 
assisting products to utilise recovered materials. The 
foundation has pledged $100,000 to this fund on the 
basis that additional funds will also be actively sought from 
major suppliers of packaging and fillers, landfill operators, 
local, regional and national government, and community 
economic development agencies.  

Grants are provided to projects to help with business 
planning, research and technical assistance. To qualify for 
funding, a project must be locally owned or a community 
enterprise, it must use a significant proportion of 
recovered materials, and help create new job 
opportunities.  

*       Stephen Tindall, as managing director of the 
Warehouse, is also working to ensure that he is running a 
company that practices what it preaches in terms of 
environmental goals. Tindall: "At the Warehouse, we 
understand that all business activities have environmental 
impacts. We believe we can make a difference in 
safeguarding our environment for present and future 
generations. Our long-term economic goal is to conduct 
our business sustainably. We are serious about our 
commitment and we have no illusions. This journey will be 
long and difficult..."  

The Warehouse has set itself the goal of "zero waste to 
landfill" by 2020. In the next twelve months the company 
plans to reduce the amount of waste sent from stores to 
landfills by a third. Its environmental goals for this year 
also include recycling of paper, plastic and cardboard 
(which represent up to 80 per cent of total waste) at all its 
stores, developing a comprehensive "green guide" for all 
suppliers, and training of all employees in waste 
reduction.  

To promote recycling, The Warehouse now sells a range 
of recycled products under the "Environmental Choice" 
label, an independently audited and internationally 
recognised brand. The company is actively encouraging 
suppliers and manufacturers to also support this initiative.  


BUSINESS AND SUSTAINABILITY 
*       Last year, the Warehouse became a founding 
member of the New Zealand Business Council for 
Sustainable Development (NZBCSD) with Stephen Tindall 
elected as vice-chairman. The group is led by Fletcher 
Challenge chief executive Michael Andrews.  

NZBCSD has been described in the media as a "pale 
green" alternative to the Business Roundtable. It is an off-
shoot of the Geneva-based World Business Council for 
Sustainable Development, which promotes corporate 
social responsibility as "... the third pillar of sustainable 
development, along with economic growth and ecological 
balance." The membership of the World Council includes 
a Who's Who of transnational corporations including Dow 
chemical, Du Pont, General Motors, Monsanto, Shell and 
Toyota.  

Stephen Tindall: "As key decision-makers in our society, it 
is essential that businesses take a leadership role in 
pursuing sound sustainable development for our 
communities. To this end, the NZBCSD is developing a 
basic framework of indicators and measures for 
businesses to use in reporting on environmental and 
social performance..."  

*       Membership of the New Zealand Business Council for 
Sustainable Development is by invitation. The founding 
members include:  3M, BP, Eagle Technology, Fletcher 
Challenge, Hubbard Foods, INL, Landcare Research, 
Montana Wines, National Bank, the Dairy Board, Petros 
Plastics, Sanford, Simpson Grierson, Sunshine Books, 
Foresight Institute, Living Earth, Warehouse Group, 
Toyota, TransAlta, Trustpower, Waitotara Meats, Waste 
Management and Watercare.  


ZERO-WASTE COUNCILS IN NZ
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FAR NORTH
GISBORNE
HASTINGS
KAWERAU
OPOTIKI
MASTERTON
PALMERSTON NORTH
NELSON
KAIKOURA
CHRISTCHURCH
MACKENZIE
SELWYN
TIMARU
DUNEDIN

F E A T U R E 
-------------------------------------------------------------- 

"Landfills are simply dinosaurs. They are archaic ways of 
destroying materials. They destroy value instead of 
conserving value. They take material out of commerce. 
They waste jobs ... they are part of a system that destroys 
human value as well as material value. Landfills may lead 
to collection and labour efficiencies in terms of the 
management of waste ... but in terms of resource 
efficiencies they are absurd...." 
-- Dr Bill Sheehan, US Grassroots Recycling Network  

"You can buy a giant recycling industry for the same 
amount you spent on a landfill or an incinerator. You can 
have a whole collection of small businesses with more 
jobs that are a lot more fun to work in ... and provide a 
more diverse and stable community economic sector ..." 
-- MaryLou van Derenter,  Urban Ore (US) Inc  


R E C Y C L A N O M I C S

*       Warren Snow says that communities are actually 
paying much more in the long-term for  "hiding all our 
waste" in landfills, rather than building a local recycling 
alternative. Snow: "I would say that we will look back in 
years to come and wonder how on earth it was that a 
community could allow anybody to put a ton of stuff in the 
ground and get free rent forever on that piece of land. The 
economics of this are absolutely absurd.  

"Government environmental protection agencies 
acknowledge that every landfill will leak ... so somebody is 
going to pay a clean-up bill sometime. Swedish research 
now shows that the leachate toxicity of a landfill is still not 
benign after a thousand years. Even landfill professionals 
are now saying that we should assess the true costs of 
landfills based on looking after each of them for 500 
years. But these same experts admit that the problem is 
still going to be there in 500 years! It is this disregard for 
future generations that lets us think that landfills are a 
cheap solution today.  

"So when council's put a cost on their landfills, they 
seldom factor in all these ongoing expenses that will be 
with us for generations. When you truly work out the cost 
for landfills ... it usually comes out at about $100-$150 per 
tonne. But this still doesn't include the costs for up to or 
longer than 500 years, nor does it include the monumental 
costs of cleaning up environmental disasters from landfills 
that have already been built in the wrong places ... like the 
ones we have now which are built right next to rivers.  

"The landfill debate can be summed up in this way: 
Materials are flowing though your communities. They have 
value ... but the value is being hidden from you. Getting 
access to that value -- and the jobs that come with it -- will 
come from choosing not to hide these materials any 
longer.  

"At the moment, the whole system is designed for hiding it 
away. Councils have incentivised the system based 
around waste, but not incentivised a system based on 
recovery. Universities train people engineers in waste 
disposal, all the equipment and infrastructure costs are 
already committed to this purpose. Even the consenting 
process is big business. In the face of all this, recycling 
starts to look like a pesky little additional cost to the real 
work of disposing of things to a landfill.  

"What we are saying is that when you compare landfills 
with recycling -- and include all the real costs involved -- 
then time and time again we can prove that recycling is 
economic. We say that Zero Waste is a competing 
technology to landfills ... but we have to change the 
mindset so that councils learn to invest in this new 
business to make it work."   


COMMUNITY AND SMALL BUSINESS 
OPPORTUNITIES
---------------------------------------------------------------

Some community and small businesses taking advantage 
of the new opportunities in resource recovery include: 

The Community Business and Environment Centre 
(Kaitaia) 
Waste Not Limited (Auckland) 
Mid-Canterbury Wastebusters Environmental Trust 
Kaikoura Wastebusters Trust 
Hurunui Recyclers 
Waiora Trust (Christchurch) 
Second Time Resource Recovery Park (a project of the 
Manukau Urban Maori Authority) 
Green Bikes (Palmerston North) 
Waiheke Waste Resource Trust 
Christchurch Sustainable Cities Trust 
Laughing Dog Recycling Centre (Motueka) 
Nelson Environment Centre 
Woper Recycling (Fielding) 
Raglan Reycling 
The Resource Trust (Beachlands) 
Taieri Recyclers (Mosgiel) 
Wanaka Wastebusters   


AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR RECOVERY
---------------------------------------------------------------

*       Successful recycling and re-use programmes are 
dependent on viable markets for the materials collected. 
This means that producers must purchase the materials in 
the form of recycled content ... and the consumer must 
also be willing to purchase goods made with recycled 
components. This is the infrastructure challenge that must 
be developed in pursuit of the Zero Waste vision.  

*       Example: the automobile. It is usually one of the most 
expensive consumer products bought by companies and 
families, and a major product force in the world. The car 
used to be viewed as a very recyclable product, when 
they were made mostly of metal. However, in the last ten 
years, cars have become more of a composite product 
that is now less recycled than in the past.  

But this is starting to change. As an outgrowth of the 
European packaging and recycling directives, the 
European auto industry, including BMW, Volvo, Saab, and 
Daimler-Benz, have made commitments to have cars that 
will be 80% (or higher) recyclable early this century.  

US recycling market development analyst Pete Grogan 
comments: "In order to achieve the recovery of these 
cars, an entire "reverse logistics" infrastructure will be put 
in place. This infrastructure represents the missing half of 
the entire consumer product manufacturing event. Just as 
we have hundreds of manufacturing plants churning out 
automobiles worldwide, we will now have hundreds of 
plants with high-tech mechanised systems for 
disassembling autos ... with tens of thousands of new 
employment opportunities. The auto industry's 
commitment to consuming recycled materials in the 
production of new cars will represent the largest ever 
single opportunity for new market development and usage 
of recycled content products ..."  

*       Here in New Zealand, one could imagine that in 
regions like Thames and Porirua -- where car assembly 
plants have been closing with the loss of hundreds of jobs 
-- this employment may return in the future as new plants 
are created for the disassembling and recycling of the 
nation's cars. This "re-use" activity in the auto industry may 
also become a model for numerous other industries 
including the construction industry and electronic and 
electrical equipment, and most other consumer products.  


RESOURCES : JOBS FROM WASTE SPECIAL ISSUE
---------------------------------------------------------------

N e w   Z e a l a n d 

Zero Waste NZ Trust, P.O.Box 33-1695, Takapuna, 
Auckland phone 09-486-0734 email 
[EMAIL PROTECTED], website: 
www.zerowaste.co.nz.  

"Survey of Recycling Businesses in the Auckland Region" 
(1998) by Waste Not Limited (specialist waste 
consultancy) P.O.Box 33- 1410, Takapuna, Auckland 
phone 09-486-3635 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  

The NZ Recovered Materials Enterprise Fund, P.O.Box 
33-1410, Takapuna, Auckland phone 09-486-0750  

Annual report of The Tindall Foundation, available from 
P.O.Box 33- 181, Takapuna, Auckland phone 09-488-
0170  

"Greenworks" special issue of Employment Matters 
(August 1999) a Community Employment Group 
publication, freely available through offices of Work and 
Income NZ (Winz).  

"Recyclanomics" by Cliff Colquhoun and Warren Snow 
(1995) is available from Zero Waste NZ Trust, P.O.Box 
33-1695 Takapuna, or can be downloaded (in pdf format) 
from The Jobs Research Website at 
http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/zerowaste.htm  

"The Materials Revolution" (2000) paper by Warren Snow, 
also available from the Jobs Research Website (as 
above).  


I n t e r n a t i o n a l 

"Re-Inventing Waste: Towards a London Waste Strategy" 
(August 1998) by Robin Murray for Ecologika and the 
London Planning Advisory Committee (LPAC).  For more 
information and ordering 
http://www.lpac.gov.uk/reinvent.html  

"Zero Waste: Idealistic Dream or Realistic Goal?" video 
(1999) dir. Paul Gonnett co-produced by the Grassroots 
Recycling Network, and based on the June 1999 
California Resource Recovery Association Conference at 
Fort Mason, San Francisco. Grassroots Recycling 
Network website: www.grrn.org.  

"Welfare for Waste --how taxpayer subsidies waste 
resources and discourage recycling"  by Grassroots 
Recycling Network. Website: www.grrn.org California 
Resource Recovery Association website www.crra.com  

"Creating wealth from waste" (1999) by Robin Murray, for 
the Demos independent think tank in London. Demos 
website: www.demos.co.uk.  

"Redeeming the Blue Box -- complaints that recycling is 
too expensive just don't add up" by Daniel Scott, article in 
Alternatives Journal 25:4 Fall 1999  

"Manufacturing with Reused and recycled Materials -- Fifty 
Small Business Opportunities" (December 1998) 
published by the Materials for the Future Foundation.  

"What is recycling-based community economic 
development? " by the Materials for the Future 
Foundation. available on their website: 
www.materials4future.org.  

"The Waste Paper" (monthly periodical) Bulletin of the 
Community Recycling Network, 10-12 Picton St, 
Montpelier, Bristol BS6 5QA. Website: www.crn.org.uk  

This special issue is also available as a document (in pdf 
format) that can be downloaded from The Jobs Research 
Website at http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/zerowaste.htm  

  
C R E D I T S   
-------------------   

This special issue has been produced 
in partnership with
The Zero Waste NZ Trust

Editor -- Vivian Hutchinson   
Associates - Rodger Smith, Dave Owens and Jo Howard 
Secretary - Shirley Vickery  

ISSN No. 1172-6695   

T H E   J O B S   L E T T E R   
an essential information and media watch  on jobs, 
employment,  unemployment, the future of work,  and 
related economic and education issues.  

Kia taea ai te tangata te whiwhi mahi  ahakoa ki whea, 
ahakoa ko wai. 
Our objective is that every New Zealander will have the  
opportunity to be in paid work. 

The Jobs Research Trust -- a not-for-profit Charitable 
Trust  constituted in 1994 to develop and  distribute 
information that  will help our communities create more 
jobs and reduce unemployment  and poverty in New 
Zealand.    

ends   
------  


vivian Hutchinson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
phone 06-753-4434 fax 06-759-4648
P.O.Box 428
New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand

visit The Jobs Research Website 
Premier Award Winner of the 1999 Media Peace Awards 
http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/

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