Zero Waste, Zero Haz-waste, Zero Packaging Waste

1. Zero Waste, Zero Haz-waste, Zero Packaging Waste Mrs Almitra H Patel, Member Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste Management almitrapatel@rediffmail.com www.almitrapatel.com

2. ZERO WASTE IS POSSIBLE in homes, offices, businesses, factories, campuses. • Haz-waste and nuisance wastes can be minimized • Packaging received and shipped out should be fully recyclable • CII can help promote policies for this

3. BECOME A ZERO-WASTE ‘FAMILY’ ALL YOUR EMPLOYEES MUST PLEDGE HOME COMPLIANCE TOO • Just keep kitchen, fruit, flower and leaf waste free of plastics and other non-biodegradable waste. Dry waste can be stored onsite for weekly collection

4. KEEPING DISCARDS UNMIXED IS THE KEY • ‘Wet’ food wastes can be fed to animals, buried in garden pits or trenches for fertilizer. • Composting or biogas generation can be done at home, commercial, factory or institute level.

5. DON’T DISCARD YOUR PROFITS • Dry wastes can be recycled. It helps to keep paper, plastics and other wastes separate to get better value. • Suryapet, pop. 103,000 , earned Rs 55,000 per month in 2004 just by collecting wet and dry wastes separately and sorting dry waste before sale.

6. MINIMISE HAZ-WASTES BY WISE PURCHASE POLICIES • Buy only LOW-MERCURY TUBE-LIGHTS. Or use LEDs or CFLs • Specify only LEAD-FREE paints and pigments for own use or your products • NO PVC FOLDERS, STATIONERY OR LABELS. • PVC generates dioxins when burnt on roadside or in mixed-waste dump fires

7. MINIMISE YOUR WASTE FOOTPRINT OFF-SITE • Use LOW PHOSPHORUS DETERGENTS • to minimize weed growth in lakes. • Phosphorus is costly and badly needed on land, but not in water-bodies • Phosphate detergents are a huge cost to environment and tax-payers

8. CII MUST PLAY A ROLE Urge Consumer Affairs Ministry to mandate content labeling, so as to help consumers to make green choices: • Detergent labels must show phosphorus content • Fluorescents labels must state mercury content • Paints must declare heavy-metals contents

9. CONSCIOUSLY MINIMISE WASTE • Avoid disposable items in canteens, watercoolers, tea/coffee machines. • Employees should bring their own mugs or flasks.  • Avoid bottled water at meetings, serve safe water in bottles or jugs instead • Minimise plastic folders at meetings • Give a flower, not a bouquet in plastic

10. MINIMISE PACKAGING WASTE, INWARD & OUT • Make bottled drinks suppliers take back their empty bottles on return trip • Ask vendors to supply you goods in returnable packaging • Take back your own packaging if not easily purchased by scrap dealers • Minimise needless packaging such as plastic wrappers on magazines. • Use compostable plastic where reqd

11. THERMOCOLE (EPS) IS A NUISANCE WASTE It is technically recyclable but too bulky and costly to transport to recyclers Insist on thermocole-free supplies to you Avoid it in your own packaging. Use bubble-wrap, paper-pulp instead

12. REDESIGN YOUR OWN MULTI-LAYER PACKAGING FOR EASY RECYCLABILITY Post-consumer PE-Nylon-PP multifilms are not purchased or recycled because of widely different softening- and melting-points. All dumps are full of them. Change your packaging material or work with both suppliers and scrap buyers to avoid countrywide pollution.