What is Waste Prevention

Eliminating or preventing waste makes good environmental and financial sense. After all if waste isn’t created it doesn’t have to be treated and disposed of - which is much better for the local and global environment, better for climate change and better financially for you personally or for your organisation.

Preventing waste can be challenging because it requires us to take stock of how we do things. Before undertaking a Waste Prevention Programme we should consider:

• How we do things and why we do them in a particular way.
• What resources we use: energy, raw materials and water.
• How much waste we create and how we dispose of it.

So prevention can be described as any action to limit environmental damage.

Creating less waste means:

• Reduced waste to be landfilled or recycled; less need to transport waste, fewer landfills, less energy needed to reprocess materials and more costs savings for you and your organisation;
• Less CO₂ which causes climate change.
• More efficient use of resources such as trees, oil, metals, water and energy.