Insight
A better economy and more sustainability? Start with waste mapping
ismagilov
What does a company do when it discovers that the production of a new product generates large amounts of waste? And how can these large amounts of waste be transformed into new materials? At NIRAS, we have experts who deal with precisely this issue on a daily basis.
July 17, 2024
Today, it is a legal requirement for businesses to sort their recyclable waste into a minimum of 10 fractions, and the awareness of the environmental impact of waste is growing. Therefore, there is an increasing need for both waste expertise, new logistical solutions, and an overview of the production chain.
"Waste management is a huge task in the production industry because one has to look at the entire production chain," explains Lena Holm Christiansen, Senior Consultant in NIRAS's department for sustainability, resources & circular economy. She works as a subject matter expert on several projects within waste management. Fortunately, she is seeing a growing interest in her expertise from companies:
"Currently, for example, we are working with a Life Science company that aims to reduce the environmental impact of waste. This means that they are interested in both preventing waste and improving the sorting and recycling of the waste that cannot be avoided," she explains.
The 10 Waste Fractions
- Food waste
- Residual waste
- Glass
- Paper
- Cardboard
- Food & drink cartons
- Plastic
- Metal
- Textile waste
- Hazardous waste
Creating an overview of the waste
It all starts with a so-called waste mapping. Here, analyses show how much waste and of what type the production generates. At the same time, it is examined where in the production the waste is generated and which fractions can be sorted and recycled.
Mapping is also an important step in investigating how the company can best reduce the amount of waste:
"Companies usually have good data on their current waste management. Unfortunately, waste types often get mixed together, so that for example hard plastic is mixed across production - and then you lose track of where the largest amounts of waste occur," Lena explains.
This also means that companies often mix different types of plastic, thus reducing the possibility of achieving high quality in the recycled materials. This means that the sale of the mixed material incurs costs for the company - costs that, according to Lena, can often be reduced or turned into income:
"If instead you sort the plastic waste into clean fractions, you can often get paid for your residual product and thus save money. All because you have gained an overview of your production," she explains.
It’s therefor important to supplement the company's existing data to create a more operational overview of the amount of waste. This gives the company the opportunity to understand their production chain and see where it can be advantageous to make changes to products, production methods, or waste sorting.
"We typically develop a data model for the company to work with. This gives the company the opportunity to set up scenarios and analyze the consequences of possible changes," Lena further explains.
The increased insight into waste data also allows companies to sell some fractions directly to recycling companies, which can provide both increased traceability and better economy.
Waste Mapping:
- Mapping of production waste
- Overview of opportunities to prevent waste
- Overview of sorting options
- Potential to make money from the fractions
- Potential to design according to logistical needs
- More sustainable production chain
- Potential for symbiosis with other companies
- Potential to reduce CO2 emissions
Logistical solutions
Sustainable waste management requires incorporating a large and well-thought-out logistical effort. To support this effort, Lena works closely with Martin Rode, Senior Consultant in supply chain and logistics at NIRAS.
"It is clear that the more fractions the waste is sorted into, the greater the logistical task of handling it," Martin initially explains.
According to Martin, waste management should therefore also be a significant part of the planning of new production buildings: "In the building of a production site, waste management should be considered on par with goods reception and storage."
It's about both material waste, which affects the company's economy, as well as reducing the environmental footprint.
"It is crucial to devise solutions for how the company can transport, store, and sell their waste," he says, and continues:
"If there are no well-thought-out logistical solutions included, then the good intentions will fail, because it will e.g. not be possible to handle a larger number of fractions."
According to Martin, there are also interesting possibilities to limit waste products in the logistical solutions themselves:
"It can be very small things, such as challenging the notion that waste needs to be wrapped in plastic for transport - in that way you just produce more waste," he explains.
“Waste management should be considered in a production building on par with goods reception and storage.”
Martin Rode
Industrial symbioses
Henning Jørgensen, Chief Consultant, who like Lena, works in NIRAS's department for sustainability, resources & circular economy, adds: "In addition to the benefit that can be achieved by creating an overview and structuring waste management in the internal flow, there is also the consideration that waste from one industry can be a resource for another." With the knowledge that NIRAS possesses, we can advise on all aspects of waste management, whether it is household waste, process waste from the production industry, or something else in between.
From this comes the possibility of advising on potential industrial symbioses. Through analyses of needs and flows - raw materials and waste - we can identify potential symbioses and partners in other industries - the prerequisite for a partnership - and we can help establish, develop, and implement such a partnership. It is a good investment for your company and for the environment. And it's more than just talk - NIRAS has advised more than 200 companies on industrial symbioses.
In short:
The interdisciplinary collaboration of Lena, Henning, and Martin thus strengthens the solutions for companies' waste management, making them both more sustainable and integrated - and most importantly: The solutions are always developed in close cooperation with the company itself, and the advice often extends to several colleagues and disciplines internally at NIRAS.
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