Cost-effective waste management often comes at the expense of efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability—especially as organizations grow. While growth within operations is an indicator of success, it also means increased waste generation, magnifying the issue. As the volume of major waste streams (hazardous materials, regulated medical waste (RMW), and contaminated lab plastics (CLP)) increases, disposal options become more limited, and this scarcity often means potentially costly waste treatment and recycling or sustainability goals that become harder to reach.
It doesn’t have to be this way, however. Triumvirate Environmental’s holistic approach to innovative waste management and disposal helps transform bare-minimum waste programs into effective, compliant, efficient, sustainable, and even cost-effective waste management programs—even for hazardous wastes. Our experts create efficiencies that will reduce overall waste program costs, while simultaneously and near-effortlessly helping your organization make progress on sustainability initiatives.
What is the meaning of cost-effective waste management?
Cost-effective waste management is handling waste generation and disposal in such a way that costs are reduced as much as possible. Cost-effective waste management strategies often come with other benefits as well. If done correctly, they enable improved sustainability, compliance, program effectiveness, and efficiencies, and more. What if you could minimize your most costly waste stream? Or increase recycling efforts based on small changes to your pre-existing program?
What are some common hidden costs in waste management, and how can they be minimized?
Transportation and labor are two main hidden waste management and disposal costs. Efficient waste management can be achieved by utilizing bulk packaging waste, utilizing closer proximity TSDFs, and better upstream waste management (before it is even generated) to minimize the amount of waste that needs to be transported or moved. Could newer, more innovative techniques help to optimize a program, making it more robust and compliant?
What are the latest innovations in efficient waste management that Triumvirate Environmental is implementing?
Triumvirate Environmental has always been ahead of the game when it comes to strategies for effective waste management. Our Jeannette, Pennsylvania recycling plant enables recycling of regulated medical waste (RMW), contaminated lab plastics (CLP), and other wastes. We also have plants across North America that can process wasted chemicals and solvents for fuel blending or solvent recovery. This list is not exhaustive.
One of the best ways that we can help with innovative waste management is by looking at the whole lifecycle of waste—even upstream, before it is generated. In doing so, we can plan for waste disposal (or avoid generation completely) on the front end. Ultimately, our expert teams can come to your site and evaluate your needs, then make a plan to maximize cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability.
Our Innovative Approach to Cost-Effective Waste Management
The first step of cost-effective waste management is a full organizational waste assessment. To understand your organization’s specific needs, our team of commercial hazardous waste disposal experts meets with key stakeholders at your site, such as your EHS team, facilities group, and operations managers.
Together, we work with your teams to analyze your waste generation processes, packaging and consolidation practices, waste profiles, shipment routing, and efficient waste disposal site selections, among other components. This allows us to notice compliance, cost, efficiency, and sustainability gaps and brainstorm new possibilities for positive change to your processes.
How can businesses identify and address inefficiencies in their waste management process?
It comes down to a waste assessment. A full review of waste streams, current waste disposal technologies and facilities, waste collection processes, worksite requirements, and even an outline of the point of generation (POG) of wastes can all give valuable clues that can help businesses identify inefficiencies. Once they are identified, they can be addressed by reviewing available options, working with a partner team to improve waste collection efficiency, and getting creative with disposal strategies.
To drive efficiencies for biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and other miscellaneous life science companies, our team is regularly able to suggest and aid in the transition to:
Closed-Loop, Sustainable Recycling Options
This can include straightforward recycling of biowaste and other hard-to-dispose-of plastics and wastes through our proprietary Plastics4Purpose™ recycling program that makes recycling simplified. It also may include fuel blending, a process by which old waste solvents are recycled for use in other industrial applications.
Triumvirate Environmental’s unique ability to recycle complex materials such as RMW, CLP, single-use bags, 55-gallon drums, and other plastics at our Jeannette recycling facility enables us to help divert a significant portion of a company’s waste from the landfill. Our proprietary process includes sterilization, shredding, and processing into a master blend that is then manufactured into plastic lumber boards. These boards can be used for plastic pallets, landscaping, benches, and a variety of other applications—creating a sustainable output of materials and closing the loop for these otherwise wasted materials.
Our fuel blending facilities close the loop in the same way, but for hazardous wastes. Waste fuels and solvents can be combined to create a new solvent blend that can then be used to fuel other, larger-scale industrial processes like cement kilns or utilized as a product in a manufacturing process. In doing so, waste fuels are effectively recycled for reuse in practical applications.
All of these sustainable materials management options help drive efficiencies, increase organizational sustainability impact, and close the loop of waste.
Real World Example
One large biotechnology company partnered with Triumvirate to reevaluate its waste program. This evaluation revealed that a number of the organization’s waste streams could instead be recycled. This successfully diverted more than 1.1 million pounds of waste from the landfill.
How can implementing a sustainable recycling program lower overall waste management expenses?
Hazardous waste incineration logjams in incinerators around the country are causing storage costs to skyrocket as the waste sits around waiting to be disposed of. Switching to a sustainable recycling program for certain wastes can reduce these storage costs and ensure quick, safe, and efficient waste disposal.
On top of this, a sustainable recycling program helps ensure that money spent on plastic supplies is not wasted, because the material is turned back into a usable product—and not destined to take up space in the landfill. Sustainable recycling programs can contribute not only to effective waste management—but also cost-effective waste management.
Better Packaging Choices
Bulk stock ordering means larger packaging but less waste, as containers can be bulk instead of individual. Opting for these and other sustainable packaging choices can help with sustainability and cost-effective waste management.
Working with your internal teams, our teams help develop new waste flows, storage, and packaging processes that enhance your operations. Our innovative waste management model, tailored to your site’s unique needs, can increase the amount of waste sent per shipment by using larger containers and improved scheduling and logistics. Our team calculates the “hidden” costs of efficient waste disposal, such as transportation and labor, to ensure we propose the most efficient and effective packaging solutions.
This, combined with site-specific changes (like switching to boxes that can more easily stack) can vastly impact the scope of your waste program and result in greater cost-savings and efficiencies, not to mention the sustainability of more efficient transportation.
Real World Example
Triumvirate Environmental helped a company switch from waste packaging via 55-gallon drums to more efficient cubic boxes. Cubic boxes not only cost less to purchase than expensive drums but can also be stacked when transporting non-dense materials, effectively reducing the environmental and financial costs of transportation. Additionally, bought waste boxes arrive flat and can be built on an as-needed basis, easing handling complications, saving employee time, and saving supply space.
What are the benefits of transitioning from traditional packaging to bulk packaging for waste?
When transitioning from traditional packaging to bulk packaging for waste, organizations have the ability to:
- Reduce transportation costs
- Improve transportation fuel efficiency
- Save organizational storage space
- Collaborate with other departments
- Limit the amount of orders needed
- Avoid waste complications
How does using bulk packaging reduce transportation and handling costs?
When waste is packed in bulk, more material can be included in each shipment/container. This minimizes the number of shipments and the amount of labor for loading and unloading, reducing costs. This streamlined supply chain may also improve sustainability. Not only that, but bulk packaging is often designed to utilize space more efficiently, meaning lower waste storage costs while the waste awaits hazardous waste incineration.
Proximity (and Cost-Based) Disposal
A vast network of treatment storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs) across North America means that disposal can be made more cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable. Based on proximity and facility capabilities, decisions can be made to ensure waste is sent to the facility that will return the best cost-effectiveness.
While determining which efficient waste disposal outlets are best for your organization, you can trust that Triumvirate Environmental approaches your waste the way you would. Instead of looking at how your waste streams fit into our facility, we are committed to finding the best fit for your needs, based on your approved site list. In doing so, we can even identify disposal outlets that have more sustainable management methods, such as waste-to-energy, fuel blending, waste recycling, and recovery options—all of which help drive environmental consciousness and reduce the carbon footprint of your waste program.
In addition, because of our knowledgeable teams and vast network of facilities, we can find disposal options that are physically near your operations. This can offset the cost and environmental impact of waste transportation, helping you achieve a sustainable, cost-effective, and efficient waste management program.
Waste Profile Reclassification
Our teams will review your waste codes based on waste profiles to ensure accuracy. Wastes that are inaccurate or no longer apply can be updated for accuracy and efficiency.
Components of biotechnology, life sciences, and advanced manufacturing organizations are constantly changing, but waste profiles are rarely updated to reflect these changing components. This may be because there is a lack of time or resources required to review and update them. Triumvirate Environmental can provide a fresh set of eyes, ready to evaluate your profiles on a one-time or ongoing basis to update or remove any extraneous or outdated waste codes.
Proper waste profile classification ensures accurate evaluation of efficient waste disposal options and thus lowers the cost of treatment.
Real World Example
At one facility, a solvent was listed as flammable and corrosive, but it was actually only flammable. The organization was spending more than necessary to treat the waste at a further and less convenient incineration disposal facility.
Triumvirate Environmental experts identified the classification error and diverted the waste to a closer fuel blending facility, saving the organization on transportation costs and contributing to its sustainability goals. Our experts have decades of expertise and the necessary skill sets to ensure your waste profiles are classified accurately.
Switching to a Cost-Effective Waste Management and Disposal Program
With Triumvirate Environmental’s help, you can switch to a cost-effective waste management and disposal program.
What is the most cost-effective waste management practice?
There is no one efficient waste management practice that is more cost–effective than another. It’s crucial to have a waste partner team that can review your waste streams, use network contacts and facilities, and create a unique, innovative waste management plan catered to your needs.
How does Triumvirate Environmental tailor its waste management solutions to different industries?
Facilities in different industries generate different wastes, each requiring a specific, efficient waste disposal technology. A thorough review of waste streams at each site allows Triumvirate Environmental to develop a custom-tailored plan full of strategies for efficient waste management and waste efficiency solutions based on the facility’s location, waste classifications, and other unique needs.
How can a tailored waste management plan help identify cost-saving opportunities?
A tailored and efficient waste management plan can help improve waste transportation efficiency, provide access to cost-effective waste management and disposal options that otherwise may not be known, decrease labor costs, and more.
Leading biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and other life sciences companies have re-evaluated their waste management programs with Triumvirate Environmental’s help to become more sustainable, reduce inefficiencies, and save money. Our recommendations have led to more cost-effective waste management, including packaging and waste-routing selections, more efficient waste disposal options, and more accurate classifications of waste profiles.
Even amid production increases and increased waste generation, organizations are able to save money and capitalize on existing budgets with the utilization of the best available technologies—and waste efficiency solutions that fit the specific needs of a site. You can make significant strides toward your organization’s sustainability and recycling goals while reducing waste management costs with our innovative, holistic, and customer-intimate approach.
Click below to read more about our cost-effective waste management and disposal strategies or call us at 866-521-4750 to speak to an expert about building and maintaining an efficient and sustainable waste program.
