Dr. Connett’s UN Presentation
Dear Zero Wasters,
Every so often we get a bit of luck and I think we got some today.
A few months ago I was invited to give a talk on Zero Waste at the UN. I didn’t get my hopes up because
I didn’t know what the scope of this was. Well I gave my talk today and I am very excited. I spoke on
Zero Waste and Sustainability at a meeting organized by the UN Division on Sustainable Development
(DSD). There were three other speakers (Alan Hershkowitz from NRDC who spoke on E-waste; a
consultant engineer who spoke on the problems of waste management in the Caribbean and a
spokesperson from the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). There were about 100 people in
the audience representing delegations from many different countries.
From the opening remarks from the chair the Philippines delegate to the UN (he was excited to hear
about the ZW conference in the Philippines in Oct), to the chairman of the UN DSD it was very clear that
we were going to get a very receptive audience to the Zero Waste message - and this is exactly how it
went. I was able to show 15 minutes from the On the Road to Zero Waste video which we shot in Nova
Scotia in 2000 and I followed this with a 20 minute (i believe that they actually allowed me 25 minutes). I
attach the power point I used. I had some more time in question time. it all went VERY, VERY well.
Afterwards I had delegates from Colombia , Guatemala , Ghana , US and several others coming up
expressing their positive response.
So I think the take home message on this is that where people are already tuned into the need for
sustainability they are very receptive to ZW. I felt entirely vindicated for the efforts I and many of you
have put into this for many years - I particularly stressed developments in California and Italy . I even
mentioned that groups in the UK and Italy were talking about developing a residual screening and
research facility. I also mentioned Eric Lombardi’s one stop system. Gary Liss and zero waste businesses
and Bill Sheehan as contact for EPR - Gerry Gillespie’s rapid composting - low tech system.
And they want me back for a bigger meeting…You can see more at www.UN.org/ESA/dsd
So each of your grab a glass of red wine and toast all our hard efforts - I think we are making some
progress Make Love Not Waste (got that in too!)