EPA's WASTEWI$E
Project
 

Become a WasteWi$e Member!

Many U.S. companies have demonstrated that by reducing and recycling materials that would otherwise become trash, they can reap substantial savings, sometimes millions of dollars per year.
EPA developed the WasteWi$e program to assist businesses in taking cost-effective actions to reduce solid waste.
To accept the WasteWi$e challenge, your company would commit to achievements that you choose in each of three areas:

Waste prevention
Recycling collection
Buying or manufacturing recycled products


Why Reduce Solid Waste?

Each of the three waste reduction activities offers distinct benefits, both for the environment and your bottom line.

Waste Prevention Waste prevention can save your company money through lower purchasing and disposal costs. It can also save your customers money by reducing what they throw out. Avoiding the generation of waste reduces the burden on disposal facilities, conserves natural resources, and often reduces pollution.

Recycling Collection
Collecting recyclables can help keep large amounts of material out of your company's dumpster. It can reduce your waste disposal bill and generate revenues from the sale of some materials. Recycling offers some of the same environmental benefits as waste prevention: extending the life of landfills, conserving natural resources, and reducing pollution.

Buying or Manufacturing Recycled Products
Recycled products are of high quality and can be competitively priced compared to virgin products. Buying and manufacturing goods with recycled content helps ensure that recycling will continue to advance and will eventually help lower the cost of recycled products.


Why Join WasteWi$e

In addition to the benefits of waste reduction outlined above, participation in WasteWi$e offers several advantages.

  • EPA will provide technical assistance via a hotline and electronic bulletin board, "how to" publications, lessons from other companies, and regular program updates.
  • Successful waste reduction efforts will be highlighted in EPA documents, business magazines, environmental journals, and trade publications.
  • Participating companies also may use the WasteWi$e logo in their advertising.
  • WasteWi$e provides an opportunity for your firm to be viewed by peers and customers as a leader in environmental initiatives.
Commit to Achieving Waste Reduction Results
Becoming a WasteWi$e member means committing to achieve results in each of these three areas:

Waste prevention
Recycling collection
Buying or manufacturing recycled products


Waste Prevention

Waste prevention is eliminating waste before it is created. For many companies, this involves eliminating waste that would go into their own dumpsters, as well as materials that would become waste for their customers. Some ways to prevent waste are to use less of a material, reuse materials and supplies, and purchase products that create less waste.


What Would I Do as a WasteWi$e Member?

As a WasteWi$e member, you would commit to identify and implement three significant waste prevention actions. Your firm would choose these actions after you have determined that they are practical and cost-effective. The types of actions your firm could implement include:

  • Purchasing supplies in reusable containers
  • Reducing paper use through electronic communication and double-sided photocopies.
  • Leaving grass clippings on the lawn.
  • Redesigning products or packaging to use less material.
  • Working with vendors to reduce transport packaging.
  • Using two-way envelopes for billing customers.

Recycling Collection

Recycling collection involves the separation, collection, storage, and removal of recyclable materials. It also includes composting materials off-site such as in a municipal composting program. Items collected for recycling will vary depending on the materials your company generates and the availability of markets for those materials. Collection of recyclables is a high-profile activity that many companies are already enthusiastically implementing.


What would I Do as a WasteWi$e Member?

As a WasteWi$e member, you would commit to expand or improve programs for collecting recyclables on company premises. This may mean starting a new program, if you don't already have one. It could also mean making improvements to an existing program by adding new materials to be collected, improving program efficiency through activities like employee education, or providing community outreach.

    Common recyclables include:
  • Computer printout paper
  • Corrugated cardboard
  • Newsprint and magazines
  • High-grade paper (e.g., copier paper)
  • Low-grade paper (e.g., colored paper)
  • Glass containers
  • Plastic containers
  • Aluminum containers
  • Steel containers

Buying or Manufacturing Recycled Products

Buying recycled means purchasing products that contain both preconsumer and postconsumer recovered materials. Company purchasing officials can work with your suppliers and vendors to determine which products contain recycled content. Often these products are competitively priced compared to virgin products.
Manufacturing recycled, an option available to manufacturers, means increasing the amount of postconsumer recovered materials in products, thus ensuring that collected materials are used in new products.


What Would I Do as a WasteWi$e Member?

For this part of the WasteWi$e program, nonmanufacturing firms would commit to increase the recycled content in purchased products, either by purchasing recycled products instead of virgin products or by increasing the recycled content in those recycled products that you already buy.
If you are a manufacturer, you have two options for meeting this part of the program: increase the recycled content in products purchased as described above or increase the percentage of postconsumer recovered material in your products. Some of the many products that contain recycled content:

Office/Printing
  • Office paper
  • Computer paper
  • Newsprint
Fleet Management
  • Lubricating oil
  • Retread tires
Construction Products
  • Dry wall
  • Insulation
  • Carpets
  • Paving materials
Janitorial
  • Tissue products
  • Trash can liners
Shipping and Receiving
  • Containers and packaging
  • Pallets

How Does the Project Work?

There are four basic steps to setting and achieving your WasteWi$e goals.

1. Sign Up
To join the WasteWi$e program, fill out the registration form at the end of this brochure and mail or fax the form to EPA. Be sure to complete sections A and B. Before completing the form, you'll need to determine:

  • The facilities that initially will be included in the program. The challenge can be taken by your entire company or by individual segments, such as corporate headquarters or a specific region, division, or facility. if you start with a segment of your firm, you can always expand to other facilities in a year or two.

  • The senior official who will commit your company to the program. joining WasteWise requires the signature of a senior official who can commit company resources to the waste reduction program. It is also helpful if this person can effect changes in company operations such as purchasing and facilities management.
2. Get Started
To get started in WasteWi$e, it's important to understand your company's waste and how it is generated and handled.
EPA will provide WasteWi$e members with A Business Guide for Reducing Solid Waste to get you started. The guide will help you take a look at your operations and make educated decisions about waste prevention, recycling, and buying recycled. EPA will provide case studies of businesses that have achieved cost savings and improved operations through waste reduction. We'll also provide "tip sheets" that provide information on waste prevention, recycling, and buying recycled materials.

3. Choose Your Goals and Take Action
Based on your review of company operations, you'll choose the waste prevention, recycling, and buying or manufacturing actions that make the most sense for your firm. Using a one-page form that EPA will provide, let us know what your plans are, so that we can develop and provide targeted technical information to assist your waste reduction program. We'll also be available via telephone and electronic bulletin board to answer questions.

4. Share Your Results
After your program is underway, we'll ask you to share your results with EPA so that we can highlight waste reduction opportunities for others and gauge the program's progress. Using a simple form that EPA will provide, let us know each year how your ,waste reduction initiatives are progressing and estimate your firm's achievements in terms of:

  • Waste prevented (weight or volume).
  • Recyclables collected (weight or volume).
  • Amount spent on products with increased recycled content or the increased amount (in terms of dollars or weight) of postconsumer content in products that you manufacture.
We'd also like to hear about any cost savings or other successes resulting from your waste reduction program.


EPA Assistance

The WasteWi$e program will offer several forms of technical assistance to help participating companies find waste reduction opportunities and set waste reduction goals. The following resources will be available to provide details on the elements of a successful program:
  • EPA's A Business Guide for Reducing Solid Waste.
  • Case studies of successful waste reduction by businesses.
  • Tip sheets on waste reduction.
  • Project updates.
  • Additional sources of waste reduction information.
WasteWise staff will be available by telephone (1-800-EPAWISE) to assist you with questions on:
  • Enrollment
  • Waste assessments
  • Goal setting
  • Waste reduction tips
  • Reporting
EPA's technical assistance will focus on nonmanufacturing waste reduction actions.


Waste Reduction Successes

These are just a few of the many firms that are successfully cutting waste ...

Waste Prevention
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company estimates that it saves approximately $300,000 each year through numerous waste prevention measures, including:

  • Reducing or eliminating shrink wrap packaging on forms and handbooks.
  • Using double-sided copies and electronic mail.
  • Reusing remanufactured laser cartridges, pallets, three-ring binders, and packing materials.
McDonald's has made waste prevention part of its everyday business. Over the past year, through reductions in children's meal boxes and bags, sandwich wrap resizing, container packaging redesign, and other reductions, the average McDonald's restaurant in the United States has decreased its packaging by more than 650 pounds. These reductions resulted in a total of nearly 3,000 tons of avoided packaging waste from the 9,000 McDonald's restaurants.

Recycling Collection
In 1986, a small group of employees at Honda of America's Marysville, Ohio, auto assembly plant, called the "Wastewatchers," started a corrugated cardboard recycling program. Honda estimates that from 1990 to 1992, approximately 15,000 tons of corrugated cardboard were recycled, saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in avoided disposal costs.

Buying or Manufacturing Recycled Products
E.I. DuPont Company currently buys $63 million worth of recycled packaging materials and other recycled products each year. Since 1990, a "buy-recycled" team has worked to increase the company's purchases of packaging, paper products, plastics, office supplies, and construction materials with recycled content.
© Copyright 1996 San Diego-Tijuana BORDER WASTE WI$E Project