Press Contact: Sophie Cardona: (212) 361-2400, ext. 244 , or email cardona@informinc.org

STRAIGHTFORWARD MEASURES REDUCE WASTE, SAVE COMPANIES MONEY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, October 18, 1999

New York, NY -- US businesses can reduce their contribution to the country's waste stream and avoid paying millions in waste management and other costs through simple changes in purchasing and workplace operations. According to a new report from the environmental research group INFORM, there are opportunities to cut waste and save money in every part of the typical business, from corporate offices to the cafeteria to the loading dock to the janitor's closet.

The report, entitled Waste at Work: Prevention Strategies for the Bottom Line, presents hundreds of measures that have enabled companies (and also government agencies) to reduce waste while bringing down their disposal, purchasing, and operational costs. "Businesses generate up to 45 percent of this country's waste, and managing it costs them billions of dollars a year," INFORM Senior Research Associate Alicia Culver explained. "It's not surprising that more and more companies are realizing that reducing waste is not just an environmental issue, but a business issue as well."

Use Fewer Products and Reduce the Materials They Contain

The most effective waste prevention strategy is to avoid the use of materials in the first place. "In the office," Culver noted, "sending e-mail instead of paper memos saves on purchasing, filing, storage, and disposal costs as well as on paper use." According to Waste at Work, the toy maker Mattel reduced paper consumption by 23 percent and saved more than a quarter of a million dollars in one year, simply by using and storing documents on-line.

Another effective measure is reducing the amount of material needed to accomplish a task, such as protecting goods in transit. HASBRO, another manufacturer of toys and games, reduced the thickness of its shipping cartons by 15 percent, saving $400,000 and more than 763,000 pounds of corrugated cardboard in one year.

Purchasing with Waste Prevention in Mind

Waste at Work places a special emphasis on procurement. "Purchasers who focus on waste prevention can dramatically cut down on the waste their companies generate, while also reducing the amount of energy and materials needed to manufacture new products," said Culver. Buying products that are durable and reusable can also save millions in avoided replacement, disposal, and shipping costs. For instance, by replacing disposable cardboard lunch trays with washable plastic trays, Bell Communications Research saves $50,000 in avoided purchasing costs, $5,000 in avoided disposal costs, and 5 tons in avoided waste generation a year.

Specifying products designed to be easily modified or upgraded, such as modular computer systems, is another way purchasers can help keep materials out of the landfill. At Bank of America, the use of movable wall panel systems saves 70 percent in avoided renovation, demolition, and disposal costs every time the company reconfigures its offices.

Extract Maximum Value from Unneeded Products

Businesses will always produce some waste, because most goods eventually have to be discarded. But new users can often be found for materials a company no longer needs. "More and more alternatives to the landfill are becoming available," Culver observed, "from textile manufacturers that offer recycling programs for used carpet to remanufacturers that clean and sell used computers or recycle the components."

Waste at Work contains numerous case studies of companies that have benefited from finding new uses for old products. One is Home Box Office, which saves $12,500 and a ton of waste a year by returning used laser-printer toner cartridges to the supplier in exchange for remanufactured cartridges. And Eastman Kodak saved $1 million in purchasing costs by recovering valuable piping and valves through an internal materials exchange.

"Reducing the amount of materials that move through a business each day is the most effective way to get at the source of both consumption and waste," Culver observed. "Most important is the underlying strategy that INFORM has always promoted -- preventing waste through more efficient use of materials, rather than dealing with it after the fact."