Stacy Savage, Founder/President, Zero Waste Strategies, LLC

Zero Waste Strategies (ZWS), LLC is an Austin, TX-based business consultancy.  ZWS provides small businesses, corporations, non-profits, and municipalities throughout the US with strategies and implementation assistance for zero waste programs.  ZWS also offers strategies for organics diversion programs, construction and demolition diversion programs, and other custom consulting services.

Let’s begin with some background on Zero Waste and waste audits

The Zero Waste International Alliance (ZWIA) considers an organization to be following Zero Waste principles if they are diverting 90% or more of their discards from landfilling or incineration.  There is additional guidance around procurement, production, and materials selection, as well.

Many companies think that the bulk of the opportunities available to them through Zero Waste initiatives are centered around recycling; however, some of the biggest potential savings we find are on the procurement and management side.  We encourage our clients to pursue stricter inventory controls through things like:

• Maintaining a central purchasing department with a consistent purchase order process
• Better tracking of materials already on hand
• Sourcing products made of recycled materials

We also encourage our clients to reuse whenever possible by:

• Repairing equipment to keep it in service longer
• Recycling electronic wastes through manufacturer takeback programs
• Considering following the EPA Food Recovery Hierarchy that prioritizes how foods should be distributed:
  • Food waste reduction, reuse, repurposing, and legal donations are all usually free methods for “highest and best use” of the materials
  • Composting is an option for organics diversion, but is usually a fee-based service. It still may be the best option for some food-permitted establishments
• Donating unused items (if you switch to a new phone system, why not give the old phones to a nonprofit or political campaign and get a tax credit?)
• Selling or swapping unused items.
  • Selling baled cardboard
  • Selling wooden pallets
  • The Austin Materials Marketplace is a great B2B exchange run by the US Sustainable Business Development Council in partnership with Austin Resource Recovery. It’s an online platform where businesses can post what they have available to donate…like a Craigslist for business materials.  There are many other similar marketplaces throughout the US

If reuse or donation isn’t possible, we encourage recycling:

• Plastics
• Glass
• Metals
• Flattened cardboard, paper, and newspaper
• Organics

Basics of a waste audit

Materials:  You’ll need a scale, buckets, tongs, gloves, alcohol wipes, wraps for your feet, and anything your participants need to feel safe – some people even prefer to wear whole body jumpsuits!

If the facility has both trash and recycling services, make sure you evaluate two piles of equal volume: one from the trash dumpster and one from the recycling container.  For each pile you’re evaluating, sort the waste into seven buckets:

• Paper (dry office paper & newspaper)
• Cardboard (dry & flattened – moving boxes, cereal boxes)
• Plastics (rigid only – water & soda bottles)
• Glass (bottles & jars of any color)
• Metals (clean foils & soda cans)
• Compost (food waste, food-soiled napkins, greasy pizza boxes, landscaping & floral debris)
• Actual trash (thin plastic films, latex gloves)

Once you’ve sorted the materials from the landfill trash sample into buckets, weigh the buckets on a tared scale and record the individual weights on a spreadsheet. Next, sort all of the materials from the recycling dumpster sample, weigh the buckets on a tared scale and record the individual weights on a spreadsheet. It’s recommended to sort all the hard recyclables and trash out of the bags and keep the food wastes and liquids in the bags for easier handling and weighing.

You can then do calculations for the facility’s current recycling rate, the potential recycling rate, and their current contamination rate of recyclable materials.  If you know the facility’s costs of waste and recycling hauling from monthly invoices, you can calculate the potential savings from increasing recycling.  We also then include tips for how to increase recycling rates and reduce contamination by furthering employee education training.

If you want more details on how to conduct a waste audit, check out the USGCB TRUE Zero Waste program website.

What do you actually do all day?

I’m the founder and president so a lot of my personal work involves meetings with city departments and heads of companies.  There’s also a lot of communication with our subcontractors to ensure they’re completing their portion of a project in a timely manner, managing budgets, tax and legal issues, ensuring we’re compliant with any contracting requirements, and social media outreach.

My day-to-day varies based on what projects we’re working on at the time. One great example of our work is a contract we have through the City of Austin Resource Recovery Department where we are responsible for providing outreach and education to assist businesses in complying with Austin’s Universal Recycling Ordinance (URO).

The URO went into effect in 2012 and it now requires all commercial and multi-family properties to provide convenient access to recycling programs. It also requires all food-permitted businesses in Austin to provide convenient access to organics diversion programs, such as food waste reduction, reuse, legal donations, and composting.

We also help large corporations with their sustainability goals.  A great example of this is a project we did with Nestle Purina PetCare. The CEO set a mandate for all campuses around the world to be zero waste by the end of 2018.  The corporate headquarters in St. Louis is over 3 million square feet so the sustainability manager needed additional support to meet this goal. They flew our team out to the site and ZWS conducted interviews with Executives and the management and purchasing teams, worked with the janitorial team to model the materials flow, and performed visual waste audits for each dumpster.  After our 4-day assessment, we were able to provide them with a 23-page strategy manual for training staff to meet their goals, which they are implementing successfully and look to be on track to meet the CEO’s deadline.

We did a really interesting and important study for a non-profit in the City of Dallas.  The City has a new law that apartment complexes with 8 or more units will be required to recycle starting in 2020.  The non-profit wanted to get some data on what the impacts of that law would be if it were expanded to other businesses in Dallas.  They commissioned us to do nine corporate waste audits: two restaurants, two office parks, two hotels, and three apartment complexes.  We were responsible for identifying the businesses that would participate in the study, ensuring the waste audits were scheduled before the haulers came to each property, recruiting and training volunteers for the waste audits, and drafting the reports for each. The results of our study will inform Dallas City Council members on the current recycling rates for these industries and could impact their voting decisions when this legislation comes under consideration in 2019.

What are some of the key skills for success in this role?

Trash is not fun and it’s not sexy. To most business owners, waste is a line item budget issue. It is important that people understand that there is no such place as “away” when we throw something away because it ends up in someone else’s backyard or in our oceans. You’ve also got to be able to walk people through the company’s operational inefficiencies and show them the different ways that they’re losing money until they have that light bulb moment.  You also have to be able to help them see past their focus just on compliance to get them to understand “why” we recycle.  You’ve got to be personable and have fun with it, too. I make sure people feel comfortable coming to me to ask the questions they might not want to ask the City directly.  The goal is to change how people view discarded materials. It isn’t “waste” anymore, it is a collection of valuable resources that have been mined, formed, and transported for consumption and we should respect this process by giving extra lives to the materials through reuse, donation, and recycling.

What is your favorite part of your job?

It’s the relief you’re able to provide a business owner when they see they have a path to compliance or making a bigger difference is huge. I really enjoy helping them develop that sense of confidence through empowerment.  It’s all about how you make people feel.

When a business owner can market increased corporate integrity through sustainable changes, they can deepen customer loyalty and boost branding.  For me it’s not just a job, it’s a passion.  That’s true for all my friends in this space and I love how often I get to work on different projects with colleagues I’ve been doing this with for a long time.

What is the hardest part of your job?

It can be challenging to keep the sales funnel full.  It’s my job to make sure we’ve got enough billable hours coming in to keep up with our regular business expenses and personal income. Since we have a mix of hourly and lump sum contracts, it’s an important balancing act to keep on top of.  This is why we work with all types of businesses, local governments, and non-profits – you have to diversify your client base.

What is your proudest professional achievement?

From 2003-2012, I worked with Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE). This non-partisan, non-profit organization conducts a year ‘round door-to-door canvassing operation that engages Texans in the democratic process across all 254 counties and 181 legislative districts. TCE passed 2 pieces of statewide legislation for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). These EPR bills require manufacturers of computers and televisions to take back broken and obsolete electronics for free and responsible recycling for consumers.

After a 4-year campaign and getting Dell on board, the 2007 Texas Computer TakeBack Bill (HB 2714 – Bonnen, R) passed unanimously in both houses and was signed into law by then-Governor Rick Perry.  The 2011 Texas TV TakeBack Bill (SB 329 – Watson, D) was also passed and signed into law by Governor Perry. The laws have alleviated a big burden on the taxpayers and it will save a lot of landfill space, as well.

What are the game changers in your world?

Most people haven’t heard of zero waste or the circular economy, so if we could get more people to learn about these concepts and understand how much money companies can save and how simple it is, it would make a big difference. What I find is that most companies just pay lip service and don’t fully fund or implement these types of programs. But, what they really want is to save money, operate with integrity, empower employees, and lead in their industry. Zero Waste is the “lowest hanging fruit” of business efficiency protocols.

What was your path to this role?

I started out as an environmental activist with TCE managing door-to-door campaigns and fundraising initiatives across Texas.  I did that for 6 years and eventually became the statewide program director for 3 years doing advocacy work at the city, county, and state levels.  A cornerstone of my advocacy work was pursing producer takeback legislation for electronics recycling. Television, computers, and other electronics contain toxins like lead and mercury that leach and cause contamination issues, which are difficult and expensive to clean up.  It was incredibly exciting to have so much support for taking the cost burden and responsibility for safely handling those materials off of the tax payers and onto the producers.

In 2009, I co-founded the Austin Zero Waste Alliance (AZWA), a non-profit organization run by volunteers who work with the City to help them vet Zero Waste policies by providing community input and recommendations.  Based on my work with TCE and AZWA, I was appointed by my City Council district representative to the Austin Zero Waste Advisory Commission (ZWAC) where I helped develop Zero Waste policy for City Council to consider.

Those experiences gave me the organization skills, network, and subject matter expertise I needed to launch my business in 2013.

What’s your advice to someone interested in a role like this?

It’s important to learn the history of local waste issues if you’re going to be effective.  Talk to the local non-profits and ask them to give you the story, interview people who have been working in the space, and try to get an idea of the trends over time.  Attend local zero waste meetings or your city’s monthly board meetings or environmental commission meetings.  Talk to your town’s solid waste and recycling department and ask how you can get involved, take any opportunity you can to learn and network.  You can also consider working for an environmental activist groups. Just show up and be educated and vocal!

What are your favorite resources?

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation

USGBC offers a great zero waste 101 webinar to help you get started.

USGBC True Zero Waste

The Texas Campaign for the Environment, they led the efforts on the e-waste legislation.

GreenBiz

WasteDive provides national and global waste knowledge.

The Sierra Club did a great list of the 100 greenest campuses in the US

Ecocoin is a cryptocurrency company focused on incentivizing recycling.

Who (or what) is your sustainability hero?

My SHEro is Mother nature.  There’s no waste in nature.  She’s the example and we need to follow it.