Understanding the Importance of Waste Minimization
In both the public and private sectors, a key aspect of maintaining any property is effectively managing and getting rid of waste. The goal of waste treatment is to get rid of it in the most efficient, economical and environmentally friendly way possible. Since doing so can take considerable time and resources, practicing waste minimization can help get rid of waste more effectively.
Volume Minimization
An effective way to ensure environmental and economic efficiency is to minimize the volume of your waste. The smaller the volume, the easier and faster it will be to transport and get rid of.
A great example of this is the process of sludge dewatering: by removing water from the sludge, creating separate solid and liquid components, it becomes much easier to handle, treat and transport. This separation creates one solid waste instead of a massive, semi-liquid mess.
A Proactive Approach
Reducing the volume of your waste allows you to more effectively treat and transport it, but waste minimization is most effectively used before the waste is created. The goal of minimizing waste is primarily to reduce the amount of waste created in the first place, not to simply reduce the amount of waste and its impact after the fact.
Achieving zero waste is technically impossible, meaning that even the most efficiently-designed systems will produce some kind of waste. This means that the proactive approach to waste minimization that seeks to reduce the amount of waste produced must be coupled with ways to minimize the impact of waste at the end of production.
Reusing Material
One way to do this is to reuse as much material as possible throughout the process of production. Scrap materials like damaged rolls in paper mills or plastic scrap in the manufacture of plastic items can be reused or reincorporated to minimize waste.
Waste minimization is one tool manufacturers can use to help reduce the impact of waste products on the environment.