A Pollution Prevention Guide for General Business Practices

General Business Practices

No matter what type of business you are in, be it a small apparel store or a large chemical plant, each section of your business affects or is affected by the type and quantity of waste your business generates. Examples of common business wastes include:

Whatever the nature and characteristics of the waste may be, it all has one thing in common: All waste represents loss of resources and loss of money.

The most effective way to minimize losses associated with waste is to avoid producing the waste in the first place.

This is the concept behind DNREC’s Pollution Prevention and Compliance Assistance Program, which has produced this Fact Sheet to assist you to reduce your losses while at the same time helping to improve the environment. Businesses throughout the country have implemented waste reduction programs and found that there are many benefits to be gained from such an approach to the management of resources. Reducing the amount of waste your business generates can help you:

Getting Started

Getting off to a good start is crucial to the success of any endeavor. Here are some important things to consider in undertaking a waste reduction program:

• Make a commitment to pollution prevention. This commitment must start at the top, with the owner or manager, and extend to every employee.
• Involve the employees in designing and implementing pollution prevention measures.
• Provide training in waste reduction techniques and practices. Don’t let this be a one-shot effort -- periodic “refresher courses” will help to increase employees’ awareness of the importance of waste reduction.
• Establish incentives to encourage workers to use waste reduction techniques and to suggest changes in design or operating procedures that would further reduce waste generation.
• Assess the business’s waste. Identify sources, types, and amounts of waste being produced. This will make it easier to pinpoint areas where waste reduction techniques can be applied and to measure the success of your efforts.

To help you get started in thinking about what waste reduction and recycling techniques are appropriate for your business, the following information addresses various business operations.

Establishing Good Housekeeping Practices

Improving a business’s housekeeping practices is often the easiest and least expensive way to reduce waste. Good housekeeping includes good inventory control and efficient operating procedures. Here are some housekeeping tips:

• Keep storage and work areas clean and well organized, and keep all containers properly labeled.
• Inspect materials upon delivery, and immediately return unacceptable materials to the supplier.
• Keep accurate records of material usage so that you can measure reductions in use. For items that have a shelf life, mark the purchase date on each container and adopt a “first in first out” policy so that older materials are used up before new ones are opened. Assign someone to distribute and keep track of supplies and raw materials.
• Locate and repair all leaks to prevent losses. Practice preventive maintenance to avoid future losses.
• Keep all containers covered to prevent evaporation and spillage.
• Keep waste streams separate to increase their potential for reuse, recycling, or treatment. Don’t allow non-hazardous materials to become contaminated with hazardous materials, as this will increase the amount of hazardous waste that must be treated or disposed of.
• Install flow meters, flow control devices, and shut-off nozzles to cut down on water usage.

Production Changes

For businesses whose operations include production activities, technology, raw material and product modifications are ways to reduce waste. The costs of these modifications can vary greatly. Explore all options and choose those that are appropriate for your specific business.

Technology changes involve process and equipment modifications to reduce waste. They can include:

• changes in the production process
• equipment, layout or piping changes
• changes in process operating conditions

Raw material changes can reduce or eliminate hazardous materials entering the production process. Generation of hazardous wastes is then reduced.

Product changes can reduce the waste generated from a product’s use by the consumer. For example, use of water based paint rather than solvent based paint eliminates the need for flammable solvents, messy cleanups, and volatile vapor emissions.

Recycling

Recycling techniques take a waste and either reuse it or reclaim. it. Wastes are put to beneficial use rather than disposed of.

• Use/reuse returns the waste to its original use or uses it elsewhere for a different purpose.
• Reclamation is the recovery of a valuable material from a waste. The material could be used by your business or sold to another company.

And don’t forget, buying and using recycled materials helps create and strengthen markets. The more businesses that purchase recycled materials, the more profitable any future recycling efforts will be.

Following up

As long as wastes are being produced, there is the potential for waste reduction. Less-polluting materials, equipment, and procedures are constantly being developed, so that wastes that are difficult or costly to control today may be easily eliminated tomorrow. Stay alert for such developments.

When buying new equipment, look for equipment that will minimize both the amount of hazardous materials used and the amount of waste produced.

Reassess the business’s operations and waste handling practices periodically. A successful program requires diligence so as to avoid the temptation of slipping back into old, more wasteful ways of doing things and to identify additional waste reduction possibilities.

Publicize the shop’s commitment to waste reduction. A successful waste reduction program can be used to generate publicity and give your business valuable recognition by both the public and your business peers. An article in the local newspaper or a trade journal portraying your progressive forward-looking approach to waste management, can give your business name recognition and create a favorable public image. Customers will feel good about doing business with a company that is environmentally responsible.

REMEMBER -- Waste reduction will reduce your waste management costs. Funds and efforts can be directed to more pressing areas of your business, giving you a competitive edge over another business still saddled with high waste disposal requirements.

Sources of Additional Help

This Fact Sheet is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all of the techniques that could be used to reduce waste in your business. As each business is unique, with its own combination of wastes and its own, individual way of doing business, so will each waste reduction program be different from all others. A number of resources are available to help you develop and implement a program that will meet your business’s individual needs:

The Delaware Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a private, non-profit corporation which is dedicated to improving the quality, productivity, and profitability of Delaware manufacturers, and to serving as a prime service resource for the state’s new and existing manufacturers. The DEMEP can be reached at (302)283-3133.

The Northeast Industrial Waste Exchange may be able to help you find companies that can use your wastes. You can call the Exchange directly at (315)422-6512.

The Delaware Pollution Prevention and Compliance Assistance Program in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (302)739-6400 provides technical assistance, information resources, as well as assistance with other services that are available to your business.

Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control

This publication is one of a series of pollution prevention guides for various types of businesses. For more information on this and other pollution prevention or waste minimization programs, contact the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control at 739-6400.

The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is an equal opportunity employer. No person or group shall be excluded from participation, denied any benefits, or subjected to discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or handicap.

Last Updated: May 28, 2002

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