RecycleMatch

3 Steps to Achieving Zero Waste by Ashley Halligan, an analyst at Software Advice

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, industrial facilities alone produce 7.6 billion tons of solid waste each year. That’s why it’s great that General Motors recently announced its 100th facility to become landfill free–that is, having successfully diverted 100 percent of its waste stream.

General Motors isn’t the first organization to launch a zero-waste initiative. Many North American companies–across a slew of industries, at facilities of all sizes–are implementing similar programs. Kirk Varga, Chief Sales Officer of the International Environmental Alliance (IEA), says.

“A zero-waste initiative is a great way for a facility to stay ahead of the sustainability curve, enhance positive visibility, and save money. But read more

Recently RecycleMatch’s CEO and Founder, Brooke Farrell, presented to an audience of senior leaders from major corporations and government agencies at an event at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The event and the audience were focused on moving the needle on waste related issues. Click here to see Brooke’s presentation and  read more

June 19 – 22, 2012 San Antonio, TX

RecycleMatch was asked to present at the AWMA annual conference in San Antonio, TX recently. The panel included a great variety of speakers focused on waste issues around the world. Speakers included Dr Etsuro Shibata of Japan, Chih-C Chao from Taiwan who organized the panel and spoke on behalf of his associate Peter Halpin, and Maggie Clarke, Ph D from New York’s Hunter College.

One of the most interesting slides for me was Maggie’s slide on the sources of greenhouse gas emissions from a systems view. (see below)

This interesting slide inclusive of all of the sources was a surprise to me, and I already know that there is too much waste in the manufacture, distribution and consumption of goods. Basically, products and packaging represent 44% of our greenhouse emissions. If I had heard that as an off the cuff remark, I might have said “well, that’s coming from the consumption”. Not so. Most of it, 37%, actually comes from the manufacture and distribution, not the consumption. If you think about the production and distribution of food, another 12%, as “packaged goods” of a sort – that leads me to think we really need to revisit manufacturing in a big way.

After all, we’ve revisited building efficiency with LEED certified buildings and have seen a major impact. Companies want to be in a LEED building, people notice it, and architects and suppliers are totally focused on making improvements that help lower impact. As great as that is, the total slice of the pie represented by building HVAC and lighting is only 21%. Yes, that’s big and a big opportunity. But what Maggie has pointed out is that we now need to tackle the big, complex issue of how our food and goods are manufactured, distributed, used, and yes even returned at end of life. This represents an even larger issue, and a larger opportunity.

Here is a PDF version of my presentation for those that are interested. SA AWM Conf

Thank you to Chic C Chao and the organizers of the AWMA conference. I really appreciate the opportunity to share a stage with global thinkers and do-ers focused on waste issues.

March 9, 2012—Brooke Farrell is the Founder and CEO of RecycleMatch, an SaaS platform that accelerates zero waste efforts, streamlines materials management processes and automates sustainability reporting on waste. Brooke recently sat down with Sustainable Brands editor Thomas Miinor to discuss the evolving business model of RecycleMatch and the opportunity around corporate waste recovery and management.

After quickly being dubbed the eBay for Trash, RecycleMatch shifted its business model to software. What spurred that change?

Our initial hypothesis was read more

Great video from GreenBiz featuring David Mendelson, President of Donco. His advice to executives “look at your byproducts as assets, not liabilities”. His formula: “Lower costs, raise revenue, without investing capital”. I think he’s been reading our playbook at RecycleMatch, because that’s exactly what our enterprise software platform does. The subscription based platform provides the tools and information necessary for companies to “figure out the giant jigsaw puzzle” in order to accelerate their zero waste efforts and maximize the return on their ‘waste’ or byproduct materials. read more

Organizations are spending time and money to become more sustainable but they could do more by leveraging new software and web technologies to maximize their positive environmental impact. There are (at least) three ways software and technology is making waste a resource. The first is the use of software to manage waste and resources like other parts of the organization are managed. Software is used for accounting, inventory, sales, and a multitude of other functions within an organization – why not waste and recyclables? New and larger data streams are helping companies such as retailers to aggregate materials for recycling instead of sending materials to a landfill. Information and data also helps recyclers with determining plant locations and investments in new technologies to make better use of waste streams. For example, Pepsi has developed The Dream Machine – a Kiosk that scans 170k different types of plastics bottles – vital information for local recycling plants in order to pickup and process materials.

The second is that enabling technologies are now available for more transparency and reporting to help to solve environmental problems and create a more efficient eco-system. Corporate Social Responsibility reports are now becoming the norm and companies need software to track and manage the data required for published reports to stakeholders. Reports that include waste data with metrics such as Amount of Waste to Landfill and Waste per lb of Production. Another way technology is transforming the waste market is through social media – and by its very nature social media requires transparency. In a recent study by Sustainable Life Media and Zumer they found that 76% of sustainability professionals interviewed believe social media will help gain market share and increase the size of the overall market. Companies such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Dell and Toyota combine social media and sustainability to gain market share and acquire customers in new and growing markets. The study also found that read more

Those wise words, “when you put a value on garbage it gets cleaned up” came from Ed Viesturs, one of the world’s premier high-altitude mountaineers, one of a small number who have summited all eight-thousander peaks in the world, often without any additional oxygen. You see, most climbers need extra oxygen that comes in aluminum tanks. And they use all sorts of disposable equipment and supplies to make it to the summit. Since 1953 when Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, the mountain has turned into a dump – literally collecting an estimated 50-120 tons of litter along with an estimated 120 dead bodies.

Recently, the Chinese government has put a bounty on that litter, offering the equivalent of $1.40 for every kilogram hauled out by expedition members, porters and guides. It isn’t a lot of money considering you have to risk your life to get it. But it’s enough to motivate people to do the right thing. In fact, a team of veteran sherpas has announced plans to clear 8,800 pounds of garbage from the lower part of the mountain and another 2,200 pounds from near the 29,035-foot summit this year.

When you put a value on garbage, it gets cleaned up. This is true for your company just like it is for Everest. Companies spend an estimated $22 billion each year to landfill waste from their operations. And based on estimates from Waste Management, those same materials could be worth from $20-40 billion. If companies read more

This is another blog from Olof, Swedish student here in the US interning with RecycleMatch through a program with Innovation Norway and Rice University. The pair of Norwegian interns who assisted RecycleMatch previously warned me that this would not be a cushy corporate job and that the environmental expectations would be high. Intern Snorre rode a bike to work, which is quite a commitment considering that Norwegians aren’t used to the 100 degree heat of Texas summers. Norwegian intern Linda created a video highlighting the work they did to clean trash from waterways, http://zerowasteblog.recyclematch.com/2010/05/30/the-recyclematch-team-helps-clean-up-waterways-by-picking-up-plastic-with-the-trash-bash/ .

This Earth Day, I represented the RecycleMatch team… read more

On April 4th, the Coca-cola company launched their new “Plant Bottle”, hailed as the first 100% recyclable plant based bottle. The bottles are made with a 70/30 blend of HDPE and plant based plastics (Odwalla), or a PET and plant based plastics (Dasani). I heard Scott Vitters of Coke talk about this innovation at Opportunity Green last year, and based on the Q&A that day, these bottles can be mixed in and recycled along with traditional curbside recycling – a big improvement from some of the early bio-plastics which gummed up recycling equipment and were hard for consumers to manage.

The new “PlantBottle” is not biodegradable however. Which means that if it makes it’s way into storm sewers, streams and ultimately the Pacific Gyre and other ocean flotillas, it is destined to stay there indefinitely. There is a growing interest in biodegradable plastics that would not only tap into alternative, cheap feedstock for making plastic, but would also help fix this enormous unintended consequence of single use plastics. Here are two of our favorites.

Micromidas turns waste water treatment sludge (yes, that is fancy words for poop) into plastic that is clean, green and biodegradable. And Cyclewood Plastics makes shopping bags that bio-degrade in 150 days in the elements.

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Today’s author is me, Olof, a Swedish student working on my Masters degree in Innovation and Entrepreneurship back home . I am here in the US attending a course about American Entrepreneurship at Rice University in Houston, Texas. I am here to see how entrepreneurship works in the US as a part of my masters degree. The course includes a three month internship at a start up company with great potential to be the next market leader. I feel blessed being here, and the fact that I get to work at a company with high ambitions like RecycleMatch is just awesome.

The concept of recycling has been around for quite a while these days. People are realizing the potential of recycling and the value in doing so. For many years we have been recycling the materials with clear potential value such as; metals, glass, plastics, etc. The question is – for how long will we have to wait until the waste we are putting into landfills at this moment can be reused in a better way. To me RecycleMatch, has made a clear global choice. The choice to help our planet and its residents by reducing the masses put into landfills. Which at the same time means saving big amounts of energy and money by not having to reproduce more than what is absolutely necessary.

Every year lots of valuable material are put into landfills. In the US, chemicals alone are produced to a value of $689 billions which is approximately 20 percent of the total world chemical output[1]. With these kind of volumes it is easy to understand that the environmental impact is big. Even if all of the chemicals produced would be harmless, which they most likely are not, it makes our planet less environmentally friendly. read more

By Chris Porch, RecycleMatch CEO - The concept of “quality” is of the utmost importance on RecycleMatch and permeates our site, policies and procedures. Although it is a cornerstone of our business, how we’ve chosen to put this concept into practice has been one of the most misunderstood and questioned aspects of our business so far.  As background, let’s first review what we heard from our beta customers (large and medium size companies, recyclers, brokers, and haulers)

Companies are not going to list the materials that they are sending to landfills if their company name is attached to it.  Confidentiality is a non-negotiable requirement for many of these companies.

Spam and messages that are of a general nature (not specifically about the materials listed) are a major inefficiency and source of dissatisfaction for sellers.

Buyers need reliable, high quality materials that they are not able to find other places.  They want listings to be real and the materials available.  As good as the listings may appear, there are often questions they need answered before they can make a bid and there needs to be a way to get more detailed information while maintaining this confidentiality.

Both buyers and sellers told us they only want to pay for results.  Sellers don’t want to pay to list materials without the promise of a sale and most buyers were unwilling to incur cost unrelated to the transaction.

Quality, confidentiality, results…these requirements are all related and are interdependent.  Let me explain…. read more

The mind-blowing, world-changing technology that is coming of age today is ushering in what has been called the next industrial revolution. How can techies use this opportunity to correct the environmental impacts that resulted from the last industrial revolution? If you are going to or following SXSW, you don’t want to miss the panel that brings something for everyone. We have cleantech VCs, entrepreneurs, eco journalists, computer scientists who are working on projects as varied as saving forests, renewable energy, electric vehicles and ridding the world of waste. We hope you’ll bring all kinds of tough questions for our incredible panel focused on the intersection of environment and technology.  read more

It’s that time of year when we enumerate the things and people for which we are thankful. And, it turns out you are at the top of our list. You are an innovator. An early adopter. Someone who sees an opportunity where other people only see trash. So, to borrow from the famous Apple computer ad below – here’s to you!

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Waste is a symptom of an inefficient process. Every business process has some inefficiency and we all work to continually improve our processes. But are we doing enough to eliminate waste in our processes? Waste is essentially materials that have been paid for and are then considered to have no value or are useless. At the beginning of the process before these items are considered waste, the materials are many times stored in expensive warehouse or office spaces. At the end of the process, we are then paying to have them hauled away and put into a landfill. In many cases the materials have inherent value to other companies and processes – which can provide additional cash flow and divert the materials from the harm of a landfill.

To improve processes and make them green at the same time, many companies are implmenting Green Sigma Programs. These programs are based on Six Sigma, lean, and ISO methodologies to redesign processes to make them more efficient, educate employees, and tangibly contribute to being environmentally friendly. Companies are coming under increasing pressure from governments, advocacy groups, investors, prospective employees, and consumers to make their operations, products, and services more socially responsible, particularly regarding the environment. Green Sigma Programs are evolving to help companies become more efficient, more profitable, and eliminate waste. An investment in green business is good business.

IBM has a great example of a RecycleMatch. IBM developed a unique, eco-friendly way to recycle scrap silicon “wafers” — the base material used for chips in everything from computers to consumer electronics. The process has dual advantages for the environment, as it will help reduce the estimated 3 million silicon wafers discarded each year across the computer industry, while also providing new supplies of raw materials to the supply-constrained solar energy industry. read more

The motivation behind creating RecycleMatch is that waste or undervalued materials can be converted to profit. In many cases the term “waste” is misleading, since waste materials are typically left behind by-products of industrial or consumer processes that can potentially be used as materials for other processes. These materials only become wastes when they are wasted. For instance, disposed in a landfill. In nature, there is very little waste – one living thing’s wastes may become another living thing’s nourishment. In the same way, rethinking traditional ways to make products can lead to the discovery of innovative methods for the conversion of wastes into valuable resources. New methods are not only economically attractive, but they also add to environmental sustainability by diverting wastes from landfills and reducing the requirement for energy demanding production of new materials.