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Spotlight on WastePreventionEPA’s Program ToReduce Solid Waste atthe Source

United States Environmental Protection Agency

EPA530-K-95-002June 1995

Solid Waste and Emergency Response (5305)

1EPA

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2 Recycled/RecyclablePrinted with vegetable oil based inks on paper that contains at least 20 percent postconsumer fiber.


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The environmental benefits of recycling

are well known. Many businesses, governments, and households are collecting discardsfor recycling, andare recovering

more materials thanever before. In fact,

over one-fifth of themunicipal solid waste

generated in our country is currently recycled or composted.

Despite progress in recycling, however, Americans are still generating too much waste. Every day, on average, each individual discards about four pounds of material. These discards burden both the environment and our economy. Even recycling, which adds major economic and environmental benefits, creates economic and environmental costs. The best approach to our solid waste challenge is to cut the creation of waste in the first place. Waste that is not created does not have to be managed later. That’s why waste prevention (reducing and reusing) is the ideal solid waste solution.

Source reduction, also known as wasteprevention, is the preferred solid wastetactic, followed by recycling. Wastethat cannot be prevented or recycled can be incinerated or placed in a landfill.

SOURCE REDUCTIONRECYCLING

LANDFILLING & COMBUSTION


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Waste prevention involves altering the design, manufacture, purchase, oruse of products and materials to reduce the amount and toxicity of whatgets thrown away.

Waste prevention is sometimes called “source reduction” because itreduces or eliminates pollution at the source. Thus, donating anunwanted computer to a charity (rather than setting it out for disposalor recycling its parts) is waste prevention. So is photocopying on bothsides of a sheet of paper. Altering material specifications so that fewerhazardous constituents are used in a manufacturing process also iswaste prevention.

Waste prevention activities help shift the nation’s emphasis from pollution cleanup to pollution avoidance. In particular, waste preventionplays a key role in reducing pollution throughout the life cycle of aproduct (see chart below).

Opportunities to reduce waste exist throughout a product’s life cycle.

Raw Materials

Acquisition

Product Use or

Consumption

Materials Processing

Product Manufacture Disposal

WASTE

WASTE

WASTE WASTE WASTE

WASTE WASTEWASTE

Waste in the Life Cycle of a Product

GETTING AT THE SOURCE


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Preventing waste has many positive effects on the environment:

• Conservation of natural resources. By reducing the amount ofraw materials that are used in manufacturing, waste preventionconserves resources such as metals, water, and petroleum.

• Reduced environmental impact from raw material extrac-tion. Reducing the use of raw materials in manufacturingminimizes the environmental impacts associated with mining,drilling, extracting, processing, and transporting these raw materi-als.

• Reduced energy usage and pollution from manufacturing.Because waste prevention prolongs the lives of materials andproducts, it reduces the need to manufacture new goods orreprocess materials, thereby saving energy and avoiding pollution.

• Reduced burden on landfills and combustors. Preventingwaste helps extend the lives of existing solid waste disposal facili-ties and helps avoid disputes over siting new facilities.

Preventing waste also saves money. The economic benefits of preventing waste include:

• Reduced waste management costs. Waste prevention savesmoney by lessening the amount of waste that must be collectedand processed. It also reduces the costs associated with siting andoperating management facilities such as landfills, combustors, andmaterials recovery facilities.

• Savings in material and supply costs. Reusing or prolongingthe lives of products means that these items don’t need to be pur-chased as frequently. Savings in avoided purchasing costs can besignificant, especially for companies and government agencies.

• Savings from more efficient work practices. Waste-reducingwork habits (such as using electronic mail in place of paper) canoften save time as well as money.

• Potential revenues from selling unwanted or reusable materi-als. Through a variety of venues, from waste exchanges to yardsales, it is often possible to earn revenues from the sale of goodsthat are no longer needed and that would otherwise becomewaste.

BENEFITS OF WASTE PREVENTION


PACKAGING REDUCTION. Many kinds of organizations are reducingthe packaging they use to transport and contain products and materials, aswell as the packaging they receive through shipments. For example, somecompanies are “lightweighting” packaging by reducing its thickness orshipping merchandise in reusable or returnable containers. Businesses,agencies, organizations, and individuals alike can practice waste preven-tion by purchasing products in bulk and those with reusable or minimalpackaging.

PAPER REDUCTION. Paper isstill the most abundant materialin the municipal solid wastestream, but people everywhereare reducing paper through activities such as copying on bothsides of a piece of paper, usingelectronic and old-fashioned bulletin boards to distributeinformation, and paring downmailing lists.

PRODUCT AND SUPPLYREUSE. Replacing disposableitems with long-lasting,reusable products can breakthe frequently expensive cycleof discarding and reordering.Hundreds of items, fromfile folders to air filters, can be reused.

EXCHANGE, SALE, OR DONATION OF UNNEEDED GOODS.Through waste exchanges, organizations can trade, sell, or give awaygoods or materials that would otherwise become waste. Unwanted materials and surplus inventory also can be donated to educational and charitable organizations.

WAYS TO PREVENT WASTE

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HAZARDOUS CONSTITUENTREDUCTION. Many productsare available with few or nohazardous constituents, includinginks, glues, paints, solvents, andcleaning products.

USE AND MAINTENANCE OF DURABLE EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES. High-quality, long-lasting supplies and easily repairableequipment stay out of the waste stream longer. Although such items can cost more initially, these expenses can be justified by lower maintenance, disposal, and replacement costs.

“ONSITE” COMPOSTINGOF YARD TRIMMINGS.“Grasscycling” (leaving grassclippings on the lawn) and onsite or backyard compostingkeeps yard trimmings out of thewaste stream. Using compostalso returns valuable nutrients to the soil.

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Waste prevention ties in nicely with theeconomic climate of the 1990s. Businessesare reviewing their operations with a sharp eye towards

cutting costs in purchasing and operations, while maintaining orimproving the level of service they provide. These changes, in turn,can increase competitiveness and profitability. Waste preventionserves all of these goals. A company that practices waste preventionalso can improve customer relations by demonstrating its concernabout the environment. In addition, a waste prevention ethic canenhance employee relations by involving staff in an organization’senviron-mental program. The following are just a few of many note-worthy examples of pollution prevention successes being achieved bysome of America’s largest companies:

• In 1992, DuPont and its customers reused 180 million pounds ofwood pallets, boxes, and other packaging materials—nearly 25 percent of the total amount of packaging used by the company thatyear. This program saved DuPont approximately $3 million in1992.

• Over the past four years, Martin Marietta has saved 13 millionsheets of computer printout paper and over $4 million in supplycosts by encouraging employees to edit documents electronically.The company has also eliminated paper timecards and travelexpense forms at several Northeast facilities.

• Johnson & Johnson, a large healthcare products company, has saved an estimated $2.8 million since it instituted a program in1988 to reduce packaging waste. The program helped the companyreduce solid waste generation by over 2,600 tons annually.

• Sprint, the long distance telephone company, has launched aninnovative customer billing system that prints two-sided telephonebills. Sprint expects to reduce paper consumption by more than 450tons annually when the new system becomes fully implemented.

Waste Prevention Pays for Business and Industry


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• In 1993, Quebecor Printing’s 506,000-square-foot printing plant inMount Morris, Illinois, saved $14,000 by repairing and reusing ship-ping pallets. A refurbished pallet is only 20 percent of the cost of anew one. The company also ships unused andscrap plastic wrap back to vendors for reuse.

Many small- and medium-sized businesses arealso finding ways to prevent waste:

• Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel & Towers, one ofseveral properties owned by the Saunders HotelGroup, eliminated over two million plastic bot-tles from its trash by switching to the use ofliquid pump dispensers for shampoo and soap inguest rooms. The hotel was able to upgrade theamenities it provides to guests with the moneysaved by this waste prevention tactic. The com-pany’s other hotels also switched to reusabledispensers based on the Park Plaza’s success. In another innovativewaste prevention move, the hotel’s housekeeping staff came up withthe idea of making kitchen aprons from stained linen tablecloths thatotherwise would have been discarded.

• Asbury Park Press,a New Jersey multi-media print andbroadcast communi-cations company, has realized annualsavings of over$38,000 by switchingto cloth rags suppliedby a laundry serviceinstead of using disposable ones.Using about 120,000cloth rags each year,the company is alsoavoiding the costs todispose of single-userags.

Photo courtesy of Pallet Enterprise magazine.

Photo courtesy of S

econdary Materials &

Recycled Textiles A

ssociation.


•Larry’s Markets, a grocery chain in the Seattle, Washington, area,encourages customers to reuse grocery bags. The company buysapproximately five million large-size grocery bags per year. If all ofthese bags were discarded, they would generate approximately500,000 pounds of waste. Larry’s Markets reduced bag waste byapproximately 15 percent in 1993 by giving free reusable bags to customers who signed a bag reuse pledge.

• Rosenberger’s Dairies of Hatfield, Pennsylvania, supplies over 220schools with refillable eight-ounce plastic milk bottles for use intheir lunchrooms. The bottles can be refilled up to 100 times beforebeing recycled and prevent 90,000 milk bottles from becoming wasteeach day.

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Agencies at all levels of government acrossAmerica are making waste prevention a toppriority. In addition to saving on purchasing and waste

disposal costs, municipalities can use waste prevention activities tohelp reduce the cost burdens associated with collecting, hauling,and processing waste. They also can avoid or postpone the need toexpand existing disposal or recycling facilities, or to site new ones.

One way governments can encourage waste prevention is through“unit pricing” or “pay-as-you-throw” programs. In the 1,600 com-munities with unit pricing in the United States, residents pay fortrash service based on the volume or weight of waste they put outfor collection, thus providing an economic incentive to reduce.Some communities that have implemented unit pricing have sig-nificantly reduced waste generation.

Specific examples of government waste prevention efforts include:

• Memorial Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, has slashed itscosts for batteries used in specialized portable cardiac monitor-ing equipment by 25 percent thanks to a longer-lastingsubstitute battery. By switching from mercury-containing batter-ies to a zinc-air replacement, the hospital also reduced thevolume of batteries requiring disposal (and the amount of haz-ardous constituents entering the waste stream). Environmentalofficials estimate that during its first year alone, this programeliminated 342 pounds of mercury from the county’s wastestream.

•The Village of Hoffman Estates, Illinois, cut waste by 30percent after the township adopted a “pay-as-you-throw” pro-gram for trash collection.

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Waste Prevention Pays forGovernment


• In Seattle, Washington, residents cut waste generation from anaverage of 3.5 waste cans to 1.7 cans per household per week afterunit pricing was launched.

• In rural Itasca County, Minnesota, the county’s road and bridgedepartment started using reusable air filters instead of disposable fil-ters in its garages. The county is saving $4,700 in purchasing costsannually and has virtually eliminated air filters as a component of thecounty’s waste stream. While more labor is required to clean thereusable filters, money is saved by avoiding the costs to purchase,store, and dispose of the single-use type.

• Through New York City’s Partnership for Waste Prevention, thecity’s Department of Sanitation is helping hundreds of dry cleaners,grocery stores, restaurants, and hotels in the city prevent waste. Drycleaners are accepting used clothes hangers for reuse, thereby divert-ing an estimated 750,000 hangers from landfills. Another partner,NYNEX, the regional telephone company, reduced the Manhattanwhite pages by 100 pages through reformatting and prevented theunnecessary use of 107 tons of paper.

• Break the Paper Chain is the slogan for EPA’s own waste preventioncampaign. Through the Paper-Less Office Campaign, in 1994 EPAemployees reduced waste at photocopiers by 16 percent and adoptedwaste prevention activities such as purging mailing lists, maintainingcentralized files, and disseminating memoranda and publicationselectronically. One of the ways the Agency has implemented thiseffort is to make many publications available electronically throughthe Internet.

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• The U.S. Department of Defense prevents waste by selling sur-plus items that are not reused or recycled by the various branches ofthe military. Tents, computers, furniture, shoes, and cooking utensilsare but a few of the many items that are routinely sold to the generalpublic. These surplus sales not only prevent waste, but they alsogenerate revenues. In 1993 alone, the Defense Reutilization andMarketing Office saved taxpayers almost $3 billion through thesesurplus auctions.

• The hospital at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda,Maryland, among the 10 largest in the United States, runs a monthlyreuse store where used office supplies such as file folders, paperclips, and rubber bands are redistributed from offices with excesssupplies to those that need them. A “New Products Committee” isalso considering a variety of source-reduced products, such as mat-tresses with built-in rather than disposable foam pads, and reusablerather than disposable bed pans.

• The U.S. Department of Energy’s Grand Junction ProjectOffice (GJPO) in Colorado has significantly reduced its paperwaste by using electronic mail. For many years, lengthy paper copiesof administrative bulletins were distributed to nearly 800 employeeson a weekly basis. Now these documents are issued to approximately50 office support personnel elec-tronically, saving nearly 154,000sheets of paper annually. In addi-tion, GJPO’s printing costs havedropped over $9,000 to just $624annually. Estimated labor costs fordistribution have also dropped substantially, from approximately$1,900 to $120 annually.

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A t the consumer level, smart shoppersknow that saving money and protecting theenvironment can go hand in hand. Examples of potential

savings for consumers include the following:

• Consumers living in communities where unit pricing is practicedquickly discover that waste prevention can reduce their trash bills.They only pay for the trash they create, which can lower theirmonthly bills from a flat fee pricing structure.

• Consumers can save money and reduce waste on ordinary house-hold products when they buy reusable, refillable, or rechargeableproducts, or purchase items in bulk quantities. Items such asreusable utensils and dishes, laundry detergent concentrates, andrechargeable batteries can save money through avoided purchases,packaging, and trash disposal costs.

• Borrowing rarely used items from a friend or renting them can saveconsumers the cost of purchasing these goods and, eventually, prevent their disposal in a landfill or combustor.

• In one year, 300 households in Madison, Wisconsin, prevented184,000 pounds of yard trimmings (about 620 pounds per house-hold) from entering their city’s waste stream by practicing backyardcomposting. They avoided the need to purchase lawn refuse bagsand produced a valuable compost product for use on their lawns and gardens.

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Waste Prevention Pays for Consumers


EPA encourages waste prevention by making itthe very top priority in its hierarchy of solid wasteoptions. To help demonstrate both the environmental and

economic opportunities inherent in waste prevention, EPA haslaunched a new initiative called Waste Prevention Pays. The initia-tive has five key goals:

• Help companies prevent waste.

• Prevent waste in federal agencies.

• Help communities prevent waste.

• Bring the waste prevention message home to citizens and consumers.

• Make waste prevention a better understood and more tangible environmental tactic.

EPA has taken a number of steps to achieve these goals, asdescribed below.

To help businesses and industry prevent waste and cut costsfor a better bottom line, EPA developed a voluntary, nonregulatory initiative calledthe WasteWi$e Challenge. In addi-tion to helping companiesgenerate less waste, the programasks businesses to collect materi-als for recycling and to buy ormanufacture recycled-contentproducts. More than 350 compa-nies representing America’sleading businesses signed on toWasteWi$e as members in theprogram’s first year. WasteWi$ecompanies commit to identifyingand implementing three

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EPA Is Helping theWaste PreventionEffort


significant waste prevention actions, among other requirements. Inaddition, several EPA documents on business waste prevention areavailable. (See the reference section on pages 16-17 of this booklet.)

To encourage waste prevention in federal agencies, EPA is help-ing these agencies implement the President’s Executive Order toestablish waste prevention programs and to buy environmentallypreferable products and services. EPA’s own in-house waste preventioneffort, the Paper-Less Office Campaign, is dramatically reducing theAgency’s use of paper. EPA also participated in an environmental auditof the White House that identified opportunities to prevent waste aspart of the President’s commitment to make the White House anational environmental showcase.

To help local communities prevent waste, EPA has a developed avariety of technical assistance programs and tools. One such tool is acomprehensive guidebook on unit pricing that helps communitiesdecide if an incentive-based waste management program is right forthem. In addition, EPA is developing tools to help communities learnmore about waste exchanges, which collect and repair such items asoffice furniture, equipment, building supplies, and surplus businessmaterials for reuse. EPA also is helping to document the benefits andcosts of backyard composting, develop educational materials, and traincomposting experts to conduct workshops for communities interestedin establishing such programs.

To bring the waste prevention message to consumers, EPA isproviding outreach tools including handbooks, newsletters, museum

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exhibits, and public service announcements. (See the reference sectionat the end of this brochure.) EPA also assisted the Federal TradeCommission in developing guidelines for manufacturers to provideconsumers with accurate information about the environmentalimpacts of their purchasing decisions. The guidelines help con-sumers determine if environmental claims on packages are valid.

To make waste prevention a more tangible tactic, EPA is work-ing with a group of experts to make progress on ways to measurereductions in waste and determine the effect of waste prevention ini-tiatives. By arriving at more consistent ways to measure these factors,it will be easier for everyone to determine the success of waste prevention efforts.

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“Reuse stuff today...Reduce garbagetomorrow” is the theme of aNational Audubon Society publicservice campaign promoting wasteprevention.


• Business Guide for ReducingSolid Waste (EPA530-K-92-004).This comprehensive, practicalguide is designed to help busi-nesses assess the types andamounts of solid waste they gen-erate and identify cost-effectivewaste prevention strategies.

• Waste Prevention Pays Off:Companies Cut Waste in theWork Place (EPA530-K-92-005).This collection of brief case stud-ies describes how companies andmunicipalities have cut costs bypreventing waste.

• Waste Prevention—It MakesGood Business Sense! (EPA530-F-93-008). This brochuresummarizes the benefits of pre-venting waste in business andindustry.

• WasteWi$e: EPA’s VoluntaryProgram for Reducing BusinessSolid Waste (EPA530-F-93-018).This booklet explains the goals,structure, and benefits ofWasteWi$e, an EPA voluntaryprogram that assists businessestake cost-effective actions toreduce solid waste. It alsoexplains what the membershiprequirements are and how com-panies can join the program. The

WasteWi$e program also offersother helpful information.

• Consumer’s Handbook forReducing Solid Waste (EPA530-K-92-003). This booklet suggestssimple steps that people can taketo reduce the amount and toxici-ty of trash. It offers practicalwaste prevention tips, includingreusing products and packaging,choosing nontoxic products, andmaintaining and repairingdurable products.

• Pay-As-You-Throw: LessonsLearned About Unit Pricing(EPA530-R-94-004). This com-prehensive guidance manualexplains unit pricing, helps solidwaste managers decide whetherunit pricing is right for theircommunities, and providesdetailed information on design-ing and launching such aprogram.

• Household Hazardous Waste:StepsTo Save Management(EPA530-F-92-031). Thisbrochure summarizes steps thatpeople can take to reduce theamount of household hazardouswaste they generate. It also brieflyreviews how to safely store, han-dle, and dispose of such waste.

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EPA Information on WastePrevention

To order the following free EPA documents on waste prevention, call the RCRA Hotline at 800 424-9346 or TDD 800 553-7672 for the hearing impaired. In

Washington, DC, and outside the United States, call 703 412-9810 or TDD703 412-3323:


• Household Hazardous Waste: AManual for One-DayCommunity Collection Programs(EPA530-R-92-026). This hand-book for community leadersexplains how to plan and operatea successful household hazardouswaste collection program.

• “Green” Advertising Claims(EPA530-F-92-024). Thisbrochure help consumers under-stand environmental claims suchas “recyclable,” “environmentallyfriendly,” and “degradable,” basedon guidelines issued by theFederal Trade Commission incooperation with EPA.

• Environmental Fact Sheet:Recycling Grass Clippings(EPA530-F-92-012). This factsheet explains the practice of“grasscycling,” or leaving grassclippings on lawns to improvethe condition of a lawn and toreduce the amount of yard debristhat must be managed.

• Environmental Fact Sheet:Municipal Solid Waste Preventionin Federal Agencies(EPA530-F-92-016). This factsheet outlines efforts under wayby federal agencies to reducewaste and briefly explains how tostart a waste prevention program.

• Paper-Less Office Campaign: AnAgencywide Waste PreventionProgram (EPA530-F-94-012).This brochure outlines EPA’scampaign to reduce the amountof paper used throughout theAgency by a variety of methods,including duplex copying andelectronic communication.

• Characterization of ProductsContaining Lead & Cadmium inMunicipal Solid Waste in theUnited States, 1970 to 2000,Executive Summary (EPA530-SW-89-015C). This documentsummarizes the investigation ofsources of lead and cadmiumproducts disposed of in MSWbetween 1970 and 1986, withprojections to the year 2000. Leadand cadmium products includelead-acid and household batter-ies, consumer electronics, glass,ceramics, plastics, soldered cans,and pigments.

The following publication is avail-able for a small charge from theNational Technical InformationService (NTIS), 5285 Port RoyalRoad, Springfield, VA 22161, 703 487-4650:

• Promoting Source Reduction andRecyclability in the Marketplace(PB90-163 122). This reportrelates the effectiveness of con-sumer-oriented educationprograms promoting sourcereduction and recyclability in themarketplace. Designed to assistsolid waste officials, consumerinterest groups, manufacturers,and marketing consultants, itdescribes successful sourcereduction campaigns andresearch.

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