4 R’s Awareness Workshop

Because Sustainability Takes Teamwork

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Conserve Natural Resources and

Minimize Pollution2

The 4 R’s Concept for Change

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Maximize Environmental Sustainability through the

4 R’s of Waste Management

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The 4 R’s

• Reduction – reduction of the amount of waste, and reduction of the hazardous content of waste.

• Reuse – reuse of a material or product, rather than wasting it.

• Recycling – processing waste commodity materials, such as paper, plastic and metal, to obtain new commodity materials of similar nature.

• Resource Recovery – making new resources from waste, such as synthetic fuel, biogas, compost and electricity.

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The First Priority –Waste Reduction

Waste reduction at waste producer sites reduces emissions and energy for collection and transport of wastes.

• Consume less to minimize waste.

• Buy products with in bulk and with less packaging.

• Buy products with recycled content.

• Buy products that can be returned after use for refurbishment.

• Buy products with minimal hazard content.

• Buy rechargeable batteries. 6

Consider phasing out:• Most paper documentation and correspondence, scanning all files

and archiving them digitally in share folders.

• Layered packaging that complicates recycled, such as packaging with plastic and aluminum, or coated cardboard.

• Light bulbs with mercury content, switching to LED.

• Single use batteries, switching to rechargeable batteries.

• Styrofoam cups and packaging material, switching to paper products or recycled/biodegradable plastics.

• Disposable plastic beverage bottles and cups, as well as food containers, switching to glass or steel products that you reuse, or if essential, to paper.

• Cardboard cartons from regular suppliers, switching to crates that are returned and reused for years

• Bubblewrap, switching to air pouches made from 100% recycled plastic film, and some from biodegradable recycled film: http://www.airpouch.com/APS/News-and-Events/Earthaware-AirPouch-Void-fill.aspx

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The Second Priority –Waste Reuse

Waste reuse at waste producer sites reduces emissions and energy for collection and transport of wastes.

• Write notes on the back side of used paper.

• Recap tires or use them to make edges for the gardens.

• Cut bottles, smooth edges and make glasses.

• Use fresh safe food wastes for animal feed.

• Save and reuse plastic containers and bags.

• Make art from wastes.

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Reuse Printer Cartridges

• Both laser and inkjet cartridges can be refilled. Toner for laser printers is readily available. Kits exist for refilling inkjet cartridges and save a huge amount of money for your company. One example is www. http://fillserv.com/cataloggroup/inkjet-refill-kits.php ; http://fillserv.com/tonerrefills.php

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Art from Waste

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The Third Priority –Waste Recycling

Segregation at source of commodity materials enables them to be recycled to the maximum extent.

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The Fourth Priority –Resource Recovery

• Biological Conversion produces new resources such as biogas and compost.

• Thermal Conversion produces new resources such as synthetic fuel, steam, and electricity.

• Recycling conserves 3-5 times more energy than is produced by Thermal Conversion, which is why Waste-to-Energy has a lower priority than Recycling.

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Resource Recovery –Thermal Conversion

• Gasification (includes pyrolysis and plasma arc) produces synthetic gas and synthetic oil

• Waste–to-Energy Incineration produces steam, which can be used to generate electricity.

• In Europe, from 400 to 700 kWh of electricity are generated from a tonne of MSW.

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Resource Recovery –Biological Conversion

• In aerated settings, micro-organisms produce compost by eating the digestible organics. Compost is microbial cells after all the organics are eaten.

• In anaerobic settings, micro-organisms produce biogas by eating the digestible organics. Biogas is the methane-rich gas excreted by the microbial cells during eating. The remaining slurry of micro-organisms and water can be composted.

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Biofuel Potential

• If one-third EU’s biodegradable organic crop wastes and all organic wastes in MSW were converted to biofuel, by methods such as anaerobic digestion and enzyme treatment, there would be sufficient fuel to displace 37 million tonnes of their annual fuel. This would equal around 16% of road transport fuel demand in 2030.

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• In the EU, 1.1 million tonnes of used cooking oil were converted to low-carbon fuel in 2013. EU imports used cooking oil from at least 47 countries for processing into fuel.

Note: Biofuels from crops (like corn) are NOT recommended because of the impacts on food security and also habitats for wildlife. Also, soil quality requires leaving one-third of crop wastes in place.

Moving Forward

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Outcomes of the 4 R’s

• Reduces disposal to environment.

• Saves natural resources globally.

• Reduces carbon footprint globally.

• Creates materials and energy from waste.

• Builds environmental consciousness.

• Reduces expenditures for waste management.

• Creates jobs and revenues from marketable recyclables and recovered resources.

• Reduces land disposal.

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Success in the 4 R’s of MSW

Who is Leading the Way (2011 statistics):

Country kg/person/year

Recycling %

Composting %

Waste-to-Energy %

Landfilling %

Switzerland 689 35 16 50 0

Germany 597 45 17 37 1

Netherlands 596 32 28 38 1

Sweden 460 33 15 51 1

Norway 483 25 15 57 2

Singapore 870 59 - 38 3

Denmark 718 31 12 54 3

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Details for Key Wastes

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Recycle: Paper, Cardboard, Plastic, Glass, Metal, Textile, Rubber and other Commodity Materials

• Recycling reduces demand for raw virgin materials.

• Recycling captures the inherent energy of the material’s production, transport, and conversion from a raw virgin material into a final manufacturing input.

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Recycle Paper

• Recycling a 1 meter stack of newspaper saves 1 tree.

• Recycling 1 tonne of paper saves 16 trees, 2 barrels of oil, 4100 kW of electricity, 1 cubic meter of land disposal space, and 27 kg of air pollution.

• Making paper from recycled paper and other fibrous recycled materials in 74% less air pollution and 35% water pollution.

• Recycling half the world’s paper would save 9 million hectares of forest. 22

Recycle Cardboard

• It takes 3 tonnes of virgin trees to make 1 tonne of cardboard.

• Making cardboard with 100% recycled cardboard content uses 99% less energy and 50% less water.

• Each kg of cardboard recycled saves 1 kg of greenhouse gas.

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Recycle Glass

• All glass can be recycled into new glass.

• Recycling glass reduces silica mining waste by 70%, water use by 50%, and air pollution by 20%.

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Recycle Plastics

• Plastics are made from petroleum – a limited resource

• All plastics, including plastic film, can be recycled into new plastic products, and into fleece clothing, carpets, and geomembrane liners.

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Recycle Steel

• Making tin cans from recycled steel consumes only 1/4 of the energy needed to make it from virgin steel, and creates only 1/4 of the water and air pollution.

• All clean steel can be remelted in a blast furnace for recycling.

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Recycle Aluminum

• Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy needed to make aluminum cans from virgin bauxite ore, and produces 97% less water pollution.

• Recycling 1 aluminum can saves the energy equivalent to 3 hours of powering a television.

• Recycling 1 tonne of aluminum conserves more than 220 million BTU’s, which is equal to about 40 barrels of oil.

• Even aluminum foil can be recycled.

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Recycle Textile• Recycling textiles saves the virgin

materials, such as cotton, silk, hemp and wool.

• At least 50% of the textiles wasted can be recycled, e.g., shredded for car insulation, roofing felt, furniture padding.

• Buy from clothing lines that take-back, e.g., Northface, Eileen Fischer, Patagonia…and possibly your uniform company if specified in your tender.

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Recycle Rubber• CWM has one tire recycling

plant in Al Ain. All used tires are supposed to go there.

• Producing 1 tonne of recycled rubber requires only 29% of the energy required by producing 1 tonne of rubber from virgin materials.

• Tire crumb is used for thick rubber mats for horse stalls and athletic activities, automotive parts, new tires, and in asphalt paving.

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Recycle Used Engine Oil

• CWM has 1 used oil recycling plant in Abu Dhabi. All used oil is supposed to go there.

• Every barrel of recycled used oil avoids consumption of a barrel of virgin oil.

• Other automobile lubricants (transmission oil, coolant, etc., can be recycled)

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Recycle Batteries

• All battery types can be recycled, including alkaline batteries.

• Recycling single-use batteries recovers heavy metals, including lead, nickel, cadmium, and mercury. There are mail-in programs for all battery types to be recycled.

• Automobile batteries recycling allows full recovery of all the lead.

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Recycle products

• Many products can be returned to the manufacturer for refurbishing of some or all components.

• Computers and printer cartridges can be remanufactured, and good suppliers are now “taking back” products for this recycling.

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Recycle Electronic Waste (E-waste)

• Recycling 1 million cell phones recovers 16,000 kg copper, 320 kg of silver, 34 kg of gold and 15 kg of palladium.

• Recycling electronic wastes enables safe disposal of the hazardous constituents, including halogenated hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and radioactive substances. Cell phone coatings often contain lead, a very toxic substance.

• Producing one PC takes 245 kg of petroleum, 21 kg of chemicals, and 907 kg of water.

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Recycle Wood

• Recycle by cutting and wood-working into new products.

• Recycle by grinding and using for mulch.

• Wood chips, sawdust and shavings can be used in on-site composters or CWM compost plants.

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Recycle C&D waste (construction/demolition)

• All concrete rubble can be recycled into aggregate fill for road and rail beds.

• All asphalt rubble can be recycled into aggregate for road and rail beds.

• All reinforcing rods removed from the rubble can be recycled into new steel.

• Singapore recycles 99% of its C&D waste.

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Reduce Wastes through your Procurement Specifications

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Procurement Changes?• Procurement Activities .

• RECYCLED CONTENT: Products that can be specified with Recycled Content – for example, paper, glass, metal, cardboard, plastic, computers, printers, appliances, asphalt, geomembranes, road bed fill, mulch, plant media.

• PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP: Some manufacturers will take back their products after they are used – for example, printer cartridge and computers.

• REDUCE: Changing products to ones that don’t need to be regularly discarded – for example, rechargeable batteries, LED lights, plastic crates versus cardboard boxes, using glasses for water instead of plastic bottles, refilling printer cartridges.

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Join Up and Spread the Word

Thank you….

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