Your Garbage Never Really Goes "Away"

Going Zero Waste: Can It Be Done?

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There is it again, the micro-rage as I deposit my carefully separated recycling into the designated containers, on top of the environmental Armageddon left by the less conscientious. I unleash a loud “tut” and walk away fantasizing about stringing my neighbors up by their unrecyclable jamón wrappings. 

It’s an ongoing problem in Barcelona. How do you motivate people to recycle properly when there’s no tangible reward, and no repercussions for doing it wrong? The ajuntament is currently exploring ways to tackle the problem, such as its Porta a porta trial in Sarrià. This initiative involved removing anonymous street containers and asking residents to put their separated trash on the street on specific, designated days. Anything left out on the wrong day was left uncollected and instead slapped with a sticker informing the owner of their error. It still falls short of 100% traceability, but it seems this “public-shaming lite” gets results. Imagine the curtain-twitching if they trial it in my neighborhood. After all, if I can get it right…   

Or can I? Back home, I study my colorful mosaic of kitchen trash bags, puzzling over how to dispose of some packaging. Yellow for plastics, or general bin for mixed materials? Eventually, I ditch it all in the yellow bin. The elves at the recycling factory will know what to do with it, I’m sure.   

Who’s Responsible?

And that, right there, is a bigger problem than whether Jordi del 3o knows the difference between paper and porcelain. For me, like most people, my trash is somebody else’s problem the moment it leaves my hands. Out of sight, out of mind. I think I’m doing the right thing by recycling, but maybe all I’m really doing is avoiding the bigger question of why I’m producing so much trash in the first place.      

It’s an uncomfortable truth that more and more people are waking up to. Among them, Magda Cebrián who co-founded Go Zero Waste with her partner in 2019. This Barcelona startup aims to help consumers move towards reduce and reuse and away from recycle, informed by the couple’s own experiences and experiments. CMO Magda explains that—apart from the challenges inherent in modern living—in Spain the system is further stacked against encouraging a culture of reduction and reuse. To illustrate her point, she directs me to an RTVE investigation into the recycling industry here and Ecoembes, the non-profit body responsible for dealing with packaging waste. 

I don’t know how recycling is funded in other countries, but here Ecoembes is composed of some 12,000 companies that pay a small amount for each item of food and drink packaging they put on the market to cover its eventual disposal and treatment. I honestly always thought the ubiquitous “yin-yang arrows” symbol meant “recycled/recyclable.” Turns out it’s actually Ecoembes’ registered logo. 

Follow the Money

Magda explains that because Ecoembes is funded based on production, there’s no incentive to focus on reduction and reuse. Not only that, she also gives me figures disputing Ecoembes’ claim that 80% of envases (packing containers) get recycled. Greenpeace puts it nearer 24.5% for plastic, based on data from ajuntaments and the Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico. The NGO claims the discrepancy is because Ecoembes’ figures are based on pre-recycling weights and don’t include packaging dumped in the wrong containers or on the street, whose treatment is paid for by citizens’ taxes instead. I feel the rage at my neighbors returning.

Still, you know what they say about stones and glass houses... Turns out the recycling elves were just a figment of my optimistic imagination. The RTVE documentary illustrates how packaging is centrifuged and separated by weight. Anything smaller than a yogurt pot is hard (i.e. unprofitable) to recycle and can end up in landfills or burned for energy instead.  

At this point, I’m ready to pull up a chair, crack a beer and toast some marshmallows over the Earth’s dying embers. The plastic six-pack ring will probably end up choking some baby turtle, but I’m starting to think he was doomed anyway. 

Can We Break the Cycle?

Fortunately, not everyone is so pessimistic. Magda explains the answer lies in transitioning to a circular economy. In this alternative model, economic prosperity is linked not to constant consumption of finite resources in linear systems but to prolonging the lifespan of products and designing them so materials can be recovered and reused. She gives the example of deposit-and-return schemes, explaining, “To change something from waste to resource you have to put a value on it.” I can clearly recall the value a returned glass fizzy drinks bottle held for me as a kid: 20 pence-worth of sweets.  

Deposit-and-return may yet be implemented in Spain under new draft legislation from the ministerio to implement the provisions of the EU’s single-use plastics directive, as well as other circular economy concepts. In the past, however, says Magda, the idea has encountered resistance from the recycling industry. 

Since the wheels of government can be slow to turn, it never hurts to grease them with a bit of consumer pressure. And for that, she says, we need to change our relationship with waste “There’s no such thing as ‘away.’ Your trash goes somewhere… so the best approach will always be reducing and not producing waste so you avoid having someone else having to deal with it.” She’s hopeful China’s ban on trash imports will further drive change in the packaging industry, “When you have to deal with your own problems rather than shipping them away, you start thinking ‘How can I improve the quality of materials so they are not waste anymore and can be used as a resource?’”

What’s in Your Bin?

For the folks at home, she recommends starting with a trash audit. This powerful visual exercise brings you face to face with your waste and shows you where most of it comes from: which shops, materials, etc. (I tried it and I have to say it was nearly as stressful as being audited at work, albeit with less paperwork.) 

Once you start to see how much waste you generate and where it comes from, you can work on changing your habits. For example, by beginning with small things like not buying disposable water bottles anymore. Beware, however, of the sustainability fashion and alternatives that may be even worse. I have a drawer of reusable bottles and canvas totes at home, the de rigueur giveaway at every event I go to now. Cheap Chinese steel imports and “bags-for-life” that have to be used hundreds of times before they approach the footprint of a plastic bag. (And don’t get me started on those biodegradable bags that are so overenthusiastic they can’t wait for you to get your shopping home...)

Going zero waste takes commitment but it can be done with a little planning. Magda outlines a few helpful hacks, such as taking containers for meat and fish shopping, as well as your own bags. She recommends shopping on your way out rather than way home, where possible, as you’re more likely to remember these. And, of course, buying concentrated or bigger quantities less often is also a good start.    

The Go Zero Waste App

As finding zero waste products is often an issue, the Go Zero Waste app’s city map lists stores stocking everything from solid cosmetics to bulk food to recycled furniture, as well as markets, second-hand clothing, repair shops, restaurants and more. It’s community-driven so users can add places or flag up inaccuracies. Magda says, “We try to work on the barriers that stop people from changing how they consume and try to create a solution for each one. Basically, the app allows you to break the first barrier of ‘where do I start? Where do I find stuff?’” 

It’s certainly a major stumbling block for me, living in a neighborhood where all the tota la vida shops have made way for mini-supermarket franchises. No tattooed Gràcia hipsters on hand here selling shampoo bars wrapped in biodegradable beard clippings. For the far-flung conscientious consumer like me, Go Zero Waste is also exploring zero waste home delivery and helping local shops connect with customers post-lockdown. It’s a timely move now that online shopping has surged, and with it the footprint of cheap overseas imports delivered in small batches and reams of unrecyclable packaging. 

The eternal challenge, Magda says, is striking a balance between nurturing local economies and serving consumers who don’t have zero waste options locally. However, she’s confident circular economy is the key to a more respectful relationship with our planet that still takes care of people. “I put a lot of hope in circular economy,” she says, “because it’s talking the language of companies, telling companies ‘If you change your ways you will be able to survive.’” 

But will we? Survive, I mean. “I don’t know if we are in time to change,” Magda shrugs, “but at least we have to try.”

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Kate Williams is a freelance writer, editor, translator and Director of The Writer Stuff. She left her native England for Barcelona in 2003 and never looked, or went, back. When she isn’t writing or discovering all the cool stuff going on in the city, she enjoys hiking in the Catalan countryside, kayaking on the Costa Brava, and volunteers at a local animal sanctuary. You can read more by Kate here.