Waste Management, as an industry, is putting American industry and culture on alert in 2021. We must become a cleaner, greener, and “leaner” world –and that is today’s blog topic. However, we are a new blog on the scene. Therefore, Consolidated Waste Systems seeks first to greet our readers with a few notes about this new feature of our website:
Only Humanity Can Commit to Better Waste Management.
In a business blog article such as this one, a company sometimes chooses its audience, usually between two types of readers:
- On the one hand, a company blog might seek to only address industry-savvy potential clients, who might be seeking our waste industry equipment or services.
- On the other hand, a company could address the everyday reader or business owner who needs or is curious about how to manage their waste, recycling, and sustainability.
- Within our new Consolidated Waste Systems blog, we claim both types of readers.
We do not want to omit any reader. Yes, we are striving to cover professional news in the industry. However, we invite you not only to this page but also to check out the other pages of our fact-packed website. Additionally, we also intend to offer authoritative waste management tips and information for the average resident of our planet, country, state, and city.
Thus, whether you are a waste management professional or a casual reader, we hope you will find thought-provoking ideas within our varied topics. Check us out twice-or sometimes thrice, per month.
A Clear Path to a Cleaner Future: Waste Management Now Means a Cleaner Industrial System
Now, let us explain our unique title of a Cleaner, Greener, and Leaner Future. Here at Consolidated Waste Systems, we think that the path to a successful economic future for humanity is circular, not linear. Welcome to the Circular Economy. You might ask, what is a Circular Economy?
- To put it simply, a circular economy is an industrial system.
- The circular economy begins with consumers who optimize the use of goods and materials. The goods are not disposable. They are recycled, re-purposed, and re-used…
- And then the circular economy feeds its own beginning because the goods return to the “system at the end of viable life cycles.” There is no sense of “disposable” in a Circular economy. In fact, in a circular economy, waste management is a minimalized art. In fact, we hear more and more businesses referring to this economic circle, and not the linear one of the present.
You see, the idea of a circular economy contrasts greatly with our current linear industrial system. In the linear system, many of our consumables go in a fairly straight line from production to a land-fill or poisonous island of plastic. Oh, they might make a slight detour to briefly recycle. But they never really return to the system. That must be why we have plastic islands floating in the ocean and landfills that cannot get much fuller.
A Greener Waste Management: Good-bye Plastic Spoons?
Waste Management is Key to Protecting Our Planet, Both in Business and Private Life.
But one currently flawed link in the circular chain is that many of today’s manufacturers do not create products worthy of returning to the system… And some of them are born to be disposable. After all, who uses a ten-year-old lap-top computer? And who cherishes a cracked polystyrene spoon? Likewise, not many consumers re-purpose those plastic rings that hold a 6-back of cold-drinks.
Recently we noticed waste management strike a chord with our Canadian neighbors. They are taking the circular economy seriously. We have heard that Ottawa, Canada is soon outlawing those above-mentioned plastic rings in 2021. Ottawa environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson said that they will cease to use other single-use plastic items like plastic grocery bags and stirring sticks.
They will also ban “food-ware made from hard-to-recycle plastics” like polystyrene. The minister added that this ban on harmful plastic would aim “to recycle all plastic produced in Canada within the next decade.” Clearly, Canadian industry and culture are also aiming at a way of life we called greener in our title.
Back to the Future: We Come from a Leaner Past
Circular Economy: It’s New Again!
There are at least three semi-hard plastic tubs in my kitchen. They are scratched, but over the years, when they get too ugly, I have thrown away countless of their predecessors. In harsh contrast, I can still see the dull stainless-steel dish-tub my mother used for about 45 years. She washed more than dishes in it. She washed green-beans from the garden. A few years later, she bathed and at least two of my tiny baby brothers in it.
She never thought of that tub as disposable. It now resides in my garage, a small part of her legacy. My mother would have never tried to understand an economic system or define waste management. However, she had a compost hole for organic kitchen waste.
Waste Management Ideas on the Rise: Old is New Again
Believe it or not, the American industry is re-discovering the old-fashioned values my mother always knew. Fast Company recently reported, “From more reusable packaging to more companies taking back used products to more empowered designers, 2021 will be a key year in the development of new, less wasteful systems.”
Their recent article applauds such examples as:
1. “Loop, the system that delivers mainstream products like Häagen-Dazs ice cream in reusable, returnable packaging…”
2. And “Dove just launched a stainless steel, refillable holder for deodorant.
3. Nestle is beginning to test refill stations in stores for coffee and pet food.” We at Consolidated Waste Systems invite you to peruse more such exemplary details and examples in Adele Peters’ excellent online article. It is titled, 7 Ways the Circular Economy Will Grow in 2021. Read more about how several well-known industries are creating products and reducing packaging for a cleaner, greener, leaner more waste-managed way of life.
Terrific Take-Aways from Waste Management, and a Cleaner, Greener, Leaner Way of Life
Young Tigers and Consolidated Waste Systems Believe in Glass Bottles.
Even the mainstream consumer press reports this month on the phenomena of waste management. Check out page 58 of my glossy February issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. They recommend new ways to re-use and re-purpose left-over food. Their report lauds glass containers, washable silicone bags, and stainless-steel bowls.
My mother would approve. Neither the one-use storage containers nor plastic wrap ever enchanted her. In my childhood home, we never threw away a glass jar. Although we didn’t know it, we learned early lessons about re-using or re-purposing our everyday objects. I also did not realize then that her simple waste management approach would become a new heartbeat for the twenty-first century.
Now I think I will go re-claim that old stainless-steel dish-tub from my garage. I have suddenly learned to treasure it. Here at Consolidated Waste Systems, we thank you for reading our blog and we hope you will visit us again. Until then, welcome to ideas for a cleaner, greener, leaner world.
