“Zero waste” promoted by people like Wendy O’Connor and Kevin Pearson is a misleading term, because it omits the substantial cost of disease from fabrication and washing cost of fabric shopping bags, cost of handling materials in a “resource recovery centre”, and waste of the one scarce resource – individual time alive.
As for creating jobs, that sounds like the broken window fallacy that the wrong act is good because it creates work for glaziers.
Life requires integration – considering all factors to avoid unintended consequences and failure, “zero waste does not do that.
Why are do-gooders promoting a flawed idea? Because their view of humans is negative. They deny the effectiveness of the human mind. Thus ignore what they see around them and benefit from every day – people taking care of property, discovering more resources, and using plastics to keep people healthy and repair their bodies.
Recommended reading includes The Doomsday Myth which chronicles failed predictions of resource shortages even in the face of initiation of force by the collective called “government”. I’ve lived with little of the modern products the do-gooders take for granted, I recommend against returning a World Lit Only By Fire (a book describing the squalor, disease, and oppression of the Dark Ages when mysticism ruled).
Keith Sketchley
Saanich