Well, lucky me. Our Environmental MR just left for greener pastures (no pun intended) It looks like until we find a replacement, I am going to be expected to do some of the things that I had (because I am such a nice person) been doing some data entry for him. This includes our recycling and finding ways or people to reuse stuff to keep it from going to the landfill. But, I digress, I don't want to talk about how this fell on me, but instead to talk about what YOU do.

What things do you, or are you able to find a recycler or a reuser for. I'll start:

Office paper
Cardboard
Toner
Refractory
Electrodes
Pallets (recyclable and reusable)
Used Oil
Used Solvents
Batteries (Pb-Acid, NiCAD, Alkaline)
Light bulbs
Copper
Scrap (internally generated)
Mill Scale
Furnace slag
Electronics

Waste (landfill use) minimization is one of the objectives and targets that we have chosen from our aspects and impacts. Up till this year, nobody had really looked at how much, or at what cost or gain, stuff we were diverting from the landfill. We have done most of these things since startup or since we've found resources. We had some general ideas of what we were doing, but nobody looked at all the things as a whole. It was all in our accounting codes and practices, but lumped into large code categories understood only by accounting. Hence, my suggestion to put it all together into one program with objectives and targets (no good deed goes unpunished:lmao: )

I am keeping track of the recyclable(reusable), the quantity, and its cost or gain to us. The next step is to try to correlate or improvements, our efficiency, and evaluate opportunities to turn expenses into returns, or lower expenses.

What do you do?

Our township has mandatory recycling - from their website

"The following items must be recycled:

All Office Paper
Corrugated Cardboard
Newsprint
Magazines
Steel & Aluminum Cans
Clear & Colored Glass
#1 and #2 Plastics
Leaf and Yard Waste "


So we don't track it, as far as I know, since we have to do it by law - no choice.

Steel Maiden

In our humble facility we do the following:

Office paper; recycle waste through the local council
Cardboard; recycle waste through the local council
Toner; return empties to our stionary supplier
Refractory;
Electrodes; hazardous waste handling agent
Pallets (recyclable and reusable); none used
Used Oil; hazardous waste handling agent
Used Solvents; hazardous waste handling agent
Batteries (Pb-Acid, NiCAD, Alkaline); hazardous waste handling agent
Light bulbs; our landlord is responsible for this
Copper; hazardous waste handling agent
Scrap (internally generated); hazardous waste handling agent
Mill Scale; not created
Furnace slag; not created
Electronics;not created

One to add, water as a byproduct from air-con is re-used in our own cooling systems.

Paul Flower

Cardboard
Paper
Glass
Aluminium
Copper - donated to a local charity who strips down the cables to the copper and sells it for their own causes
People - hey, how'd that get in here?
E-waste
EAF dust - handled as haz mat
Batteries
Used oil/grease/lubricant
Greasy rags - into the furnace they go!
Finished product - if it ain't good, we'll sell it to our scrap department (there's a joke in there somewhere about supplying your own raw materials...) :notme:
Coffee grinds - they're put out into our gardens as compost...hey, we drink a lot of coffee here!
Slag - it's a co-product, not a by-product and is sorted into 3 different sizes which each have their own market
Electrodes
Mill scale
Pond water
Oil/Water separator - oil is disposed of, water is safe to return into the system
Wood

You know, I think I missed a bunch...

We do track the following:

Waste to landfill
Recycling tons
Haz mat disposed of (more of a check to ensure we're doing it properly)

I forgot about our water recycling...

When I suggested that we compost (we have a cafeteria on-site) the env. mgr. was not enthused at all. I thought it was a really good idea, we could potentially sell the compost, or at least give it to employees and contractors. oh, well.