How blockchain can help build a zero-waste future
As humanity works to combat climate change and build a more sustainable world, the concept of a zero-waste future has become increasingly popular. This idea is based off the principal of minimizing waste as much as possible, while composting, recycling, or reusing any waste that is generated. A zero-waste future is an ambitious goal, but one that is critical for preserving our planet for future generations.
One of the main barriers in achieving a zero-waste future is the current linear economy which endorses a “take, make, use, dispose,” approach to production and consumption. In this system, which prioritizes profits over sustainability, resources are collected and transformed into products for immediate use and disposal, with little concern for the environmental consequences. Additionally, in a system that values profit over sustainability, recycling may not be economically appealing for businesses and governments, with the result being a lack of investment and participation in waste management and recycling economies. This only reinforces the current linear economy, leading to the depletion of natural resources and a build-up of waste in landfills. Another possible barrier to a zero-waste future is simply a lack of awareness and understanding of the importance of waste reduction and management.
To overcome these barriers, new innovations are needed and technology needs to be a part of the solution. To this end, one technology that has great potential in helping humanity realistically achieve a zero-waste future is, you guessed it, blockchain. In this article, we'll discuss how blockchain can help achieve a zero-waste future by:
Increasing supply chain transparency
Incentivizing waste management and recycling
Building a circular economy that encourages the reusing and recycling of materials
1. Increasing supply chain transparency
Blockchain technology has the potential to greatly improve the transparency and efficiency of supply chains. Through the use of immutable and decentralized ledgers, consumers and businesses can track products from the source to the final destination, enabling transparency through all steps of the supply chain. With greater auditability and transparency into their supply chain processes, it could also make it easier for corporations to identify where waste occurs, and to take appropriate steps to reduce said waste. In one example demonstrating the power of blockchain to identify waste in supply chains, Walmart teamed up with IBM to make sure of their Food Trust platform to more effectively gather data related to food supply chains. Using their Hyperledger platform, it helped reduce the time to get food data from 7 days to 2 seconds, making it easier to track food borne illnesses which could lead to extensive food waste if left unchecked.
With the transparency and auditability enabled by blockchain, it can help limit the amount of waste created during the production process by allowing for the early detection of defects, inefficiencies in the supply chain, or excess inventory. To put into perspective the impact this could have on just one subsector of the world’s supply chains, global food chains waste an estimated 30% of food due to supply chain failures.
Blockchain can also create unique opportunities to incentivize supply chain stakeholders to reduce waste and increase efficiency in the supply chain process. Fishcoin, for example, rewards supply chain stakeholders with tokens for sharing supply chain data from harvest to point of consumption. With as much as 60% of seafood being discarded or wasted in supply chains, this could play a vital role in helping reduce global food waste.
By increasing transparency, it can also help producers chooses more ethical and sustainable suppliers, while empowering socially conscious consumerism. Manufacturers, for example, could use a decentralized ledger to track raw materials from their source, monitor the environmental impacts of their extraction, and verify their compliance with regulations. One example of this can be found in VeChain's Sustainability and Carbon Management Solution, which uses blockchain to help organizations track the carbon footprint of products throughout the supply chain.
Ultimately, by providing reliable supply chain data, and helping to identify inefficiencies in supply chains, blockchain technology can help reduce supply chain waste and lead humanity towards a sustainable and zero-waste future.
2. Incentivizing proper waste management and recycling
Blockchain can incentivize proper waste management and recycling through the creative use of tokens. For example, individuals and businesses could be rewarded with tokens for properly disposing of waste and improving their recycling efforts, helping to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and our environment. Financial incentives can be an important part of the solution because, as mentioned above, recycling and proper waste management isn't always the most economically appealing option for corporations.
One example of this in action is Plastic Bank, which uses a blockchain-based platform to incentivize plastic clean-up from the ocean by rewarding individuals in their clean up efforts. Members can exchange their plastic collected from the ocean for income and life-changing benefits such as access to insurance and social assistance, and banking services. By incentivizing the collection of plastic waste, this truly regenerative project not only helps keep waste out of the ocean, but also provides a source of income for people in need.
Another example is ReSea, which is using blockchain to track and certify plastic removal from the ocean by documenting the journey of the plastic from point of removal to disposal at the waste bank. This can help restore confidence in organizations leading cleanup efforts by verifying exactly how much plastic is being removed from the oceans. While blockchain alone won’t solve the plastic pollution crisis (or any waste crisis for that matter), it can be a part of the puzzle and hopefully help take a dent out of the massive amounts of pollution plaguing the world’s oceans and natural environments. To demonstrate the shear scale of this issue, as of 2021, there was over 350 billion pounds of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.
3. Building a circular economy that encourages the reusing and recycling of materials
As highlighted above, one of the biggest barriers to a zero-waste future is the linear systems that dominate the global economy. With the help of blockchain technology, we can create a circular economy where waste is seen as a resource, as opposed to something to just be disposed of.
Unlike the traditional linear economy highlighted above, that follows a "take-make-use-dispose" pattern, the circular economy is regenerative in nature by aiming to minimize waste while maintaining the value of materials by reusing them as much as possible, and when reusing is not possible, recycling or composting.
One example of a blockchain project creating a circular economy to reduce waste is Circulor. Circulor is using blockchain technology to create more sustainable and transparent supply chains which can more effectively track the lifecycles of raw materials such as electronics, plastics and EV batteries, resulting in more responsible and closed-loop recycling systems. By enabling the greater reuse and recycling of raw materials, it can help minimize the reliance on newly minted materials in extractive industries.
While the world's economic systems have long been based on a linear model, blockchain gives humanity the tools, when used in conjunction with larger societal changes, to shift to a circular economy that is truly regenerative in nature.
Conclusion
While not a fix-all solution, blockchain technology has the potential to play a significant role in achieving a zero-waste future as one piece of the puzzle in a coordinated approach involving individuals, businesses, and governments from all over the world.
By incentivizing sustainable behavior through blockchain-based reward systems, individuals and corporations could be encouraged to reduce their waste output. Additionally, Blockchain's ability to create an immutable and transparent system for tracking waste could lead to better waste management practices and a more efficient use of resources. While there are still many challenges to overcome on the path to a zero-waste future, the potential benefits of blockchain technology in waste management are undeniable, and ought to be an important part of the solution.
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