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 1

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 2

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 3

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. 4

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. 5

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 6

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 7

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 8

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 9

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 10

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 11

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. 12