Like Amazon, the pharmaceutical industry has become more conscious of product packaging and the oftentimes unnecessary waste it creates. An article in September’s Life Science Leader magazine explores the complex nature of packaging pharmaceutical products. However, changing the packaging of pharmaceuticals to reduce waste is more complicated than Amazon’s challenge because the pharmaceutical industry has strict packaging requirements to include information about the products as well as ensuring the products arrive safely. The article’s author, Chris MacKinnon, interviews Fred Hayes, director of technical services with the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute who points out that the impact of changing the packaging of drugs can be more risky than changing food packaging because you risk putting a whole bunch of “stuff” into the waste stream that may not be easy to recycle, and any packaging mishap usually means you must scrap the entire product. These challenges, however, are not stopping the industry from continuing to explore ways to decrease packaging waste, which can not only offer financial savings but also environmental benefits.

Despite the challenges faced by both of these industries to change current packaging, it is evident that as more and more consumers voice their frustration with packaging waste, companies can and will take steps to change their packaging practices.  Seemingly small changes to the way in which our products are packaged can take a significant amount of time and money upfront on the part of the manufacturer, but the long term cost savings, increases in customer satisfaction, and the environmental benefits of reducing waste are all reasons to seriously explore reducing packaging materials.

Shortly after Rosenthal’s report “Europe Finds Clean Energy in Trash, but U.S. Lags,” and the online debate, Norman Steisel, the New York City sanitation commissioner from 1978 to 1986, and Benjamin Miller, the author of “Fat of the Land: Garbage in New York, the Last Two Hundred Years,” and the Sanitation Department’s director of policy planning from 1989 to 1992, wrote an Op/Ed published in the Times “Power from Trash.” Steisel and Miller point out that the exportation of New York City’s garbage has become a serious environmental and economical problem that needs to be addressed. The authors suggest three strategies to be used in conjunction with one another: waste reduction, using trains (as opposed to trucks) to haul waste, and the increased use of waste-to-energy plants for disposal. The article states, “If all of the city’s nonrecycled waste were sent to local energy recovery facilities instead of distant landfills, the city would save diesel fuel and generate enough energy to supply 145,000 homes — thus avoiding the combustion of nearly three million barrels of oil to generate electricity.”

Burying waste is an environmental and economic burden that can be addressed with the adoption of new, advanced technologies.  Technologies that incorporate modern air emissions controls while producing energy offer a way for communities to reduce their environmental footprint. These articles have helped to get the conversation about how to properly manage waste in U.S. started, it’s important we continue it.

Testing will occur at Covanta’s facility in West Wareham, Massachusetts, and the company hopes to be able to gauge the economic viability of the project by the end of the year. It is the  continued research and development of processes like this one that will help to reduce the environmental burden of waste and offer lasting energy solutions.

• Just over 2.6 billion holiday cards are sold each year in the United States (that is enough to fill a football field 10 stories high)
• Between Thanksgiving and the New Year, Americans throw out an extra million tons of trash each week (that’s a 25% increase)
• 38,000 miles of ribbon alone are thrown out each year–enough to tie a bow around the Earth
• Each year, 50 million Christmas trees are purchased in the U.S. and about 30 million go to the landfill

Think about some ways to reduce our waste generation, such as using electronic greeting cards, recycling your wrapping paper, and cutting down on food waste.  While forgoing the annual Christmas tree tradition is a bit extreme to reduce the landfilling of the evergreens, Scott Martin, a landscape designer in California, has established a business that literally “greens” Christmas.   A recent New York Times article writes that his Christmas tree rental company delivers trees to LA homes using biodiesel trucks. After the holidays, the trees are picked up and planted on industrial properties, saving the tree from the dump. While not all increases in waste generation can be avoided during the holidays, it is important to consider similar innovative ways to reduce the long-term impact of waste and landfilling.

[Sources: California Integrated Waste Management Board, Recycle Works (a program of San Mateo County, California)]

Implementing a “Zero Waste” program, however, has its challenges because it requires significant changes in behavior for the average citizen – people are not accustomed to  separating their waste streams into multiple bins and towns must support infrastructure changes, such as multiple bin distribution and centralized composting machines for organic waste. However, once it is successfully implemented and the disposal methods become habit, communities can realize tangible economic and environmental benefits.  When it comes to reducing our municipal solid waste streams, zero waste policies seem like a very effective waste management method for communities to implement. When it comes to reducing our other waste streams, such as construction and industrial waste, more technology driven solutions may be the better answer.

“The Beginning of the End of Landfilling” represents Ze-gen’s first commercial demonstration facility that converts solid waste material, which otherwise would be landfilled, into synthesis gas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide).   The commitment will offset the consumption of all fossil fuels at the facility where Ze-gen’s technology will be employed, avoid the landfilling of 1.75 million tons of waste, prevent landfill gas emissions, and harness the latent energy value of those materials to produce renewable, low-emissions, energy.  This first project aims to serve as a model for other cities throughout the world looking for sustainable solutions to waste disposal that seek to find higher and better uses for discarded materials using advanced technologies.

We are looking forward to the opportunity to meet with leaders similarly committed to take tangible steps toward combating the serious environmental and public health challenges that surround global waste resolution.

The design concept, most clearly espoused in William McDonough and Michael Braungart’s book Cradle to Cradle, emphasizes an approach to product design that eliminates waste by creating products that use valuable nutrients as materials, which can be deconstructed or decomposed safely and beneficially into the natural environment (Full Disclosure: McDounough is a member of Ze-gen’s Market Advisory Board).  In a Cradle to Cradle world, nutrients are either materials that can be continuously reused, or are biodegradeable and become food for biological cycles. EcoCreative’s Styrofoam replacement, EcoCradle, is an example of how this concept can be applied in the “real world.”  The material is made from agricultural waste materials like rice hulls that have excellent insulating properties and the product a very effective substitute for landfill-bound Styrofoam.

Designing products with the Cradle-To-Cradle approach, instead of the single-use, cradle-to-grave method, represents a significant opportunity to live more sustainably. Oftentimes, we resist the concept of  “remaking the way we make things” because it seems too difficult or too expensive.  As more designers and manufacturers embrace the Cradle-To-Cradle concept, it is becoming easier for us to cut down on the amount of waste we generate every day.

The goals of this project are similar to movements gaining a fair bit of traction right now surrounding corporate and producer sustainability and the Cradle-to-Cradle concept.  In the 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, authors McDonough and Braungart call for a new industrial revolution,  one that revolutionizes our traditional manufacturing processes and eliminates the concept of waste altogether.    The Cradle-to-Cradle model teaches that we must design products with the end in mind so that they can be re-used or reconstituted into useful products down the road.  For example, that coffee cup you dumped in the trash can this morning would, in a Cradle-to-Cradle world, be made of “eco-effective” materials that can be tossed in the ground and provide nutrients for the soil, instead of being made of plastic and following the traditional pathways through the garbage disposal system that the MIT researchers are tracking.  Both projects point out the challenges and opportunities we face as we seek long-term new solutions to how we manage what we throw away.

The Trash Track project, the Cradle to Cradle movement, and the recent announcement by Wal-Mart to develop a “sustainable index” for everything sold on their shelves, all highlight an important shift in thought concerning waste.  Instead of buying and using products once and never thinking about them again after their primary usefulness is over, we all need to embrace this notion that waste is a resource that must be redirected toward reuse and repurposing, rather than being buried in the local landfill.

Monday’s New York Times article, “A Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics,” highlights a number of states that have adopted laws that require electronic manufacturers to offering recycling of computers and TVs for free.  This piece highlights the many  benefits of these regulations, while also talking about the work that is left to do to ensure this electronic waste (e-waste) never enters the landfill. Consumer response to these programs has been extremely positive, manufacturer reaction, on the other hand, has been mixed.  While producer responsibility is certainly becoming a priority for a number of electronic companies, one major challenge with these regulations is that they vary from state to state. The lack of national standards makes it more difficult for the companies to set up truly effective national e-waste recycling programs.

The Electronics TakeBack Coaltion advocates for national legislation mandating that manufacturers offer free recycling programs,  as well as increased producer responsibility at the manufacturing level–this means not just offering free take-back programs, but also that producers strive to manufacture their products in an environmentally friendly fashion.  What can we do to improve the e-waste problem?  Would a national standard improve the situation? Should it recycling become part of the manufacturers’ business model?