Environmental group aims to get H.B. to adopt ‘zero waste’

Environmental groups gathered at Huntington Beach Pier today to tout a new national study arguing that the fastest way to stop climate change is to cut down on trash.

Officials with the local Earth Resource Foundation and the Orange County Interfaith Coalition for the Environment spoke at a news conference to promote the study. They chose Huntington Beach because the city has signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement to cut down on emissions, representatives said.

“Our goal is to get Huntington Beach and the surrounding areas to adopt zero waste,” said Stephanie Barger, executive director of the Earth Resource Foundation. “Things like food scrap composting are nonexistent in Orange County. We have tons of food scraps going into landfills and giving off methane and other gases.”

According to report, completed by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and other national groups, cutting down on waste dumped or incinerated in landfills would shrink greenhouse gas output as much as closing one fifth of the country’s coal power plants would.

The event was timed to fall on the United Nations’ World Climate Day.

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at michael.alexander@latimes.com.