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Commercial Angles' Newsletter - March 2002

Waste reduction

Waste reduction usually has a beneficial effect on the operations of a business. Waste reduction often improves a company's productivity too and has on occasions, as in the case of a sawmill who started treating their sawdust, led to the profitable exploitation of new markets. The government has recently started a number of initiatives to reduce waste. So what is waste and how does one go about reducing it.

Waste can be a number of things, including:

high scrap or defective work.
- Reducing this increases productivity and reduces unit costs. It may also reduce landfill taxes, packaging recycling and energy costs.
excess energy usage.
- Reducing energy losses by correct selection of electric motor drives, insulation, elimination of leaks and general good housekeeping can improve power factors, reduce consumption, lower production costs and lead to carbon trading credits. With the introduction of the Climate Change Levy, wasting energy is more of a waste now than it was. Guidance on making energy savings is available at the Energy Efficiency site.
poor design.
- Improving design frequently reduces consumption of packaging and production materials as well as reducing the manufacturing process hours. Systematically reviewing product designs to take out costs can radically improve both a company's profitability and also lead to a higher market share. It may also reduce or change the type of waste to be disposed of.

Landfill

The landfill directive will have a marked effect on the disposal of some wastes. The current practice of diluting hazardous waste with ordinary municipal waste, co-disposal, in the hope that the hazard will be reduced by some natural biochemical process must cease by 2004. Any business with non-standard waste will find that disposal costs will increase significantly. All waste going to landfill must be pre-treated after 16 July 2004. One year later it will be illegal to dispose of liquid wastes or explosive, flammable, infectious or other wastes not fulfilling certain criteria to landfill. How much the pre-treatment costs will be is not yet known, nor is the extra transport costs arising from hauling waste to landfill sites which may accept specific wastes. Wherever possible waste should be reduced at source so that disposal costs are minimised.

Making a corporate commitment (MACC)

In June 2000 what later became DEFRA launched the MACC scheme to encourage companies to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner. It published guidelines for minimising waste, which are reproduced below:

Appoint a waste champion. Someone who has authority to collect data a develop a strategy for managing and reporting on waste.
Identify the types of waste produced. The guidelines contain a list of typical wastes by sector.
Measure the wastes. Waste contractors can often assist with this.
Review what is done to the waste. Prioritise those types of waste with the most significant scope for gains.
Set targets for improvement. This is the hard part. Before you can set the targets you must have a plan for reducing the quantity or type of the waste, recycling it or segregating it.
Identify the benefits. The guidelines gives some case studies showing what savings and other benefits can be achieved.
Report the outcome. Monitor progress and identify more ways of reducing waste.
Repeat the process. Continuous improvement is the objective.

The Carbon Trust

The Carbon Trust, a not-for-profit business, supported by the government but led by industry will shortly be setting up auctions for the trading of carbon credits in April 2002. However the main work of the organisation is to encourage the take-up of low carbon technology. Financial assistance to companies to invest in low carbon technology will be available through the Trust who will administer the enhanced capital allowance scheme. The Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme will be moved to the Trust too. One of the main challenges facing the Carbon Trust is to get its message across to SMEs.

Articles from previous newsletters