Waste

WAYS TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
For Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Climate Change

Climate change caused by greenhouse gases is one of the most serious challenges facing our community. Human actions—particularly burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) and land clearing—are generating more greenhouse gases. These additional greenhouse gases trap more heat and raise the earth’s surface temperature. This is called the enhanced greenhouse effect—it causes global warming and is changing our climate.

The impacts of climate change will have social, environmental and economic consequences that will affect all communities across the globe.

Why Small and Medium Enterprises

Greenhouse gas abatement is not just for the big end of town. Climate change will affect all of us and therefore it is to everyone’s benefit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Most measures to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions will save you money in the long term, increasing profitability. Some measures will even help to improve productivity and the marketability of your business. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be seen as an opportunity to provide your business with a strong business advantage.

Waste

Reducing your business waste is usually easy to initiate and will usually cost little to do. In fact, improved waste management generally reduces the costs that many businesses incur when dealing with their waste. To begin to reduce the amount of waste produced by your business you will need to ask yourself five key questions:

1. Can you improve the efficiency of your production processes to eliminate or prevent waste?
2. Can you reduce or limit the amount of waste produced in your business process and support areas?
3. Can any of the waste products be reused?
4. Can any of the waste products be recycled?
5. Can you dispose your waste in a more environmentally friendly manner?

Reducing waste at all stages of production will result in less waste to landfill and consequently a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions due to the decomposition of waste. Producing less waste will also result in reduced costs associated with storing and transporting waste.

Improved Business Efficiency and Waste Elimination

Improve product design. Reassess the design of your products and services. Can they be altered to use less material and to reduce wasted material? Are alternative production materials available which are more environmentally friendly or better for recycling or reuse?

Improve production process. Assess the design of your production process. Do your processes meet best practice standards? Can they be redesigned to reduce the material your business needs for production? Can waste materials be reused in your production process or used to produce different products?

Assess packaging. Does your product need packaging? Can packaging be reduced or alternative materials be used that are more environmentally friendly or better for recycling or reuse? Can you use packaging that customers can return to you for reuse or recycling?

Avoid using adhesives or other contaminants so that packaging material can be reused or recycled easily. If possible favour suppliers whose products come without packaging. Ask your suppliers to take excess packaging away with them when they make deliveries.

Improve Business Processes and Support Areas

Improved business processes. Reassess the efficiency of your business processes in terms of the materials used and waste produced. Make information such as staff memos, training manuals and personnel information available in electronic form. Information for clients can be put on the Internet. Use emails where possible. Set up an electronic filing system to prevent staff from having to print emails. Reduce paper waste by using double-sided format printing on recycled paper.

Purchase environmentally friendly toner and printer cartridges. Buy remanufactured toner cartridges. Refill print and toner cartridges and recycle these when necessary.

Stop junk mail. Write to the companies that send junk-journals or brochures requesting to be removed from their mailing lists.

Update your mailing lists. Regularly update your own mailing and circulation lists to minimise errors or duplication.

Reduce the use of plastic bags. Reduce the use of plastic carry bags and encourage staff to use reusable cloth bags.

Purchase in bulk. Purchasing in bulk will allow you to save on packaging and transportation costs.

Use reusable products. Use reusable containers whenever possible. In your canteen or kitchen make sure that there are clearly marked bins for paper, co-mingled materials, food waste and general waste. Provide a sufficient amount of durable kitchen equipment for staff meals including durable towels, tablecloths, napkins, dishes, cups and glasses. Ensure that coffee machines and water dispensers allow staff to use ceramic mugs rather than plastic cups.

Compost. Consider composting food waste and other organic material. Once the waste is composted it can be used as fertiliser for your business’s plants or garden or can be bagged for staff to take home for use in their gardens.

Waste Reuse

Production waste. Assess whether materials, including water, can be reused in the production process or to produce other products.

Reuse packaging. Reusable plastic containers or boxes can be used to store or transport product. Reuse envelopes to send internal mail. Use incoming packaging materials for outgoing shipments.

Waste Recycling

Production waste. Consider all possible recycling options for your waste, as your waste may be useful to other businesses.

Paper. Place a recycling bin next to photocopiers and printers and provide a recycling bin for every six staff.

Pallets. Wooden pallets in all conditions can be recycled with many pallet companies and timber recycling firms operating recycling schemes.