Reducing business waste
By reducing waste, businesses can increase their efficiency in using raw materials, decrease waste disposal costs and increase their environmental performance. To help businesses find markets for industrial by-products, surplus materials and wastes, Environment Waikato has developed the Waste Exchange.
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Increasing business efficiency
Businesses can increase efficiency, profitability and environmental performance by using cleaner production processes.
These help to:
- reduce the amount of waste produced - reducing waste treatment and disposal costs
- use energy more efficiently - reducing energy costs
- use resources more efficiently - reducing the cost of raw materials.
Environment Waikato provides local businesses with cleaner production guidelines to help them reduce waste. This means they can produce environmentally sound products at lower costs and higher profits.
Waste Exchange
Does your business produce waste or surplus materials that could be used by someone else?
Are you buying materials that another business is paying to have sent to a landfill?
The Waste Exchange is free business-to-business waste brokering service co-ordinated by Environment Waikato. It’s been developed with the city and district councils and other agencies to provide a Region-wide information exchange system. The Waste Exchange helps your business find markets for your industrial waste and surplus materials, for free.
From July 2001 to July 2002 over six million litres of waste went through the Waste Exchange programme. Exchanges included:
- oil and liquids – 4,630 litres
- pallets – 738
- material scraps – 157 bags
- glass – four tonnes
- timber and joinery – 1638 cubic metres.
Find out more
Check out the following for more ways your business can reduce waste:
- Zero Waste New Zealand
- Ministry for the Environment (MfE)
- Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA)
- New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development (NZBCSD)
- Waste Exchange