Closing The Loop On Recycling Saves Money And The Environment.
A growing number of savvy businesses and governments recognise that diligent recycling coupled with buying and using products coming out the other end of the recycling loop can save money and helps the environment.
By Isaac Rudik
For most people, thoughts of recycling start and stop with wheeling a bin full of crumpled cans, empty bottles and disgusting old pizza cartons to the curb. Once the city truck collects the contents, recycling is pretty much out of sight and out of mind until the next pick-up. Few wonder or give any notice to what happens to the discards after the truck rumbles around the corner.
Yet a growing number of savvy businesses, government agencies and other organisations are starting to pay attention. They recognise that diligent recycling of industrial wastes coupled with buying and using products coming out the other end of the recycling loop saves serious money as well as seriously helps the environment.
Indeed, it’s amazing how a little recycling can have a major impact:
• One recycled can saves enough energy to power a TV set for three hours, about how long the average household watches the tube every day.
• One recycled plastic bottle saves enough energy to light a 60-watt bulb for three hours – maybe a lamp in the room where the TV is on for those three hours.
• One recycled glass bottle saves enough energy to run a computer 25 minutes.
• Roughly 70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared to making it new.
Crucially for anybody concerned about holding down costs, recycling can be a real money saver. If anyone knows how to control expenses, it’s Wal-Mart. By instituting a rigorous recycling programme, Wal-Mart is eliminating the need for the equivalent of 22,000 garbage trucks.
“We pay for those trucks,” says Wal-Mart Canada's CEO Mario Pilozzi. “Yeah, it's good for the environment. It's also good for the bottom line.”
Closing The Loop
But simply tossing stuff in a blue bin isn’t recycling.
To build sustainable recycling systems, “closing the loop” is necessary by increasing demand for products containing recycled material such as indoor matting, waste sorters produced from post consumer material and absorbents made from a mixture of pre- and post-consumer material. The government and private sector are helping by implementing purchasing policies that favour products containing recycled materials.
In fact, many municipal governments are beginning to consider recycling in the early stages of building planning. For example, Toronto enforces a by-law requiring waste management schemes be included in development plans. Developers are required to ensure that sufficient space is provided to effectively carry out a materials recovery program in new commercial buildings.
And provincial governments are introducing policies to encourage purchasing products made from recycled materials. Ontario and Manitoba both announced such policies recently.
Easy Sourcing
It’s not difficult to find products made from recycled material.
The Techstar Bullseye TRIO™ one-station waste and recycling collector meets and or exceeds the 25% recycled materials standard. Its heavy duty roto moulded construction comes in sandstone and premium colours, offering high end quality at a reasonable price.
Likewise, SpilKleen’s general purpose socks and pillows absorb water, oil, solvent and coolants, and contains recycled stuffing so about 80% of the product comes from recycled material. The recycled fibre fillers are BTU rich for multiple disposal options meaning no messy cleanup: Properly dispose of the old product and install a fresh one.
And just because a mat will be walked on doesn’t mean it can’t look good and be environmentally friendly at the same time. Mat Tech, a major player in the Green Building programme, uses recycled material to make indoor and outdoor mats for commercial and industrial use in a variety of styles and colours – and can even include a logo.
Smart environmental choices truly do benefit the bottom line. As demand is increasing for products bought for their zero impact, the cost is going down. Closing the loop on recycling is money in the pocket.
Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc. (www.compliancesolutionscanada.com), Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.
E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Penny Wise And Pound Foolish Brings Hefty Fines.
Penny Wise And Pound Foolish Brings Hefty Fines.
Business is about making choices so successful business owners understand how to measure risks when required to decide between two options. Weighing $3,500 against $20,000 is a no brainer. By Isaac Rudik
For as long as there have been poorly-done cop shows on television, bad guys have been getting caught because they make a stupid mistake. Whether robbers, killers, con artists or polluters, the typical plot twist leading to their arrest just before the closing credits roll involves them doing something idiotic, careless, forgetful or lackadaisical.
When the writers toss greedy and penny-pinching crooks into the story, the episode takes on the feel of a Marx Brother’s movie.
Actually, if you put these ingredients together in one episode, it’s likely that producers would toss the writers and their script out the window for offering up a tale that is too far-fetched, improbable and unbelievable – even for television.
Yet not long ago, just such an implausible story line played out in real life in Ontario, where a trio of penny-pinching, not-too-bright polluters got caught in the act of dumping toxic waste in an open field in broad daylight. And while theirs is a tale of ineptitude and sheer idiocy, it shows that when it comes to disposing of pollutants, being penny wise and pound foolish brings hefty fines far more expensive than what it would have cost to dispose of the material properly.
Over A Barrel
A ministry environmental officer was called to a remote side road on the outskirts of Hamilton after local police reported intentional dumping of industrial waste.
A van was backed into the trees. On the ground were nine 45-gallon metal drums, apparently pushed from the vehicle. Several more were still inside. The smell of solvent filled the air. Two young men waited in the back of police cruisers. They later admitted in court that they were promised cash to get rid of the drums for a warehouse owner in Oakville.
The venture quickly went wrong.
Barrels broke as they were shoved from the truck. A near-by farmer saw what was going on and confronted the men, blocking the van’s exit with his pickup as he called police who arrested the pair and called the Ministry of the Environment.
The two dumpers refused to tell police who’d hired them. But the MoE investigator traced serial numbers on the barrels to an industrial grease manufacturer, which pointed them to an Oakville warehouse.
The warehouse owners ran a business that acquired and resold discontinued goods. When they bought the building, 32 barrels of grease were in the space. Hoping to escape the expense of proper disposal, the warehouse manager asked a friend to remove the containers. Along with another man, he took 32 drums to the field.
In the end, the trio paid $20,000 in fines and was ordered to pay Hamilton for cleanup costs, which required excavating about 14-tons of contaminated soil. The bizarre twist is that it would have cost less than $5,000 to remove the drums legally.
No-Brainer Alternative
Business is about making choices so successful business owners understand how to measure risks when required to decide between two options. Weighing $3,500 against $20,000 is a no brainer.
For example, drum modular spill platforms that store as many as 32, 45-gallon barrels is a solution that protects the business, the environment and the bottom line.
The platforms can be arranged in an endless number of configurations and feature a low profile for easy loading and unloading. Their blow moulded, high density, polyethylene construction provides superior strength and a removable poly grating allows for easy cleaning.
As important, they offer superior chemical resistance. The six and eight drum units provide for added storage capability and easier access to the drums and a moveable ramp allows for easy loading and unloading.
Using modular platforms to provide spill control is the kind of decision that’s easy to make, especially when the up-front cost is a fraction of what fines, costs and damage to the business – and environment – will run.
Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc. (www.compliancesolutionscanada.com), Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.
E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.
Business is about making choices so successful business owners understand how to measure risks when required to decide between two options. Weighing $3,500 against $20,000 is a no brainer. By Isaac Rudik
For as long as there have been poorly-done cop shows on television, bad guys have been getting caught because they make a stupid mistake. Whether robbers, killers, con artists or polluters, the typical plot twist leading to their arrest just before the closing credits roll involves them doing something idiotic, careless, forgetful or lackadaisical.
When the writers toss greedy and penny-pinching crooks into the story, the episode takes on the feel of a Marx Brother’s movie.
Actually, if you put these ingredients together in one episode, it’s likely that producers would toss the writers and their script out the window for offering up a tale that is too far-fetched, improbable and unbelievable – even for television.
Yet not long ago, just such an implausible story line played out in real life in Ontario, where a trio of penny-pinching, not-too-bright polluters got caught in the act of dumping toxic waste in an open field in broad daylight. And while theirs is a tale of ineptitude and sheer idiocy, it shows that when it comes to disposing of pollutants, being penny wise and pound foolish brings hefty fines far more expensive than what it would have cost to dispose of the material properly.
Over A Barrel
A ministry environmental officer was called to a remote side road on the outskirts of Hamilton after local police reported intentional dumping of industrial waste.
A van was backed into the trees. On the ground were nine 45-gallon metal drums, apparently pushed from the vehicle. Several more were still inside. The smell of solvent filled the air. Two young men waited in the back of police cruisers. They later admitted in court that they were promised cash to get rid of the drums for a warehouse owner in Oakville.
The venture quickly went wrong.
Barrels broke as they were shoved from the truck. A near-by farmer saw what was going on and confronted the men, blocking the van’s exit with his pickup as he called police who arrested the pair and called the Ministry of the Environment.
The two dumpers refused to tell police who’d hired them. But the MoE investigator traced serial numbers on the barrels to an industrial grease manufacturer, which pointed them to an Oakville warehouse.
The warehouse owners ran a business that acquired and resold discontinued goods. When they bought the building, 32 barrels of grease were in the space. Hoping to escape the expense of proper disposal, the warehouse manager asked a friend to remove the containers. Along with another man, he took 32 drums to the field.
In the end, the trio paid $20,000 in fines and was ordered to pay Hamilton for cleanup costs, which required excavating about 14-tons of contaminated soil. The bizarre twist is that it would have cost less than $5,000 to remove the drums legally.
No-Brainer Alternative
Business is about making choices so successful business owners understand how to measure risks when required to decide between two options. Weighing $3,500 against $20,000 is a no brainer.
For example, drum modular spill platforms that store as many as 32, 45-gallon barrels is a solution that protects the business, the environment and the bottom line.
The platforms can be arranged in an endless number of configurations and feature a low profile for easy loading and unloading. Their blow moulded, high density, polyethylene construction provides superior strength and a removable poly grating allows for easy cleaning.
As important, they offer superior chemical resistance. The six and eight drum units provide for added storage capability and easier access to the drums and a moveable ramp allows for easy loading and unloading.
Using modular platforms to provide spill control is the kind of decision that’s easy to make, especially when the up-front cost is a fraction of what fines, costs and damage to the business – and environment – will run.
Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc. (www.compliancesolutionscanada.com), Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.
E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.
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