Businesses across the United States generate almost 110 million tons of waste a year, and Washington State alone spent more than 500 million dollars in 2009 on disposal, recycling, and composting. Filmed over the spring and summer of 2011, this film follows companies and organizations around Puget Sound that are trying to cut that number by redesigning how they make, package, and discard things. Director Kyle Porter interviews owners and operators who argue that waste is a cost problem as much as an environmental one, and that a business run leaner on materials can also run more profitably. The film frames zero waste as a return rather than an invention, pointing out that a century ago there was no plastic wrap and almost every scrap of fabric, paper, wood, or metal got reused rather than thrown out. It stays local and specific, using Pacific Northwest businesses as working examples rather than abstract case studies, and treats sustainability as a set of operational choices, not a marketing slogan.