Pages

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Zero-Waste

3 Steps


Material and waste flowchart

 ~ Zero-waste, the goal, the practice, of becoming landfill-free, is an objective of a growing number of organizations. Those that have either achieved zero-waste or are in the midst of a zero-waste initiative have had success with a three-pronged approach according to Ashley Halligan:
  1. Setting and defining a goal. Or a series of them. Zero-waste is a great goal, but initially getting to 80% of zero-waste can be a stretch effort, significant and laudable.
  2. Engage Employees. Empowering your employees produces some powerful results.
  3. Audit-and Tackle-Your Waste Stream. You can't manage (and mitigate) what you can't measure.
Quoting Kirk Varga:
When approaching a zero-waste goal, it’s important to consider that all materials are recyclable or reusable in one way or another.
For organizations, indeed, for businesses of any size, reducing waste means saving money. Consider: there are costs entailed in every component or constituent part of anything one buys. Discarding a portion of that is just trashing money. Best to buy only what one actually, and in an enduring way, uses. Otherwise, "rent" the materials—deploying them usefully, but acquiring and divesting them as part of an unending loop. Not to the land-fill, but to another use.

No comments:

Post a Comment