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Planning an Efficient Waste Diversion & Recycling Program

By: Briana Smith | June 11, 2021

Part three of an ongoing series guiding you on the path to creating a cleaner, healthier, greener and safer building for re-entry and beyond.

Much like basketball, devising a strategy and building upon your momentum is essential for a successful sustainability program. It’s good to look at the overall process, make goals, and then take a look at the individual steps needed to get there.

In this blog series, we’re breaking down the process of developing a sustainable building program into eight steps, as reflected in our WAXIE GPS^® (Green Partner Support™) Program, which progresses from easier to adopt green cleaning procedures and techniques to higher level strategies and stewardship.

As mentioned in the previous two steps, Green Chemistry and Mechanization, waste reduction is one of the cornerstones in a holistic approach to sustainable facility management and it goes hand-in-hand with an efficient waste diversion and recycling program.

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Topics: Recycling, Sustainability, facility maintenance, Waste Diversion

Zero Waste & Waste Diversion: A Guide to a Greener and Healthier Future

By: Caitlin Dimalanta  |  December 3, 2020

In 2018 the EPA reported a total of 292.4 million tons of trash collected, translating to roughly 4.9 pounds per person on a daily basis in the United States alone. Approximately 32 percent of this trash was either recycled or composted. This waste diversion statistic is an impressive feat. However, the trash being generated year by year is steadily increasing along with environmental and economical impacts.

These impacts can range anywhere from reduced oxygen levels of diverse habitats to toxicological threats to our wildlife through ingestion and entanglement. On top of the ecological effects, the cost of mismanaged waste can be substantial. In a 2012 an EPA study recorded that West Coast communities of the United States spend more than $520 million dollars annually to prevent trash from littering the ocean.

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Topics: Zero Waste, facility maintenance, Waste Diversion

America Recycles Day: Keep Calm & Recycle On

By: Briana Smith  |  November 13, 2019

America Recycles Day is coming up this Friday, November 15th and it’s a day to educate, to motivate & to make recycling bigger & better!

We are at a crossroads when it comes to the state of the recycling industry. As was mentioned in our The Future of Recycling article, China started banning “foreign garbage” in 2018 which encompassed recyclables from the United States that are often contaminated due to improper collection & disposal practices. This contamination in the recycling stream has caused processing problems at recycling centers here as well, as consumers are unaware of their local waste management rules & regulations resulting in “hopeful recycling.”

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Topics: Zero Waste, Recycling, Sustainability, Waste Diversion

How Zero Waste Initiatives Affect Businesses

By: Derek Markham  |  October 18, 2016

Zero waste is fast becoming a sustainability staple in the business world, but what does it mean, how do you get there, and how does going zero waste affect the businesses which do so?

First, a definition of zero waste from Zero Waste International Alliance (ZWIA):

"Zero Waste is a goal that is ethical, economical, efficient and visionary, to guide people in changing their lifestyles and practices to emulate sustainable natural cycles, where all discarded materials are designed to become resources for others to use. Zero Waste means designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, conserve and recover all resources, and not burn or bury them. Implementing Zero Waste will eliminate all discharges to land, water or air that are a threat to planetary, human, animal or plant health."

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Topics: Zero Waste, Recycling, Sustainability, Waste Diversion