Waste: The Options - Don't make it - minimisation

Milk bottles
1950s - 538g
1960s - 397g
1970s - 340g
1980s - 245g
1990s - 245g

Food cans
1950s - 69g
1960s - 69g
1970s - 69g
1980s - 58g
1990s - 57g

Yoghurt pot
1950s - n/a
1960s - 12g
1970s - 9g
1980s - 7g
1990s - 5g

drinks cans
1950s - 91g
1960s - 91g
1970s - 91g
1980s - 20g
1990s - 17g

plastic bottles
1950s - n/a
1960s - n/a
1970s - n/a
1980s - 66g
1990s - 42g

jam jar
1950s - 180g
1960s - 180g
1970s - 180g
1980s - 180g
1990s - 160g

In the short term

Reducing waste lowers disposal and raw material costs and improves the company's image in the yes of consumers, employees and shareholders.

In the long term

'Reverse engineering' through analysis of the waste stream, can lower other operating costs, reduces environmental liability and insurance costs, and even improve product performance. '

Do you know the composition of your company's waste streams?

Does your management information system tell you the mass balance in your business divisions between raw material inputs and product and waste outputs each year?

The most effective way for a company to tackle the escalating cost of waste disposal is to minimise the volume of waste produced. Focusing on ways to reduce waste often brings a further benefit by exposing hidden inefficiencies in manufacturing processes.

But waste minimisation requires shifts in a business culture. As an unattractive and previously disregarded issue, waste must now be made the focus of attention. Personnel at each stage of the design and manufacturing chain must review their processes and consider the implications that those processes have for each other. This change reflects society's shifting attitudes to waste. But, if fostered within the corporate culture, it is a tremendous potential source of competitive advantage.

The role of the waste management industry in minimisation

Over a decade ago, large producers began to install compaction systems on their sites. New compaction technologies can now reduce 30 cubic metres of loose waste to one cubic metre of dense waste, depending on what the waste contains. Waste management companies also increasingly advise on buying specifications. For example, standardising on one particular type of beer can, might permit a brewery to rationalise its segregation and recycling programme and also to save on waste disposal costs.

Waste Stream Analysis

The first stage of waste minimisation, or of any waste strategy, is an analysis of the waste stream. No manager can claim to be fully in control of production unless he knows what is being thrown away, and understands what his colleagues are throwing away. Increasingly, a manager must also be aware of the packaging waste and unconsumed product that his customer is obliged to throw away. Big scale players in the waste sector see this task as part of their role as 'consultant managers'.

Typically, a waste stream analysis begins with a mass balance analysis. With the help of a waste management company, a firm compares what goes into a process and what waste comes out.

Benefit

Waste stream analysis allows a company to discover the costs of each element of the waste stream within the sourcing and manufacturing chain. For example, the Health Service is now looking into the tonnage of prescription medicines purchased and tonnage thrown away each year in order to expose inefficiencies in different sectors and practices within the Health Service.

The impact on design

Waste stream analysis of products and packages is also an effective way of highlighting subjects for redesign. The greatest steps forward in this area have been in food and beverage containers. The (table above?) shows the reduction in weight in packaging materials in recent decades. (Add diagrams showing tables)

For example, as a result of these savings, the weight of the average drinks can has dropped by more than 80 per cent since the 1970s. The packaging industry sees clear marketing opportunities in maintaining this trend of less packaging, but not at the expense of products spoiling before they reach the consumer.

Conclusion: the limits to waste minimisation

It is difficult to predict the limits of waste minimisation because it depends on achieving new technology efficiencies and on the incessant quest for new materials.

A mass balance analysis can offer an objective view of the costs of waste practices. It encourages strategies to match waste products with circumstances such as:

• local public sector waste management strategies
• landfill availability
• opportunities for material recycling and reprocessing

However, it is an inescapable fact that a consumer society with ever-rising demands will continue to generate waste which must be disposed of by recycling, burying or burning, because waste minimisation can only go so far.

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