Sustainable waste management describes the reduction or adoption of discarded products into existing biological and industrial systems to preserve the resilience of natural resources.
This post will summarise 4 main concepts to keep in mind when revisiting your current waste management plans for the sake of environmental sustainability. Read on for more!
Pillars of sustainable waste management
- Source reduction and reuse
- Recycling/compost
- Emissions reduction
- Treatment and disposal
Source reduction and reuse
Sustainable waste management begins wherever waste is produced. Year after year, the USA reaches new heights in terms of waste production. For example, the EPA estimates that the USA produced about 292.4 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2018. That is about 23.7 million tons more than what was produced in 2017, and nearly 3 times more waste produced since the 1960s.
Preventative measures to reduce such large volumes of waste from being landfilled are essential to establishing waste management systems that are sustainable and regenerative. By reducing the volume of raw materials needed to conduct business, ship packages, and distribute food, companies can experience immediate savings both financially and environmentally.
Don’t think about it as operating with less. The most sustainable way is to operate more efficiently while wasting less.
Recycling/composting
Composting and recycling are two mechanisms that recover the potential of discarded materials, preserving their potential value from being lost to the landfill. In the landfill, items like paper, food, and plastic are compacted down into the earth into an anaerobic state where decomposition is unlikely. Recycling and composting programs solve this problem by producing value from waste products through new products and soil amendments, capitalizing on the value of waste.
Recycling and composting systems are essential in achieving a circular economy but to implement them effectively, companies must be willing to adopt materials that are easily composted and recycled. This means eliminating mixed material products that contain multiple raw materials that cannot be easily separated, composted, and/or recycled. Furthermore, waste streams should generally lead away from the landfill, with landfill dumpsters only used as a last resort for truly hazardous and unrecoverable materials.
Emissions Reduction
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be a priority for sustainable waste management systems. Landfills are notorious for producing methane because of the anaerobic conditions they create beneath the soil. This is why diverting waste, especially organic waste, away from landfills is so important.
The emissions reduction pillar also makes practices like co-incineration, energy bag programs, or “waste-to-energy” programs illegitimate means to achieving sustainability goals. Incinerating waste products like mixed plastics, food, and yard clipping produce more CO2 per megawatt-hour and more airborne pollutants than a coal-fired powerplant.
Since the goal of sustainable waste management is to preserve the resilience of natural resources, waste streams that lead to the reduction and sequestration of greenhouse gas byproducts must take priority.
Treatment and disposal
Treatment and disposal should be reserved as a “last resort” option for items that cannot be composted, recycled, or recovered in any way.
Today’s waste treatment options intend to mitigate the volume and toxicity of waste via shredding, anaerobic digestion, or chemical degradation. The ultimate fate of materials that make it this far through the sustainable waste management framework without a revitalization plan is destruction. To destroy finite natural resources via incineration or abandonment in a landfill is wholly unsustainable.
Any materials that are destined to be landfilled, incinerated, or become toxic pollutants must be phased out and replaced with materials that contribute to more circular economies.
Immediate sustainable waste management solutions
Invest in technology
Take advantage of today’s technology to reduce the amount of paper needed to operate your business or household. For example, operations like billing, recipes, invitations, and more can all be done online without using paper.
This tip is especially applicable to educational institutions. This semester, encourage your department to adopt a paperless curriculum. Find ways for students and staff to use less paper in school that are inclusive and mindful of technological gaps.
Explore alternative waste streams
Collectively, we need to be recycling and composting much more than we are landfilling and destroying. If you do not have the space to recycle and compost on-site, explore local waste management options that do not involve landfills.
Food, for example, should never go to the landfill. The more circular solutions for food waste are composting and anaerobic digestion. Composting creates soil amendments and anaerobic digestion creates natural gas while landfills create problems and take up space.
For residents looking to compost on a smaller residential scale, the Subpod Mini makes composting at home extremely easy. The Subpod Mini is a compact and discrete compost container that hides beneath the soil. Its design makes it odor and pest-free to keep your worms and your neighbors happy. It is easy to install and when you choose to move, just dig it up out of the ground and relocate it to the next patch of soil. The Subpod Mini is just one of many composting solutions provided by our affiliate, Subpod, and you can find even more information on their website.
Phase-out single-use plastic
Single-use plastic utensils and packaging contribute significantly to the world’s plastic waste consumption. Furthermore, plastic can only be recycled several times before its structural integrity is compromised and is destined for the landfill or as microplastic pollution in the environment.
Companies like Bonnie Bio, a Sustineri Project affiliate, are working to replace many single-use plastics with environmentally responsible alternatives. You can click on their banner below this post to explore their large collection of biodegradable, compostable, and water-soluble alternatives to common single-use items!
