What is recycling and waste management? These things should better be called resource management. As recycling programs began to function in the late 20th century, they were considered as a part of the solid waste collection system. The programs were believed to cover their costs in a way much like waste collection programs: with user costs or local tax obligations. This typically led to recycling program both expenses and earnings be included into the general waste collection system. Nowadays, the method that is believed to be the “best method” is treating recyclables as assets that are taken care of under a resource management system, keeping up with such approaches as “sustainable materials management” and “zero waste”.
# 1. Used Materials Are Not Waste – They Are Resources
A resource management plan is an integral part of an integrated materials management strategy, where a town or a city makes intentional decisions concerning exactly how materials should flow. The plan aspects after that come to be certain methods to deal with specific products after they have actually been consumed. Those elements include:
- Collection
- Transfer
- Recycling
- Reuse
- Recovery
- Prevention
- Generation
- Source Separation (recyclables and organics)
- Treatment
- Disposal
It can additionally specify the approaches to contracting recycling company for sustainable services. A great waste management plan often includes:
- Organic and Food Waste Recovery
- Commercial Recycling
- Single Stream Recycling
- Waste Awareness and ‘How to Recycle’ Communications
# 2. Planning can’t be done at once.
At iSustain Recycling, we believe that planning helps us identify our starting factor (where are we now), our aim (where do we intend to be in the future), the method to reach our aim (just how are we getting there) and lastly the way to recognize development (just what should we measure to understand we’ve moved further). The aim should be to provide sustainable improvements to service coverage and also standards for handling all recovered resources. Strategic planning supplies the possibility to provide lasting enhancements to local waste management practices due to the fact that it could reply to the ever transforming waste and recovered materials markets.
# 3. Keep out of the path to the landfill.
Diversion from landfills has become a major trigger for several resource management plans and recycling programs, with some states and communities also running under legal needs for achieving specific diversion objectives. Nonetheless, when improperly sorted materials are counted as “diverted” from local land fills, but end up landfilled by producers because they cannot be reused, they just made a longer journey to the landfill. Understanding the fate of materials recovered from recycling programs is crucial to determining the real diversion rate. Recycling programs must recognize the quantity of products were usable in the production of recyclable items.
Inevitably, the objective of reusing programs should to make best use of the recyclability of all its products.
Call us at (423) 668-0111 and we will help you to develop a great waste management plan today!