Nonetheless, a handful of companies, communities, and others are committed to getting to "zero." 
"Zero waste." It's a compelling concept, among the most coveted goals in the environmental world. It suggests highly efficient systems of production and consumption that emulate nature, in which there is no such thing as "waste" -- where one species' detritus is another's pantry. For most of us mere mortals, "zero waste" is a journey more than a destination, an ideal we will likely never likely achieve.
The idea of zero waste goes back at least a decade. In the 1990s, several U.S., Asian, and European companies set forth ambitious goals of eliminating wastes of all kinds throughout their products' life-cycle. In 1996, for example, I wrote about Xerox's "Waste-Free Factory" initiative. Zero-waste goals are still popular among Japanese companies -- Hitachi, Kirin, Sharp, and Omron each already has at least one zero-waste factory. In June, Honda announced it would build a $550 million zero-waste automobile plant near Greensburg, Indiana. Source: http://www.worldchanging.com/
