Reducing Waste and How the Circular Economy Can Help

As businesses, we produce waste through our everyday activities and production processes. Currently, many of us are looking for ways to reuse and recycle waste or ways to avoid producing waste altogether. 

Reducing waste has many positive impacts including reducing your carbon footprint and negative environmental impact. On top of this, being aware of your waste producing processes can help you more efficiently use materials, cutting down on excess costs for purchasing and for waste management. Basically, reducing your waste is a win-win situation. 

In this blog, we will discuss how to take action regarding waste and benefits for getting started. But first, we need to understand the circular economy and how its principles can guide your waste reduction journey.

What is The Circular Economy?

The circular economy is based on the principles of reuse and regeneration of materials and products, rather than the throw away culture of our current linear economy. The goal of creating a more circular economy is to use materials and products as long as possible, reducing the amount of new resources needed. The graphic below, from the European Parliament Research Service, does a great job of visualising the circular economy. 

Product and material lifespans are extended through sharing, refurbishment, leasing, repairs, and recycling. There are many ways that integrating circular principles can look. Some examples include: 

• Selling a waste product to another organisation that can use it as a raw material
• Refurbishing office tech rather than replacing it
• Leasing machinery that you need rather than purchasing it
• Creating a new product from leftovers or waste from another product

Engaging with the circular economy in your business can have countless benefits! By having less waste, you will reduce management costs and have a lesser negative impact on the environment. You will also have the opportunity to create new partnerships or new products by repurposing waste as a raw material. 

Now, we’ll discuss how to identify areas in your business where you can apply circular economy principles through the creation and implementation of a waste action plan. 

What is a Waste Action Plan?

A waste action plan will help your organisation to measure your current waste output, identify actions, implement changes, and monitor progress. A written plan will serve as your roadmap for continuous improvement and getting all of your team members involved with waste reduction initiatives. 

Your waste action plan will be unique to your business as all organisations are different! Regardless of what your exact route is, the overall goal of a waste action plan is to reduce waste production and to promote circular principles in your organisation, processes, and partnerships. 

How To Get Started

The first step to creating a waste action plan is to gather baseline information. If possible, a baseline for recycling, landfill, and compost over the period of a year would be ideal for this purpose. With this information, you will be able to compare your future measurements and gauge progress towards your goals. 

Once you have a baseline set, bring together members of your team from different departments to discuss current waste production and possible future actions. Specifically, work together to identify aspects of your business that produce the most waste, opportunities for reduction, repurposing, or reuse, and what actions can be taken. Make sure to keep track of all ideas, even if they aren’t currently feasible! They might be useful in the future. 

Make sure you set specific goals that are actionable, measurable, and ambitious. Share these goals both internally and externally. This will help with your team members’ buy in and will start your communication process for your waste reduction journey. Communicate transparently and regularly with your progress towards your targets. 

Iteration will help make your waste action plan more successful. As you implement different actions and monitor them, bring your team back together to assess progress and plan next steps. Throughout this process, make sure to fill any knowledge gaps and continually learn more about waste reduction and circular economy!

Conclusion

One of the best ways to deal with waste is to not have it at all. This is the ultimate goal of the circular economy and of our waste action plans. It is a difficult journey to get to this point. However, every small reduction counts! All the progress you make with your initiatives will combine over time to make a really big impact. 

Continue to monitor your progress, learn, and improve while you take steps towards waste reduction. The results can add up to a big impact!

If you would like to learn more about putting in place your own waste action plan, reach out to the ENSO team!