This week, Missoula city council met to discuss and eventually pass a plan put together by the city’s Energy Conservation and Climate Action Coordinator Chase Jones to reduce waste heading to the landfill. Jones explains.

"City council passed unanimously our Zero By Fifty or Missoula's pathway to zero waste plan," Jones said. "The goal is to reduce what the community sends to the landfill by 90% by the year 2050."

Jones says there are four "Paths" in the plan including Access to more waste reduction programs, Infrastructure to manage the materials, Education and finally public Policy. The plan passed on Tuesday didn’t include a price tag, but Jones says there will be requests for funding in the future.

"Some of these services, certainly infrastructure, will cost money, but the plan views it as an investment," Jones said. "This is what we heard from the community as far as values and vision for the community in terms of not wasting resources and also realizing the full value of these. A lot of these investments are an investment in that zero waste economy. It can create jobs."

At this point a lot of numbers are missing that will help to guide the plan in the future. It is currently unclear how much money the plan will cost or even how much waste is being sent to the landfill, Jones says they are currently working to try to calculate those totals.