Working Towards Zero Waste: Local Leaders Share Their Success

At the 2nd Annual E4S Zero Waste Best Practices and First Steps event, participants learned the benefits of setting a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) of zero waste. Guest speakers shared how they are saving money, reducing their environmental footprint, being more socially responsible and creating a great story to market their products.

Click here to access a pdf of the slides from the event.

Below are some highlights from the event.

Jeff Baldassari, CEO, The Taylor Companies
• Waste is a business opportunity
• Taylor has diverted 90% of its waste in 3 years
• Saving $20,000/year in OH from waste elimination initiatives
• Creating a story to gain marketing advantage

Jeffrey Bowen, Executive Director, Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity
• Habitat's international standard for the homes they build is green built, zero waste, Energy Star
• Attuned to local environment for materials
• Diverting material is essential to their business model

Jeff Millis, Inventory Control Manager, Talan Products
• Started the journey by doing a dumpster dive and found packaging materials in the waste stream
• Contacted vendors to engage them in their zero waste goal; vendor changed the packaging and has become one of Talan's favored suppliers
• Achieved 80% reduction in waste to landfill in 1 year; $3,000 savings annually on trash removal

Comment

You need to be a member of Zero Waste Northeast Ohio to add comments!

Join Zero Waste Northeast Ohio

Comment by Jeffrey Bowen on February 10, 2010 at 8:13pm: Last year we diverted over 500 tons of construction materials, tools, housewares, fixtures and appliances from local land fills... This year we're going for 1,000 tons!

Comment by Jeffrey Bowen on February 10, 2010 at 7:34pm: There are now more than 500 Habitat for Humanity ReStore programs across the United States and Canada that sell rescued, recycled and donated building materials at a fraction of standard retail costs, with proceeds supporting Habitat’s operations in the local community.

Habitat does not exist to “put poor people into better housing”. Habitat seeks to “eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action”. Any time that anyone does anything to repair substandard housing, it is in keeping with Habitat’s overall mission. Therefore, providing affordable construction materials so that the community can repair and renovate deteriorating housing stock is a mission-based proposition.

RSS

Welcome to
Zero Waste Northeast Ohio

Sign Up
or Sign In