FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 25, 2019
Kill Date: Contact: Stephen Mergener
February 11, 2020 Phone: (858) 356-8424
Email: stephen.mergener@zerowastesandiego.org
Local Non-Profit to host 7th Annual Zero Waste Symposium:
The Price of Convenience
San Diego, CA — Zero Waste San Diego, a 501c3 organization that has been promoting and facilitating sustainability for more than a decade, is hosting its 7th Annual Zero Waste Symposium: The Price of Convenience, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at the County of San Diego’s County Operations Center (COC), 5520 Overland Dr., San Diego, CA 92123. This year’s focus will be the dramatic economic, environmental and social impacts associated with consumer convenience and throwaway dynamic that permeates American culture, with leading industry experts highlighting the importance and challenges to reversing these trends, as well as opportunities for job creation, entrepreneurship, stabilized local economies and improved air, water and soil.
In exchange for convenience, industry and consumers create substantial excess materials with limited or no available end-user markets, and an increasingly high percentage of these items, such as plastic bags, straws, cups and packaging, end up in rivers and oceans. Topics covered in the symposium include “Current and Future State of Wasting,” “Microplastics in the Human Food Chain,” “Handling Single-use Packaging,” “Who’s Responsible for Clean-up?” and “Market Options and Availability for Diverted Materials,” among many others.
On November 15, 2019, the industry-backed “America Recycles Day” engaged people across the country to participate in clean-up activities and pledging to recycle more. But more importantly, many of the organizations and individuals involved strongly encouraged manufacturers to reduce the production of single-use plastics and redesign products and packages to be reusable, repairable and recyclable, specifically targeting brands found at the beach and river cleanups. Symposium speakers will explain how a market focus on convenience has led to this onslaught of materials negatively impacting the earth’s oceans and the world’s food chain, and reveal how the true cost of convenience may not be the bargain promoted by industry and perceived by consumers.
The symposium will include discussions on how communities and businesses throughout the world are benefitting from implementation of zero waste principles. Local and state governments are adopting zero waste plans too, incorporating education and training, landfill diversion, alternative delivery systems such as refill and reuse, organizing for improved product redesign, establishing business product stewardship guidelines, and implementing bans on a wide range of single-use disposables.
Zero Waste San Diego facilitates implementation policies and plans that support job creation, economic growth, and improvement of the environment through phasing out waste and furthering strategic, long-term sustainable resource management.
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