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3 <br />minimizing excess consumption and maximizing the recovery of solid waste <br />through recycling and composting.” <br />There are also other definitions, for example such as that used by Subaru <br />that adds a key phrase to the term Zero Waste by stating the goal as “Zero <br />Waste to Landfill”. Thus implying that technical solutions in addition to <br />reducing, reusing, recycling and composting may be employed in ensuring <br />that zero waste (or as little as possible) is landfilled. <br />Defining Zero Waste: An Approach for Orange County <br />Having reviewed several approaches and definitions as exemplified above, <br />staff recommends that SWAG endorse a hybrid and flexible definition of <br />Zero Waste that allows for consideration of technologies like ‘trash-to-fuel’ <br />or “plastics-to-oil”, wherein the County might produce but not be directly <br />involved in combustion of an engineered fuel or production of intermediate <br />chemicals that could be derived from waste. Those products could be used <br />by other facilities such as cement kilns, ‘green power’ producers and the <br />chemical industry. <br />Recommendation: <br />Using the above research on alternative definitions, we propose <br />an integrated approach where we define “Zero Waste” in a <br />prescriptive way that focuses on reducing waste, reuse of material <br />and recycling/composting, while explicitly allowing for the <br />incorporation of technologies that lead to 80% or greater of the <br />material collected within Orange County being diverted from a <br />landfill.