What We Cover
Zero Waste covers the forces changing how waste is managed: technology, data, regulation, sustainability, and the economics behind it all.
Our perspective is grounded in how the industry actually works. We’re interested in what is changing, why it matters, and what operators, sustainability leaders, and businesses should do with that information.
Our coverage is organized around four core areas.
Waste Intelligence
The waste industry is becoming more connected, automated, and measurable. Waste Intelligence covers the technologies and systems changing how waste is collected, managed, processed, and diverted.
AI & Automation
How artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and automation are changing waste operations, from route optimization and material identification to customer service and back-office workflows.
Supply Chain
How materials move from production and distribution through recovery, recycling, and disposal, and how decisions throughout that system ultimately affect waste.
Waste Diversion Technology
The technology helping businesses and communities keep more material out of landfills, including sorting, recovery, reuse, recycling, organics, and emerging circular solutions.
Sensors & IoT
How connected equipment, sensors, smart bins, and IoT systems are giving operators and businesses better visibility into when, where, and how waste is generated and collected.
Sustainability & Compliance
Sustainability commitments increasingly come with operational, reporting, and regulatory requirements. We cover what organizations need to know to turn goals and mandates into action.
Sustainability
The strategies, programs, and operational changes organizations are using to reduce waste, increase diversion, and improve environmental performance.
Regulation & Compliance
The laws and requirements shaping waste, recycling, diversion, and reporting, with practical explanations of regulations such as Ontario Regulation 102/94 and what they mean for the organizations responsible for complying.
ESG & Reporting
How organizations measure and communicate waste and sustainability performance, from reporting frameworks and disclosure requirements to the data needed to back up environmental claims.
Business & Data
Waste is an environmental challenge and a massive operating system. Business & Data follows the economics, companies, numbers, and market forces determining where the industry goes next.
Market Trends
The shifts changing the business of waste, including consolidation, investment, pricing, recycling economics, changing customer expectations, and new business models.
Data & Benchmarks
The numbers behind the industry. We examine performance data, benchmarks, research, and industry statistics to give readers context for what is happening and what good performance actually looks like.
City Resources
Waste is local. Rules, infrastructure, services, costs, and recycling systems can change significantly from one city to the next.
City Resources provides practical guides to navigating waste and recycling in specific markets, including local regulations, recycling and organics requirements, disposal guidelines, service considerations, infrastructure, and compliance requirements.
What Makes a Zero Waste Story
We are interested in stories that help people understand the waste industry better and make better decisions within it.
That could mean explaining an emerging technology, breaking down new regulation, examining a shift in recycling economics, analyzing new data, sharing lessons from an operator, or challenging a long-held assumption about how waste should work.
The best Zero Waste stories do at least one of the following:
- Explain something complicated clearly.
- Surface meaningful data or benchmarks.
- Show how a technology or approach works in the real world.
- Translate regulation into practical implications.
- Examine the economics behind an industry shift.
- Bring an operator or expert perspective to an important issue.
- Challenge an accepted way of doing things.
- Give readers information they can put to work.
We value experience over speculation, evidence over buzzwords, and specificity over broad claims.
A good Zero Waste story should answer three questions: What is changing? Why does it matter? What should our readers know because of it?
Our Editorial Standards
Know the Industry
Zero Waste is written for people who work in and around waste. Our coverage should reflect an understanding of how the industry operates, not simply observe it from the outside.
We value firsthand experience, subject matter expertise, original research, operational examples, and perspectives from people doing the work.
Accuracy
Facts matter. Statistics, regulatory information, research, quotations, and other factual claims should be verified and attributable to credible sources.
When possible, we prioritize primary sources including government documents, original research, regulatory filings, datasets, interviews, and company disclosures.
Context
A number without context rarely tells the whole story.
Data should explain what was measured, when it was measured, where it came from, and why it matters. Technology should be discussed in terms of what it actually changes. Sustainability claims should be connected to measurable outcomes.
Our job is not simply to report information. It is to help readers understand it.
Independence
Editorial coverage is determined by what is relevant and useful to our readers.
Advertising, sponsorships, partnerships, and other commercial relationships do not guarantee editorial coverage. Sponsored or paid content will be clearly identified.
Transparency
Writers and contributors should disclose financial, professional, or other relationships that could reasonably influence their perspective on a company, technology, policy, or issue.
If we make a meaningful factual error, we will correct it.
Originality
We publish work that adds something to the conversation.
Contributed articles should offer original expertise, analysis, data, reporting, or perspective. Zero Waste is not a press release distribution platform, and articles written primarily to promote a company, individual, product, or service will not be accepted as editorial content.
AI
AI is changing the waste industry, and it is also changing publishing.
We may use AI tools to support research, transcription, analysis, organization, and other parts of the editorial process. They do not replace human judgment or accountability.
Writers and editors remain responsible for verifying every fact, quotation, statistic, source, and claim published by Zero Waste. Fabricated sources, quotations, statistics, or citations are never acceptable.
Contributing to Zero Waste
Some of the most useful knowledge in this industry lives with the people doing the work.
We welcome pitches and contributed perspectives from operators, sustainability leaders, researchers, policymakers, technologists, academics, executives, and other experts with something meaningful to add.
A strong pitch should tell us:
- What you want to write about.
- Why it matters now.
- What readers will learn.
- Why you are the right person to write it.
- What original experience, data, examples, or sources you can bring to the story.
We prioritize contributions that teach, explain, analyze, or challenge. We are less interested in thought leadership for the sake of thought leadership.
All submissions are subject to editorial review and may be edited for clarity, accuracy, structure, length, and style.
Press & Story Submissions
Have a story we should know about?
We welcome relevant research, reports, data, company news, policy developments, technology launches, industry trends, and story tips.
Send us the essential facts, why the story matters, relevant dates, supporting materials or sources, and a contact who can answer follow-up questions.
Submitting information does not guarantee coverage.
Advertising & Partnerships
Zero Waste works with organizations looking to reach operators, sustainability leaders, businesses, and decision-makers across the waste industry.
Advertising and sponsorship are separate from our editorial process. Paid relationships will be clearly identified and do not provide advertisers with control over independent editorial coverage.
Contact our team to learn more about advertising, sponsorships, and custom partnerships.
The Standard
The waste industry is changing quickly. Our job is to help our readers understand that change without oversimplifying it.
We ask what the technology actually does. We look at the numbers behind the claim. We consider what a new regulation means in practice. We listen to the people operating the systems, managing the materials, and answering to customers.
We know how waste works. Our editorial standard is to make that knowledge useful.