Zero Waste!

The aim of zero waste is consist with the 4R's we all know: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Renew. Of these, I would argue that reducing, reusing, and renewing are the most important. While recycling reduces the amount of waste going into our landfills, recycling is an energy intensive process from the collection of waste to the re-processing of waste to the re-distribution. Recycled materials from the U.S. are often shipped overseas-- for example paper from the west coast often goes to China! Therefore, always aim to use less or none at all. Make someone else's trash your treasure! For inspiration on reducing waste, see Chris Jordan's amazing work.
Zero Waste, however, goes beyond these concepts to construct a model in which there is a closed loop cycle using all 5 kingdoms (animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and algae) so that the resulting product (otherwise known as waste) from one organism is the food for the next. For example, plants produce food for animals and animals waste can be composted which provides food for bacteria. Fungi is the kingdom we as humans are most closely related to and are a largely untapped resource for dealing with our industrial waste problems (fungi can thrive off of oil and other materials polluting our ecosystem).
Though we are still working on mimicking nature to the extent that we may implement such practices on a societal level, there is tremendous progress towards zero waste. Most notably is a change in consciousness is occurring such that it is clear that anything it's time to design the entire life span of anything we buy, use, and sell to feed back into the buy, use, sell cycle without causing environmental harm. This is a far cry from our current situation where about 70% of the raw materials we use today become waste as soon as they are made into the given product (so much packagaing). A great book that expands on this concept is Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things by William McDonough. The book itself is made from recycled plastic bags!

TAKE BACK THE FILTER
You probably didn't know that Brita, America's #1 water filter, is owned by Clorox. Brita helps its customers feel good about filtering water without buying untold numbers of plastic bottles. Indeed, the Brita filter option is much better than purchasing bottled water. With that said, the U.S. version of the Brita filter is currently designed to be disposable. Hundreds of thousands of plastic Brita filters needlessly flow into U.S. landfills, while in Europe, the same company is providing those cartridges in a recyclable form. As a result, Brita is currently being pressured by consumers and TakeBacktheFilter.org to change its policies. Learn more about how you can send in your used Brita filters to pressure the company to make the green shift:
-Organic Consumers Association