You might be thinking why we should reduce, reuse and recycle when waste is still produced at the end of the day. This is true as generating waste is not only a part of the human lifestyle but of all living things on earth. The difference is the amount and type of waste produced by humans that significantly affects the environment. By sorting waste through recycling and composting, we are able to reduce the amount of waste being dumped into landfills and/or incinerators.

You might think why sort waste when current landfills are equipped with the latest technologies that allow methane gas or leachate to be captured and recovered hence reducing their negative impact on the environment. The problem is, this is true only for some landfills in a number of developed countries. From the point of view of managing waste, it seems reasonable. However, from the point of view of a zero waste system it seems less reasonable. Over 62% of the waste that is buried in landfills is readily recyclable, organic waste that can be composted and is important to replenish soils (i.e. paper, garden waste, fruit peels, and vegetable leftovers). However, when these types of organic waste are mixed with numerous toxic products from household and industrial waste, they become too contaminated to be applied in soils. The only solution is simply to sort and compost this organic wastes at home (the source). Again, this ensures the right quality of organic waste is not wasted and ensures fewer waste being sent to landfills. Hence, reducing the demand for more landfill to support waste.

Some may say that the incinerator is an alternative solution to reduce waste and at the same time lessen global environmental impact by energy capture and reducing the need to burn other fuels. These may not be true due to two reasons as noted by Sheehan (2000). The energy captured through incineration is prevailed over by the production of toxic emission (acid gases, mercury, dioxin and furans) and toxic ash. The second reason is that the energy required to burn waste is higher than energy required for recycling used materials.