You might think the Zero Waste people would be the last group talking up Big Business.

After all, they represent the radical side of recycling, of pushing the envelope as far as they can, right? Their name itself is a lightning rod for radicalism -- few things sound more utopian than the idea of absolutely no waste being created in the world.

That in itself is a big misconception about the idea that its proponents want to correct. It´s not about literally achieving zero waste, it´s about heading in that direction, says Eric Lombardi. He´s executive director of the nation´s largest nonprofit community recycler, Eco Cycle Inc., president of the GrassRoots Recycling Network and an advocate of the Zero Waste Alliance.

"Businesses get this," said another zero waste guy, Gary Liss of Gary Liss & Associates, at a National Recycling Coalition session on the topic at its recent annual meeting. Businesses talk about zero defects and zero injuries, he points out -- they don´t literally think they´ll never have an employee get hurt or a part come out bad.

Lombardi and Liss heaped praise on and cited several examples of companies that have made significant progress in reducing waste and pollution. One example Liss gave was of office equipment maker Ricoh Co. Ltd., which claims it hasn´t dumped anything in a landfill since 2000. The company emphasizes two of the R´s that get less play than reduce, reuse, recycle: Ricoh refuses to buy environmentally unfriendly goods from suppliers, and the firm returns goods that don´t meet its requirements. Ricoh rightly sees recycling as a last resort, Liss said -- because that is not eliminating a product that could eventually end up in a landfill.

Xerox Corp., Anheuser-Busch and Pillsbury are three other companies Liss singled out for their environmental achievements. They do it, he said, because it´s the right thing to do and it saves and/or makes money.

Some in the NRC question whether the group is losing its focus by getting closer to business. A better approach is for both recycling advocates and business to realize that they aren´t on opposite sides of the picket line. They´re both starting to see the world more similarly than they may think.

Allan Gerlat is editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.

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