Practices such as recycling have helped reduce the amount of waste going to landfills.

But a more effective and pervasive strategy to lessen the burden of piles of garbage on local governments is waste prevention. Since 1973, twice as much waste has been diverted from landfills through waste prevention techniques, such as packaging changes and product design, as from recycling, according to the Global Futures Foundation, a nonprofit research group. California businesses have saved millions from waste prevention in 1995 alone. Business benefits from waste prevention efforts as they typically have higher returns on investment than recycling activities -- sometimes as high as 3,300 percent!

Waste prevention is a terrific way to create jobs, reduce costs of doing business and provide great local economic development opportunities.

Local governments up and down the State need to comply with state laws that require 50 percent of the waste generated in their communities to be diverted away from landfills by the year 2000. While recycling will play a large role, waste prevention is the cornerstone of the state's strategy to reduce amounts of waste flowing to dozens of landfills that could reach capacity by the end of this decade.

Everyone has heard the saying "Reduce. Reuse. Recycle." Waste prevention deals with reducing and reusing, and these are preferred because they require fewer resources -- they are at the top of the waste management "hierarchy."

Reducing is the most basic solution to today's garbage glut: less waste means less of a waste problem.

Reuse means obtaining several uses from a product. Extending the life of a product, whether its an old sweat shirt or a piece of furniture, reduces the overall rate of waste generation.

Recycling is at the bottom of the hierarchy since it addresses material that has already entered the waste stream. Recycling is actually just the beginning of the recovery process; it takes energy, resources and money to convert materials into a new product. After recycling, we must "close the loop." Manufacturers need to make products from these recovered materials and consumers then need to buy them (i.e. buy recycled). If there are no end uses for the recyclable materials Californians collect, those materials could still end up in a landfill.

Both waste prevention and recycling are critical strategies that need to be embraced by all of us (citizens and businesses) in order for California to meet its waste management goals.

To make progress on the waste prevention front, we should consider the following goals:
Make an ongoing commitment to no net reduction in landfill capacity
Conduct waste audits at 80 percent of community businesses by 2005
Reduce commercial and industrial waste 2 percent annually

When all production, shipping and disposal costs are factored in, waste prevention will save more money than recycling. Think about what you can do to prevent the amount of waste you recycle or throw away.