Reducing Your Facility's Hazardous Waste (Part 2 of 6)

This is the second in a series of emails we'll be sending over the next couple of weeks providing tips you can incorporate into your everyday business practices to help bring down your costs and hazardous waste generation.

Product Re-Design

Does your product require the use of hazardous chemicals during its manufacture? Does your product result in the end-user generating a hazardous waste? With a little bit of creativity, a product can be re-formulated or re-designed to eliminate production inputs or processes that result in the generation of hazardous wastes. Some examples of successful re-design strategies that you can implement include:

• Reducing the size of a product can result in less raw material input and less waste per unit produced
• Designing products that can be recycled or re-used at the end of their life cycle can promote more preferred disposal methods, and
• Incorporating “green” chemicals such as starch-based polymers or water-based ingredients (rather than petroleum-based chemistries) into manufactured materials can eliminate the need for hazardous raw materials; reviewing the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry can be a helpful guide.

LCA: A Sustainable Option for Your Product

A great way to start the re-design process is to perform a life-cycle assessment (LCA). An LCA can help you determine the most sustainable options for your product, starting with the source of the raw materials and ending with the final disposal method.

From start-ups to well-established companies, businesses can benefit from conducting an LCA. Need help? Reach out to the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I). Their Green Technology Accelerator Center (GTAC) has helped businesses, like the Troy-based company featured in this case study (opens as a PDF), reduce environmental impacts and bring products to market more quickly.

Be sure to stay tuned for Part 3 in the series: Updating the Process

...and in case you missed it, check out Part 1.