Zero waste: Utopia or reality? | Alessio Ciacci | TEDxLucca

A brilliant talk directed to all those of us who are worried about environmental issues, global issues and the future of the Earth. Inviting, encouraging and full of hope. A brilliant speech by one of the worlds leading problem solvers.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Utopia or reality?

An achievable, concrete,
feasible objective

or pure madness

in a world increasingly
determined by consumerist logics

of waste, of materials, of disposables?

Well I think the definition is possible.

Not only it's possible,
but rather it is necessary

and fundamental for building
a sustainable future.

Indeed to build a possible future.

Because there is no possible future
without sustainability.

Let's begin this short journey
by two images, two charts.

The first chart tells us

a very simple and worrying data
at the same time:

the consumption of materials
per year on Earth.

Over the last 100 years
and for the next thirty.

If today we are around
85 giga-tons per year,

within the next 30 years, in this trend,
we will reach 170 giga-tons per year.

Too bad that, scientists tell us,
we will not have them on our planet

and we do not have a spare planet.

So we have to understand

how we can reconcile
the physical limits of our planet

with a different model of development.

The other chart tells us another
equally important thing:

it is the trend of
climate-changing emissions,

CO2 in the atmosphere in recent years.

A growing trend

that has led to climate
change, scientists tell us,

for about a degree on our planet.

So it's a bit like we have
a fever around 37.

The Paris agreement
states that we must stay

within two degrees, the maximum
of climate change,

otherwise for humanity

it will be very very dangerous
and difficult to continue

living on this planet.

Better to keep us within the half grade,

so this is the trend we have to give

to our climate-altering
emissions in the atmosphere

if we want to stay within two degrees,

or better, because it is less risky,
within the degree and a half.

If we do not want to get to scenarios
that would be really disturbing.

Let's continue this journey
in a beautiful Italian city.

Which of you has ever been to Venice?

Beautiful city.

This is a shame because Venice,
like all the seaside cities,

will be the first to pay

the hardest and most devastating
consequences of climate change,

with the rise of the seas

that will make it increasingly
difficult to live in these cities.

But let's go to the other
sideof the world.

On 11 March 2017,

a landslide in Addis Ababa landfill

generated 65 deaths, mostly
women and children

living around to collect materials,

even our waste,

and continue to give life to that material

by extracting some more
that value they still have.

Here this image can not
but arouse two reflections:

one is a shock of responsibility

that each of us has
for every choice he makes.

And the other is the alternative.

The alternatives we need to grow.

The more we increase
the responsibility of each of us

the more we grow alternatives,

the more the alternatives
grow and take strength,

the more we can increase
the collective responsibility.

And the alternatives exist.

And it is precisely Europe
that is pushing us,

it is pushing all European countries

to move towards models
of circular economy.

Because our economy, for the most part,
is traditionally linear:

To extract - To produce -
To consume - To discard.

On the contrary, that waste
must return as raw material

in the substitution of the continuous
extraction of raw materials,

otherwise we will certainly have
neither future nor sustainability.

But the Zero Waste strategy aims
at even more ambitious objectives

such as

reducing waste production on our planet.

And, if until a few years ago, in fact,

talking about Zero Waste seemed a utopia,

a few months ago I had the honor
of being the first international speaker

of the first world congress
of all the cities Zero Waste.

We found ourselves in Brasilia,
the capital of Brazil,

and there were cities from all over
the world from Australia to Japan

to Asia to Africa to the United States.

And there we were aware

that we are a movement
that is growing in the world

and that increasingly builds
results and advantages.

One of the largest cities in the world
that has made this choice

is San Francisco.

Over one million inhabitants

have started recycling policies
for over 80% of their waste

and this has avoided
the construction of a new landfill.

It has created tens of thousands of jobs

through recycling policies

reusing recycled basic materials.

And in 2007, seeing precisely
the example of San Francisco,

we also wanted to

bring it to Italy,

because no community
had made this choice yet, this path

And we started from Capannori,

a town of about 50 thousand inhabitants,
in the province of Lucca,

to want to build this new challenge

and many told us that it was a utopia

that it was impossible to get zero waste.

But we have acted on these two levers:
responsibility and alternatives

in a process of citizen involvement

and in building alternatives.
Alternatives that feed responsibility.

So we started from the first
fundamental step

that is to eliminate

the collection systems
that feed irresponsibility,

such as the container collection systems.

it seemed to break a religion
to remove the bins from the street.

10/12 years ago

Today, fortunately,

it is a policy that more and more cities
applied in Italy and in the world

- instead to organize
home collection systems

that feed a responsibility.

So that everyone is forced
to take their own scraps,

ask themselves and increase
their responsibilities.

it is precisely through these policies

that we have built this incredible result

that seemed impossible.

You see in this very simple graph,

red is everything

that was for disposal eleven years ago.

And it is gradually tapering
more and more towards zero

thanks to two fundamental factors:

the increase in separate waste collection

and the reduction of waste production.

Where, the central element,
was the responsibility of the citizens

we have nurtured through, precisely,
this simple and banal mechanism

that is the need to have
to ask where every scrap goes.

And then we start to ask why
we make so many discards.

We begin to see them and then
understand the problem.

But, we said, it is also
important to reduce waste

and the first things we can do,
for those who have the possibility,

is to act on the organic.

The workforce is about 40% of urban waste,

it is the one that creates major problems
when it ends up in landfills,

which creates leachate, creates
many environmental problems.

So who has the opportunity
to do home composting,

and therefore to treat waste
at home, in the garden,

it's the first step to take.

So we do not travel that material by truck

and give back to earth the important
nutritious elements

that we have removed to make crops.

So it's the first basic thing to do
to build environmental sustainability.

But those who live in a city
do not have the chance to do it,

so there are more
and more industrial facilities

that allow us to transform
our potato peels,

not only into quality compost
that is used in agriculture,

but also to replace biomethane fuel,

as this facility that is
in Pinerolo in Piedmont

and where biomethane is produced,

which feeds those vehicles that make
the collection of waste in that area.

So a perfect model of circular economy

that is increasingly replicating
in many Italian cities.

But, after the organic, we move
to recyclable, dried material:

paper, plastic, metals.

On each of these industrial chains
we could make a very long report

and discover marvelous journeys
through the recycling policies

they generate, through much simpler

systems than disposal,

they generate much more employment.

It is estimated that the economic
and occupational performance

of recycling plants is about 4/5 times

more compared to disposal plants.

But we have said that Zero Waste
does not only aim to make this first step,

that is to start recycling
all the materials,

but has the ambition of wanting
to reduce the production of waste too.

And it is not true

that reducing the production
of waste is synonymous with deprivation

because, instead, in many projects,

to reduce waste

has been combined with the reduction
of waste to economic development.

For example this trivial project

of a company in Piedmont.

It has created two brands
of eco-catering and eco-hotels.

We have recognized them

as restaurants and hotels

that have agreed to implement

seven out of ten possible
actions,at least seven,

to reduce environmental impacts

and waste production
in their commercial activities.

This gave them publicity,
so he made them known

and benefited from them in economic terms.

The environment has benefited

because they have produced less waste.

the local economy has also benefited

because the disposal started: less waste

and therefore citizens
have also had a benefit,

so everyone has won.

Like these, there are tens
of hundreds of projects

that can be implemented
in the field of waste reduction

to combine all types of

social, environmental, economic
and employment benefits.

The other fundamental step,
again to reduce waste,

is to lengthen their life cycle
and for example through reuse centers.

A few years ago I visited
this spectacular place

which is the largest
European center of reuse.

The city of Gothenburg built it
by investing 4 million euros

and 30 people work in this space.

Every day 200 citizens go, buy anything

from a door, a window, a sanitary,
or an electrical appliance.

And in this way,

after having given work to more
than 30 people every year,

the profits of the company
are paid to the Municipality.

On average, between 700
and 800 thousand euros a year,

so a rather profitable investment
for the municipality.

Here, the same thing we did in Capannori,

right within the Zero Waste strategy,

with a center called Daccapo.

It returns to give life to all
the materials that are conferred

and gives work to 7 people.

And this is, in fact, a model
that is increasingly replicating

in many many cities around Italy.

But let's move on to a further step
of the Zero Waste strategy,

the punctual pricing.

What does it mean?

It means applying that trivial concept
that we have always used to think

about when we consume water,

and therefore we pay it according
to how much we consume

or light

according to how much we consume.

Why should it not be
like that for waste too?

Precisely to increase
responsibility against the waste

that the bill of water or light
encourages us to do.

And so, starting from this concept,

we made an innovation a few
years ago in Capannori.

For the first time in Italy
a feed has been inserted,

a microscopic microchip,

which, when applied in the bag
or even in the sling,

inserts the data of the user

that is registered

for each transfer of undifferentiated
material that a person makes.

And this allows to understand

how many times in each year the citizen
has given his own discards.

This project was nominated

for a competition called
Innovation In Politics

and, thanks also to all my collaborators,

we won the competition

as the first and only experiment
in Italy of this project.

I want to show you the video

they did just to summarize our project.

Here,

if with responsibly sorted house
collection routes

we get to 70 to 80% of the start
of recycling materials,

with the punctual pricing
we can even reach 90/95%.

We did it in Capannori

and now I'm doing it
in many other communities,

following it in this simple,
trivial implementation process

that proves a very simple thing:

that there are no distances

that can not allow these processes
to be carried out

because there are processessimilar to
the South, in Central and Northern Italy,

in small, large and medium-sized cities.

So the will to want to achieve
these goals is enough.

But it is not that that 10%,
that 5%, that 15% that is,

that still goes to disposal

must continue to go
to waste disposal indefinitely.

because as well as
the raw materials market

is constantly growing in cost,

because raw materials
are increasingly scarce,

the same for the industries,

even the big multinationals,
are investing more and more

to go to collect the value of our waste.

It is no coincidence that our discards
are defined as "urban mines".

And it is no coincidence
that precisely in Italy,

a large multinational, has created
this facility in the province of Treviso.

This facility that recycles
for the first time in the world

the diapers,

diapers of our children

who, after an initial sterilization phase,

are recycled through the extraction

of cellulose and plastic materials

that go into the paper supply chains
and the recovery of plastic materials.

And the same happens to this material.

It's called palper, it's the waste
from the paper reciclyng process.

They are the covers, perhaps,
of the notebooks of our children

that end up by mistake
in the separate collection

or are those transparent labels
in the envelopes we receive at home,

which are therefore a foreign
matter in the collection

and end up disposal.

But, if until a few months ago
they only ended up with disposal,

for a few weeks

thanks to a very important
innovationof a local company

and an important European funding,

this material goes to recycling

and therefore a large part
of this material is intercepted

and both is launching an industrial
chain to turn it into a pallet

that is then used by other companies
for internal logistics.

Even though we saw

that until a few years ago they told us

that it was utopia, it was impossible,
they were unattainable goals.

Today we have seen that instead
there are more and more advantages

that are built from the feasibility
of these projects.

We are also getting some satisfaction,

because when we receive
these confirmations, these institutional

acknowledgments - this is the European
Secretary for Environment, Vella,

that a couple of years ago in a conference
in which we illustrated

the best Italian experiences
in waste management,

said that these are

the inspiring principles
of the circular economy

package on which Europe is also working

to push all European countries

towards sustainability, recycling
and waste reduction.

I want to leave you with a beautiful image

that is the Sacra di San
Michele in Piedmont.

What does this image tell us?

That climbing up there is
a terrifying, very tiring climb,

but this is what it tells us

to get up there, that you see
a wonderful landscape

and every time you go there,
you understand that it was worth it.

But we also understand another thing,

that from that beautiful landscape you
can see eve nhigher goals and objectives

to reach.

It's beautiful.

And the beautiful thing
is not so much to reach them,

as the path we can take to reach them.

As we understand, we know and discover

the path we take to try to reach it.

I have children.

And when I look at them

I want to be sure I have done
everything possible and the impossible

avoiding to leave them a disaster

as instead unfortunately
we often see and discover

that we are doing to our planet.

I wish everyone a good job.

Thank you.

(Applausi)