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All Waste is Not Created Equal - Page 2

© Kenneth Friedman

With all these categories of waste to account for, industries must have programs for waste segregation. This is a process that some conscientious city folks go through when they separate their glass bottles, plastic containers, metal cans, newspapers, magazines, cardboard and steel.

Industries have discovered that there are benefits to waste minimization (making less waste) and waste segregation. They save money.

Industries save the most money by preventing waste (pollution) at the source. This makes sense. If you don't produce waste in the first place, you don't have to spend any money to deal with it.

The next best step is to find technology (machinery and equipment) or processes that does away with waste production. This is often expensive in the short run because industry has to spend money on new technology, but in the long run it pays off because, again, they don't have to deal with waste.

The next best step is do what we've been talking about - segregate waste so you can do something with it:

• sell it for recycling (bottles, concrete, bricks, lumber, plastics)

• sell it for processing into something else

• dispose of it in a government-approved manner.

All of these options except disposal either save money by avoiding disposal (which you have to pay for) or make money through sales.

The remaining options don't make any money. An industry may be able to reuse some of the materials it once discarded as waste. Examples might be steam and gas that can be used to produce energy. Recovered scrap and gaseous or liquid substances that can be reintroduced into a production process would be other examples. Reusing materials only saves you money that you don't then have to spend buying raw materials.

Another option is to pay someone to take waste. Obviously this is not a money maker, but for some wastes there is no choice. Infectious wastes from dispensaries and hospitals, and radioactive wastes from various sources must be handled by approved facilities.

Finally, when all else fails, industry may have to process its wastes to make it environmentally safe and then dispose of it in an approved landfill or underground injection well.

In the end, then, proper handling of waste is not only good because it satisfies the law, but it makes good economic sense and the more thoroughly waste management is handled, the better it is.

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