No Such Place As Away

My grandfather was the hardworking son of an Eastern European immigrant, the sort of entrepreneur who built America's industrial base in the middle of the last century. He and my father owned and ran a shoe factory in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, called the Pittsfield Shoe Corporation, and it was located on the banks of the Suncook River. The factory employed a lot of people, it produced a good product line--and it was a polluter.

But I knew nothing of that. When I was young, I loved to watch the colored water--one minute red, another yellow, still another green--gushing out of the factory into the river. To me, the wastewater was beautiful. Only later did I learn that the Merrimack, into which our little river emptied and whose banks were crowded with shoe factories, was the tenth most polluted river in the United States. I had to face the fact that our family business, of which we were so proud, was a part of the problem.

The shoe business was slow to seek a solution. Part of the reason was cut-rate foreign competition--how could an embattled industry stay afloat if it was being forced to spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to reduce its impact on the environment? But that attitude, understandable if shortsighted, explained only a portion of the industry's inertia. The rest traced to the sheer disbelief of the shoe business's leaders. How could a little wastewater, they wondered, be worth such a fuss?

In those days, you understand, America felt so huge, and its distances seemed so expansive, that people believed their garbage somehow melted into the landscape and disappeared--that it simply went "away." You could throw it "away," flush it "away," and if you had a tailpipe or a smokestack, even blow it "away."

It sounds odd from today's perspective. It's as if "away" were some mythical, Oz-like place where all waste, trash, and associated ugliness could be disposed of without consequence. And we threw stuff away until it was piled higher than the fence around it, or killed the fish, or put a haze on the horizon.

It has taken us a shamefully long while, but at last we have learned that there is no such place as "away." The fact is, the planet Earth is a closed system. Whenever and wherever a light switch is thrown, a puff of smoke or some type of pollution is created where the power is generated. We may not see it, but it's there. My trash washes up on someone else's shore--or fouls their groundwater--just as surely as distant air pollution follows prevailing winds to my valley.

Think how far we've come, yet how far we have to go: Today, we find it laughable that anyone ever believed the world was flat. We marvel that it took Christopher Columbus's voyage of discovery in 1492 to disprove it once and for all. What's it going to take for the last stubborn few to accept that the idea of "away" is a myth worthy only of flat-Earthers? We've already seen medical waste washing up on beaches, even after it's been taken miles out to sea. We've long seen birds struggle to free themselves from plastic six-pack rings stuck around their necks. It's simply delusional to think there is--or ever was--such a place as "away."

Every day, in everything we do, we are having an impact on the planet. If it's true for individuals, and it is, then it is certainly true for businesses. Any business owner or leader who doesn't see this is willfully blind, but that's not all. He or she is turning down the largest and most lucrative opportunity of this young century, which is to reduce or eliminate industrial waste. The companies that figure out how to do business with little or no waste are going to reduce their costs, boost their profits, and win tremendous public support as they do it. I fully intend for Stonyfield Farm to continue leading in this pursuit, and I want your company to be my competition.

There are people out there who excel in designing waste out of (and, I might add, profits into) a system--more and more of them every day. But if you're looking for real creativity and efficiency, you don't necessarily have to retain a consultant. You can learn a lot simply by paying attention to how nature handles waste. In nature, there is no waste--period. Every by-product of every process fuels or catalyzes some other process. Decomposed leaves feed mushrooms and fertilize wildflowers. Tiny insects feed on fungi that would otherwise overwhelm a tree. Old beaver dams provide spawning zones for fish. It's just amazing how efficient nature is, once you start paying attention to it.

As businesspeople, we need to strive to be just as efficient in handling waste as nature is. Ideally, each company and each process should be able to boast that everything that doesn't go out to the consumer goes back to the Earth. Any system that delivers less than total efficiency should be regarded as broken.

That last sentence sets up a high hurdle. But it also represents a very hopeful goal. What it says to us is, waste is inevitable--but dealing with it need not be an insurmountable obstacle to processes or products. If nature handles it, somehow we can, too.

And here's the really cool thing that we've discovered at Stonyfield. Attacking waste has been highly profitable. Every time we've made an investment in reducing waste, it has paid excellent returns. This is also true of our investments in renewable energy and other climate-friendly initiatives. I have captured many excellent examples in my new book, Stirring it Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (Hyperion, 2008), but more supporting anecdotes come to me every day. I look forward to sharing these in future posts.

Comments

[fitCTmom]

I am a relative new-comer to this web-site and to the blog world in general. I have to say, this is the first blog I have read that is without anger and venom and expresses an opinion without partisan namecalling. It was interesting and well written. If only everyone could express their opinions so effectively. Thank you for the great blog (and the great yogurt, too!)

[WilliePilgrim]

As business people...as intelligent people, I would expect one to get the best information possible and NOT stop in looking for best information just when it agrees with the bottom line.
For example, your write:
"As businesspeople, we need to strive to be just as efficient in handling waste as nature is."
Well,nature often is very inefficient in how it handles its byproducts,not waste...one thing you should learn in nature there is no such thing as waste or weed. Those are human conceptions which help us to rationalize our externalizing of costs.
So, now that you know that, how would you suggest business procede? Is there no way anyone can think of going in which what one produces has no externalized costs? None..so let's not pretend that by concentrating or capitalizing on waste you're doing a lot of good...bottom line kinda good.
How about using your money to create a fund that tries to reduce consumption of the products you create...kinda like patagonia does by making stuff it repairs and accepts back, to promote,not just capitalize on, but to promote a sane and naturally realistic approach to our insatiable appetites. How can you be happy living in a small house with a small garden with a small family and a benevolent attitude towards your neighbors and an emphasis on being happy by knowing your world, not the one at the end of a long expensive vacation to the mountains or ocean or exotic locale.
Our consumptive behaviors; how can you help to re-direct those to products that probably don't need the factory that supports you?

[3rdCitizen]

"And here's the really cool thing that we've discovered at Stonyfield. Attacking waste has been highly profitable... This is also true of our investments in renewable energy and other climate-friendly initiatives."
But note that this realization came after the fact. For all of its advantages, capitalism has proven to be extremely inefficient at identifying and addressing environmental issues in a timely manner. In fact, the dominance of short term profit concerns has probably been the main impediment to every important environmental initiative of the last 40 years. This is one of the reasons why laissez-faire capitalism is an impractical economic system (perhaps just as harmful as state-run communism).
While the naive economic debates in this country usually presuppose an absurd either/or of unrestricted capitalism vs. complete socialism, the only system that makes any sense is somewhere in the middle. Free markets within legal and regulatory limits that protect the environment, workers' rights, consumer safety and fair competition. Neither Market Forces nor Class Struggle will ever lead us to Utopia. Despite the idealistic claims of their most ardent disciples, they do not have wonderful plans for our lives.

[AMolinaro]

Thanks for providing a refresher course in Environmentalism 101. Many seem to forget the fact that everything ends up somewhere, which is the beginning of all understanding of our environment.

On a personal scale, I have found that environmental friendliness is a profitable venture. My clean-diesel car that gets 42 mpg, saving me a fortune at the pump, is only part of it. The solar panels I've installed on my roof provide enough electricity that I only pay electric bills a few months a year; for most of the year I sell electricity back to the grid. There was an initial investment, but that has long since been paid for. Isn't that the nature of capital after all?

[jackpinesavage]

Sir,

An excellent contribution to the commons. Thank you.

It is high time that we change our idea of efficiency from one of simple economics to one of resources/waste.

[realitytrumpsbull]

More with the canvas, less with the vinyl, then, and more domestic production of same
using 'green' methods instead of sending the
manufacturing 'away' to China and points beyond.

[sheila]

thank you so much for this. i would like to point out that even THIS GENERATION OF SO-CALLED "GREENIES" are still perpetrating the exact kind of disgustingly destructive policies you decry, though.

I'm referring to the practice of siting, generating and transmitting so-called "renewable" power miles away from point-of-use in order to continue utility company chokeholds on ratepayers, rather than the common sense and ENTIRELY feasible practice of decentralized, LOCAL generation only on previously developed lands.

it's worse than that, though, because 90% of these "new, improved" power plants will be sited on hundreds of thousands of acres of PRISTINE, FRAGILE WILDERNESS, which will irreversibly kill millions of creatures and entire ecosystems and greenwash itself because the fuel is (usually only in part) sun or wind. the solution (to global warming) is as bad as the problem when the policy is geared 100% at utility profits rather than at sustainable, helpful and practical solutions.

i would like everybody here to lend their voice to SUSTAINABLE "renewable energy" policies and demand that the wilderness not pay the price for utility profits, and get away with calling it "green." please tell your elected representatives that you will not support ANY new generation or transmission of any power in wilderness unless and until ALL urban options (conservation and local generation) are entirely exhausted.

san francisco and berkeley have both instituted amazing, affordable policies for installing rooftop PV, including city financing, guaranteed buy-backs of power (rather than the weaker "net metering") and serious rebates. don't you want the same for your house? free green power for life, 100% tax deductible, and low-interest city financing?

the business community should also implement net zero energy practices as well. the federal govt has a giant FREE auditing service to help - no doubt Stonyfield has the resources and inclination to do so, and i'd love to hear how they are managing that side of their business. i will patronize your company that much more for any improved, sustainable policies, as will most of the people here...

[andygaus]

One corollary of the fact that things can't be thrown "away" is that they can't be designed to be thrown "away." Whatever trash or garbage or rubbish they will end up as must be viewed as part of the original design. In particular, this goes for large items like refrigerators and couches. They need to have a decommissioning and recycling plan as well as a manufacturing plan.

[DemandTruth]

Bravo! And thank you so much for this post - I'm sending it to everyone I know! This is exactly the problem I have with nuclear energy! That's some deadly waste that will NEVER break down and will remain dangerous & deadly forever (as far as our lifetimes go)! Where the hell would we put all that radioactive waste? You can only stuff so much underground & underwater. NO, you are exactly right about looking to nature as the model to follow. This is what it means to coexist with nature. We as humans knew that once, but we have forgotten that we are all in this together - humans and every other animal & plant species out there, hurtling through space on this big blue ball we all call home.

[Idytme]

We still send our pollution "away" and out of sight out of mind. We have sent it to China.
Although there are many who see the rise of China in this century, I do wonder about that. We are getting cheap products, using their cheap energy (coal and the lowest grade gas), while their entire environment is being destroyed. When one reads about the extent of the environmental damage going on in China, you have to wonder how long it can last, and how long the recovery will take.
They are getting some press about it on the MSM, especially the NYT but I have mostly had to read about it on the web.
Mostly it seems to me that the citizens are completely unaware of the consequences of what they are doing to their environment. What will the West do when China has rivers too polluted to drink from? Anoint another country to destroy so we can have low cost products?