Waste Management

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Facilities can improve their waste management practices by minimizing the amount of waste associated with manufacturing products, and by responsibly processing waste after it is created, concentrating on recycling, re-use, and composting. Waste minimization in manufacturing can involve enhancing production efficiency and pollution prevention, as well as using more efficient manufacturing processes and more environmentally responsible materials. In addition, facilities can minimize waste by reducing product packaging and designing products to be reused, recycled, or composted. These product-focused waste reduction strategies are addressed in the Product Performance category. The Performance Track program encourages applicants and members to report on manufacturing waste management improvements in the aspects listed below. Examples of appropriate measures are also provided.

Indicators	Units
Non-hazardous Waste generation, broken down by management method (Total or specific)	Pounds Tons
Hazardous Waste generation, broken down by management method (Total or specific)	Pounds Tons

In order to improve waste management, Performance Track members are:

capturing and recovering solvents for reuse
replacing florescent light bulbs containing mercury with non-mercury lighting
increasing recycling of batteries, cardboard, paper, scrap metal, and other byproducts containing recyclable materials
improving equipment design and increasing employee training to reduce production waste
reusing wood pallets or substituting more durable pallet materials

Bottom-line benefits resulting from improved waste management can include:

reduced raw materials costs
reduced fees for waste shipment and disposal
reduced risk and liability for waste disposal
increased productivity and process efficiency through optimized production cycles
reduced inventory and space requirements
reduced handling costs

EPA as well as many non-governmental organizations, trade groups, and companies collect and share information on techniques and tools for improving a facility's waste management practices. The links provided below highlight sources in the following areas:

Conversion and Contextual Factors for Waste Management
General Resources
Source Reduction
Recycling

Disclaimer: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides this information as a free and open service to the public. EPA does not endorse any company or product identified on this or any subsequent pages listed herein, and makes no claims regarding the accuracy, validity, or effectiveness of this or any other product or service represented by these data.

If you would like to suggest additional resources to feature on this website, please email a description of the site (including what topics the site addresses) and the URL to hamilton.luctrician@epa.gov.

Conversion and Contextual Factors for Waste Management

Methods to convert non-standard measurement units into standard units, and methods to convert environmental improvement quantities into commonly understood contexts, can be found through the links below:

Conversion factors (e.g. the weight of an "average" glass bottle)

To calculate the weight of various waste, see EPA’s WasteWise report, Measuring Success, Calculating Waste Reduction (PDF) (18pp, 1.6MB). For example, one "average" glass bottle weighs 0.5 pounds and one 16 ounce plastic bottle weighs 0.05 pounds.

To calculate the weight of paper, use information from this table . For example, one ream of paper equals 500 sheets. Letter sized paper has a basis size of 17" x 22" and is cut into 4 pages per sheet. Thus, to determine weight for a package of letter sized paper, divide the "gsm or g/m2" weight by four.

One gallon of fuel oil weighs 8.0 pounds. Additionally, one gallon of oil-based paint weighs 12.0 pounds (Source: Iowa Regional Collection Center Program).

One "typical" 40" by 48" wooden shipping pallet weighs 45 pounds (Source: Protecta-Pack Systems).
Contextual factors

EPA's Municipal Solid Waste website contains an overview of municipal solid waste as well as a Facts and Figures report, which provides information on the characterization, management, and reduction of municipal solid waste, including per capita generation rates and the composition of municipal solid waste streams.

EPA's Resource Conservation site provides lists and information on a variety of non-hazardous materials recovered for recycling in the United States.

According to EPA's Office of Solid Waste, in 2006, U.S. residents, businesses, and institutions produced more than 251 million tons of municipal solid waste, which is approximately 4.6 pounds of waste per person per day. In addition, approximately 7.6 billion tons of industrial solid waste are produced on average per year from 60,000 facilities. This is approximately 126,700 tons per facility.

General Resources

EPA's Office of Solid Waste maintains information on industrial and special waste, municipal solid waste, and hazardous waste. The site offers extensive waste management information for industrial and municipal facilities:

EPA's Draft Guide for Industrial Waste Management provides a management tool for characterizing and reducing waste. Using this guide, decision-makers can tailor waste management practices to specific waste streams and environmental settings.
The Industrial and Special Waste page provides specific information on managing a variety of non-hazardous wastes found in industrial facilities, such as batteries, cement kiln dust, crude oil and gas, fossil fuels, industrial waste, landfills, medical waste, mining waste, universal waste, and used oil.
The Waste Minimization and Pollution Prevention pages provide resources and information on reducing chemical wastes, particularly those that are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic.
Case studies in successful EMS waste reduction initiatives.

EPA's WasteWise Program offers a large collection of solid waste-related information materials:

Waste Prevention provides information on approaches companies can use to decrease solid waste production, sample goals that companies can undertake, and results that companies have achieved through their efforts.
WasteWise Program Success Stories highlight progress that partner facilities have made in achieving waste reduction goals.
The short paper "Where Are the Biggest Cost Savings? Looking for Waste Prevention Clues Across Business Operations" describes how to identify cost-saving waste prevention opportunities.

EPA's Hazardous Waste site outlines various environmental management strategies for hazardous waste, as well as the policies that govern them.

The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal: Annex I lists types of wastes to be considered hazardous. The list includes types of waste steams (e.g., residues arising from industrial waste disposal operations) that should be controlled and specific chemicals and chemical classes containing wastes that should be controlled (e.g., halogenated organic solvents). Annex III has a list of characteristics that make a waste hazardous.

EPA's Solid Waste Management and Greenhouse Gases page provides technical resources on how reduction of solid waste can lead to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Source Reduction

The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable serves as a national forum for promoting the development, implementation, and evaluation of efforts to avoid, eliminate, or reduce waste and pollution at the source.

The Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx™) provides information on pollution prevention and waste reduction through a consortium of eight regional pollution prevention information centers. To view a list of some particularly useful Pollution Prevention information for specific industries, go to Industry Sectors .

The Cutting Paper website sponsored by DOE and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory provides " ideas" and " actions" for increasing the efficiency of paper use in the office.

Recycling

EPA's WasteWise Program offers a large collection of recycling-related information materials:

How To to Start or Expand a Recycling Program (PDF) (4pp, 60K) provides information on recycling methods and summarizes the experiences of companies that have implemented recycling practices.
The "Buy Recycled Resource Guide" supplies contact information for starting a "buy-recycled" initiative, and includes contact information for suppliers of recycled goods.
The "WasteWise Tipsheet" (PDF) (4pp, 100K) includes definitions of "recycled" and describes the benefits of purchasing recycled materials.

Through a searchable online database, The Steel Recycling Institute's Recycling On-line Database supplies users with locations for local recycling of steel cans, cars, appliances, and construction steel/iron. Also available through the organization's homepage are guides and case studies on steel recycling.

The Global Recycling Network's Recycling Directories provide search capabilities to identify recyclers in any locality. Select the "Company Directories" link off the homepage and "Search the directory" for information on local recyclers.

Waste Management

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