In absolute terms, no.  Every community gathers resources from their neighbouring region, and produces waste locally.  Inuit communities show much thicker soils than in the surrounding land, due to the accumulation of wastes.  Now, most of that waste is benign (offal, sewage, etc) in the long term, so maybe that's OK.  But it does exist.

To get close, one has to use something like Planetary Boundaries or Ecological Footprint to ensure that the ecosystem services are sufficient to absorb the concentration of nutrients that comes with resource concentration.  And then, the hard part, is to keep that as a hard limit.  Don't abuse the land for the sake of 'economy'.

You'd need to work out the nutrient management system - to ensure the chemistry you are drawing from the surrounding land is being returned to the surrounding land.

Compost everything you can, and you get rid of 80% of your waste stream.  Import as little as possible, and reuse as much of it as possible. 

You still won't get to 0, but you can get to some reasonable minimum (5% remaining waste should be easy, 1% remaining waste would be hard).

No. There is no where on this planet with zero waste, not for now. However, we can move near zero with commitment towards achieving the dream. If we place on mind the issue of waste starting from production of good, likely waste and it can be reused. Improved technology. Good mentality. Provision of Act. If these are properly put in place and monitored, we may achieve great.

No, it is likely to teach a kid how to solve a quadratic equation. The laws and policies make it more complex for developing nations. However, more the public participation, more will be the effectiveness of such zero-waste society policies.

This is impossible in absolute term but we want to go closer to it. Awareness building is important in this regard.

Dear Researchers.

It is possible to a large extent.

Micro level mngmnt is required with total awareness and participation.

Ensuring all bio wastes are either going for conversion to compost or hardy bio mass for gassification on pyrolysis route.

Non bio wastes are made into usable and unusable paths ie Recycled for evolution as for making products and others.

Medical and sanitary wastes are taken on a safe - disposal route..

Well wishes

Prof Ajit Seshadri.

Vels University. Chennai..

Before the advent of the modern lifestyle, we were a zero-waste Society. It is very much possible to get back as close to that as possible. It is a matter of choice.

Emmanuel V Murray Dear Professor Murray, could you kindly identify the year roughly when we transitioned to the modern lifestyle? What time period do you have in mind? Then once i have your answer about the year, then i can properly assess your statement about a zero-waste society.

Hi,

It is possible, however, how can we transform the waste for further utilization? If we can use it for other purposes, we can claim that it is a zero-waste community. That is my idea, from my experience to conduct the action research in the community with GREEN concept, we found some waste or residues particularly a community member who did not join our program. One more thing is chemical contaminants container, it the existing program is designed to cover it. Key success factor is a partnership.