focused on growth have not been held accountable for damages they cause to the environment; which has created very little incentive for industries to concern themselves with sustainability or environmental protection. With profit and growth as the ultimate goal, businesses have sought out the cheapest resources and environments lacking regulation. Unfortunately environmental concerns didn’t come to the forefront until the 1970s when Congress passed a series of pro-environment policy changes in response to a wave of environmental passion flaring across the country. Nonetheless, while policies have led to environmental progress in some areas, such as in air quality, governments have had a harder time implementing programs that regulate groundwater contaminants. Meanwhile, landfills continue to contaminate ground and drinking water around the country. Indeed, as late as 2006, the City of Oakland offered incentives for businesses to haul garbage to a landfill, rather than consider reuse and recycling options. Additionally, Oakland recognized in 2006 that a lack of service providers for recycling and recovery efforts had prevented progress toward environmentally sustainable solutions. Also, the City had never set aside land needed for reuse and recycling business materials. In this way, incentives and the marketplace were working against the City's environmental concerns. In fact, most product consumption serves to undermine a Zero Waste Policy because of the inherent negative “externalities,” or those factors outside the market transaction, which are not accounting for in the cost of producing and consuming an item. Historically, prices for toys, watches, cars, etc., have not covered the costs associated with disposing or recycling these items. Oakland will remedy this flaw in the system by working toward shifting the responsibility of material disposal to the manufacturer instead of the government or the consumer. Further, rather than apply the tax base toward cleanup of contaminated landfills, the Zero Waste system will use the tax base to invest in recycling, composting and reuse facilities, called “Resource Recovery Parks.” Evolution of policy Oakland's Zero Waste Policy evolved out of a series of mandates originating with the California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, which required every city and county in California to reduce their solid waste disposal amounts by 50% by year 2000. Soon after, in 1990, the Alameda County Waste Reduction and Recycling Initiative Charter Amendment (Measure D) mandated a 75% reduction in waste disposal countywide, allowing the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board to set a deadline for