Waste Hierarchy

Waste Hierarchy actually refers to a recent piece of environmental legislation that is aimed at businesses that produce or handle waste.

However we see no reason why households shouldn't try and follow the same rules - well, you would be hard pressed to find a household that doesn't produce waste!

We're not saying that it should become a law for households, but we think it would be great to take on board the principles. In fact you will see a common thread if you read our 8 R's energy saving tip.

Waste Management

It's very simple. All we're being asked to do is to look at the following steps when dealing with waste...

Prevention & Minimisation - Design, manufacture and produce products that use less material, and in turn are made from less hazardous materials. Also design and make products that can be repaired easily rather than have to be thrown away. Sophisticated purchasers may also see this as affecting their decision when selecting products.

Re-use - Once an item has reached the end of its useful life, see if we can refill it or repair it. Better still, try and make this activity local so as to reduce the carbon footprint, such as refill a toner cartridge yourself. Or if not, get the empty cartridge picked up so that someone else can refill it. You could also try find a third-party who could benefit by having it re-filled, and may even pay you to acquire the empty item.

Recycling - If we can't re-use a product, can we use either the entire assembly or if not its constituent parts for another purpose?

Energy recovery - Destroy the item but gain a benefit whilst doing it. For example, could it be burnt to generate electricity?

Disposal - Having exhausted all the above, we're probably looking at landfill or destruction without gaining any further benefit from the materials

Purchasing Decisions

You might like to look at a variety of household items and see how the Waste Hierarchy affects your future purchasing decisions.

For instance, would you buy a vacuum cleaner that costs slightly more in the knowledge that it had been designed to be repaired, and should cost less in the long run?

Like to know more

If you're a business and would like to know more about the Waste Hierarchy, you can click here.

(published by the Energy Saving Centre to encourage wherever possible, adoption of a more sustainable lifestyle)