TALZ – Taking A Lead on Zero Waste
Zeroing in on Waste Reduction to Implement a
Long Island Regional Zero Waste Plan
Vision
To create a circular society where what little waste we produce is simply food (organic) or feedstock (technological) for something else, by providing the means for no waste to be sent to landfills, incinerators or the ocean.
Mission
To establish systems that incorporate a sustainable end-of-life for all materials — re-use, recycle, re-purpose, or safe and healthy re-integration into natural systems as a path to zero waste.
Goals
A main goal is to convene key stakeholders – public and private – to find the solutions to achieve zero waste and test them via pilots and monitoring. To do this now, by acknowledging the crisis confronting Long Island and the Earth.
Another goal is to address waste as a means of reducing greenhouse gases, to be in line with Town solid waste management plans (SWMPs) as well as the Climate Smart Communities program and to achieve the goals of the NY State Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Another is to help develop beneficial industries here in our region that can create a circular economy.
Who We Are
In the shadow of the impending legally-mandated Brookhaven Landfill closure in 2024, we are a consortium formed as a working umbrella group to develop rapid and inclusive alternative solutions to managing and reducing waste. We are formed to help Long Island, and the State, develop — and more importantly — implement a Long Island Regional Zero Waste Plan.
Taking a Lead on Zero Waste (TALZ) is serving as a convener of parties key to implementing real solutions to Long Island’s waste problem. Via an ad hoc group entitled “Developing Pathways Toward Zero Waste,” Long Island Towns, planning units, waste industry representatives, and state agencies are going waste category by waste category, to identify ways to make landfills and incinerators obsolete.
What We Do
We are in a race against time to allay an impending waste crisis. We seek to create a central platform coordinating all Long Island entities and experts managing waste, policy makers and the public to achieve our goals. All key stakeholders who share a goal of achieving Zero Waste will be invited to a variety of programs and meetings to wrestle with the complexities of establishing a zero-waste ethic in the face of an economy currently based on a throw-away culture. No small task. With your help, we can all do this.
Why We’re Unique
The promise of a rapid plan and test for greater success in whatever waste management practice we will be focused on; development of a means for tracking measurable results.
Based on the outcomes of these meetings and forums, we expect the establishment of well-designed trials within our waste industries or Long Island municipal management districts which choose to participate — there are 16 Local Waste Planning Units on Long Island overseen by the NYS DEC. The idea will be to test success or failure of the consensus ideas on a pilot basis that will be developed and monitored, not in terms of years, but rather months, offering measurable results and suggestions for change to better systematic approaches.
Compared to the many decades of waste recommendations and commissions held within Long Island’s past, whose results have never been activated, we consider this unique. We invite you to join us in this journey, crafting solutions via the many ways we will offer, testing the systems we will arrive at, developing measurable success. You can do this at whatever level you are at — individual household, business, waste manager, industry, expert, or official.
Contact Us
Simply let us know of your interest, or, if you are a commercial or environmental organization, even as an individual, your Zero Waste path already taken, by emailing us at: contact@talzli.org
Thank you,
Karen Blumer, President, Open Space Council, Co-Convenor of TALZ
Mark Haubner, President, North Fork Environmental Council, Co-Convenor of TALZ