Waste Reduction Strategy

Spell Out Your Waste Reduction Strategy

A landmark study from the Environmental Protection Agency shows how a dedicated waste reduction strategy can significantly reduce costs for any organization. The study suggests that carbon emission abatement from waste reduction and recycling can be significant. The EPA study in 2009 looked at emissions across an entire life cycle in order to come up with these conclusions.

Some of the waste reduction strategy findings by the EPA are quite startling. The agency finds that recycling construction debris could save over 150 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the entire carbon footprint of North Carolina. The study therefore found that increasing the lifespan of products was as important as a solid waste reduction strategy.

A landmark study from the Environmental Protection Agency shows how a dedicated waste reduction strategy can significantly reduce costs for any organization. The study suggests that carbon emission abatement from waste reduction and recycling can be significant. The EPA study in 2009 looked at emissions across an entire life cycle in order to come up with these conclusions.

More and more environmentally conscious observers are pushing for the United States to adopt responsibility laws, ensuring that an individual organization's waste reduction strategy is anchored securely. By doing so, producers would be responsible for their products not only during production and through use, but also during destruction as well.

A waste reduction strategy should be an integral part of a lifecycle analysis for each and every product. The disposal of waste results in dedicated costs for the organization and puts a sometimes unnecessary imposition upon municipalities and jurisdictions.

Waste Reduction Strategy Throughout a Lifecycle

Excess waste is responsible for a considerable amount of the greenhouse gas emissions in a developed society. Methane in particular is a byproduct of decomposition. While most attention is paid to the first two emissions scopes, more attention will be paid over the years ahead to the third scope, including supply-chain and afterlife product handling.

The EPA suggests that procurement, production, delivery and disposal of goods and services by Americans account for 42% of the entire greenhouse gas emissions footprint for the nation as a whole. This includes emissions through land use, food and product production throughout a lifecycle.

Waste Reduction Strategy and The Supply Chain

Every organization should be aware of the size of its entire carbon footprint and should thus be in possession of information relating to an entire supply chain and waste reduction strategy. Retailer Wal-Mart drew attention to the importance of supply-chain emissions when the company requested all of its suppliers, worldwide to reveal their carbon handling policies.

A waste reduction strategy is an integral part of the company's push for sustainability. Organizations should reduce to as near zero as possible any materials sent to landfill and should aim to introduce biodegradable products in a concerted push toward recycling.

About Verisae

Verisae helps measure, manage and reduce equipment and energy costs including the related business and environmental impacts of carbon emissions. The Sustainability Resource Planning (“SRP”) software platform improves operational efficiency, protects brand integrity and helps ensure regulatory compliance for distributed enterprises across many industries. Verisae delivers a broad range of sustainability solutions to dozens of clients globally with thousands of daily users including an extended network of third-party suppliers. Verisae’s integrated sustainability platform actively tracks millions of assets across thousands of sites worldwide.

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