As a business, taking accountability for the waste you produce has become the core of reaching sustainability. The process employs a flow of waste handling until it reaches the adequate disposal step.
In this case, the waste stream starts at its generation and continues through collecting, sorting, and recycling, applying to various types of waste, including residential, commercial, and industrial.
Waste stream generation is expected to increase in the following years, considering the population will also grow, so the demand for consumption will follow a similar slope. For example, municipal solid waste might reach 3.78 billion metric tonnes in 2050, an approximate 75% growth since 2020.
Considering there are different types of waste streams, including glass, plastic, and paper materials, managing them accordingly is necessary to avoid further damage to the environment.
Biodiversity loss, deforestation, and air pollution are prominent issues environmentalists struggle to raise awareness of at the moment, so companies must take responsibility for their waste and contribute to the circular economy. Here’s how.
Pin down your waste streams
The first and most important step is identifying hazardous and non-hazardous waste your company produces. Employing a waste audit is helpful in this direction as you can easily pinpoint the waste volume or the departments with the biggest waste stats.
Knowing the nature of your waste streams will guide you in choosing the best disposal practices.
For example, if plastic and cardboard are prominent waste materials, you could employ balers and compactors ―see the range for pneumatic, hydraulic, or electric solutions. On the other hand, hazardous waste would require strategies like encapsulation.
Delegate a team for waste stream management
Delegating a special team to work on the project will ensure seamless communication and better collaboration between departments. The responsible employees should receive proper training on choosing the best waste management collaborators, measuring the strategies’ efficiency, and creating thorough reports.
The team must assess many aspects of waste management, including the placement of recycling bins or the reliability of waste services. In addition, the team will gain insight into the department’s challenges and opportunities for improvement.
Implement a waste hierarchy
There are five stages of the waste management process that include:
- Reducing waste;
- Reusing materials;
- Recycling;
- Recovering energy;
- Landfilling;
However, these are the standard guidelines. Every company can modify and improve them according to the nature of waste, goals, and current technologies. In addition, examining each stage is essential for a better understanding of your position regarding waste.
For example, you could minimise the amount of waste produced by reusing leftover materials from the manufacturing process. If not, you could try recycling what’s possible, such as waste paper, glass, or metal. If materials cannot be recovered from a waste-to-energy program, the last step is to dispose of them in a landfill, which should also be done more sustainably.
Look out for waste management partners
Managing waste correctly without the proper collaborators can be challenging, especially when dealing with hazardous materials. For example, you must assess chemical waste management to a competent body to avoid toxins leaking into the ecosystem. Services like lab packs or tank cleaning are also necessary for environmental waste.
Also consider:
- Treatment services for wastewater to prevent contaminating the soil and groundwater;
- Solidification of waste liquids, such as radioactive waste, for better management;
- Removal of sludge and solvents from manufacturing equipment;
- Waste incineration as part of the waste-to-energy program;
- Sustainable waste transportation services to avoid spills and pollution;
Strive for ambitious targets
Improving your waste management program can be difficult at first, but as you move along with current goals and start to get the hang of it, your company might be able to strive for higher targets. Conduct an audit to see where you stand and pile up goals. For example, if you could improve your recycling efforts, the next step could be to reduce waste generation.
Depending on the company’s capabilities, you might reach these goals sooner or later, but they’ll ultimately be worth it. With the right collaborators, a stable team, and proper knowledge of sustainability matters, your brand can become a leader in the industry of companies mitigating change.
Improve your training sessions
Considering the importance of the new team responsible for waste management, training sessions are vital for their development. Therefore, working on the training sessions from time to time will ensure your team is up-to-date with the latest trends in sustainability and research and studies on the matter.
Of course, the first training should cover the essentials of waste management, including waste classification, circular economy, and awareness of waste facilities. Once everyone is on the same page, you could add more complex information, such as waste legislation and environmental permitting.
In the long term, the training program should bring the following benefits:
- Reach net zero goals faster since the company can now accelerate its transition to low-carbon;
- Encourage sustainable practices in the office based on responsibility and accountability;
- Boost efficiency due to optimising processes and minimising waste;
- Reduce costs since there’s less water used and lower waste disposal costs;
Are there challenges to being more sustainably conscious?
Adopting more sustainable measures as a company, especially waste management, can be difficult when few collaborators are on the market capable of providing proper services. In addition, transitioning from current practices, energy resources, and techniques can be challenging and time-consuming.
Moreover, navigating the regulatory environment is full of obstacles, considering it changes frequently and imposes hard-to-reach goals for some companies, mainly small businesses. The government must prioritise measuring sustainability in waste management.
What’s your waste management policy like?
Current management of business waste streams requires more implications from leaders and teams, as they’re causing significant environmental damage. Hazardous and non-hazardous waste streams end up in landfills, and while there are many solutions to handling it, waste is still expected to increase in volume in the following years.
So, companies should start delegating waste management teams and look out for partners in order to strive for ambitious goals.
Article and permission to publish here provided by Mary Hall. Originally written for Supply Chain Game Changer and published on October 24, 2024.
Cover photo by Boran Pang on Unsplash.