My sustainable city would survive around the five R's, refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle, and rot. We refuse disposable plastic whenever and wherever possible. We will reduce any excessive packaging reuse containers and cups that cannot be recycled. Any materials that can be recycled will be turned into new things. Any food scraps and paper will be composted and rot. With that compost can grow new crops. Every house will be solar powered and we will have wind mills on the outskirts of town.

I agree but will people use to get around

That is a factor I did not think about. We can have buses that go around the city fueled by salt water! There was an article I read on BBC. I will encourage electric cars and will only allow cars with a gas milage over 50 m/g.

I think that that 5 R's are a good idea. Refuse is an interesting concept, I think it will help reduce the carbon level a lot, by simply saying no to a plastic straw. Reuse helps a lot when it comes to reusing your own bags at a grocery store instead of buying plastic and paper bags which are bad for the environment. Reducing plastic bags will help lower the amount of landfill being put into the ocean and hurting the animals and plants. Recycling helps because the item you recycled can be used again in another way. Rotting food might not be the best way to get rid of waste because a lot of food cannot be composted and will effect the compost used to create new crops.

I agree with your idea of this sustainable city. The 5 R's would help many become more aware of what they are using daily. Thank you for sharing your ideas

The five R's are a great model for an independent person's sustainability efforts, but I have to wonder how they would work on a large scale. The list would probably have to be modified so that, in this ideal city, there would be no need for individual citizens to Refuse plastic, because the city as a whole would be refusing. This could look like a ban on plastics, or maybe a rating system for the sustainability of businesses.

We rely on plastic for a lot. How will we replace everything?

You're correct, lyd, as a society we use plastic for many, many things, some of which cannot be avoided (such as medical supplies). However, it is important to remember that plastic was only invented in the 1900's. Using plastic the way we do is a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, plastic has only been popular since the 1950's, when Tupperware launched it's nationwide marketing campaign for its sealable containers. Imagine that! We used to function without plastic only 70 years ago! This means that there are ways to do things sans plastic, specifically when it comes to the way we buy food and household objects like furniture, toys, and containers. Some of the materials that can be used to replace plastic include glass, stainless steel, aluminum, paper, cloth, and wood. Buy buying food in bulk quantities, or only fresh from farmers, the need for plastic is eliminated.  As for the plastics that are necessary for our everyday lives, there need not be more plastic created to suit our needs. Instead, we could tap into the huge amount of plastic waste that is already in our  world- in the oceans and in the recycling system. A company called Parley is currently creating new things from old plastic. The group recently partnered with Adidas and made some pretty sweet looking clothes... If you're interested you can check it out here: https://www.adidas.com/us/parley?grid=t … Y-PRODUCTS

Some other resources that you may find helpful in learning about reusing/ decreasing use of plastic are linked below:
https://preciousplastic.com/en/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgjw6t … w/featured
https://www.youtube.com/user/ZeroWasteHome
https://www.amazon.com/Plastic-Purge-Be … 1250029392
https://www.amazon.com/Green-Enough-Cle … 1623367603

I hope this helps! Feel free to reply with any questions or things you need any clarification on!