Waste Management, Inc. remains the industry leader in collecting and burying trash, currently holding 273 landfills capable of holding 4.8 billion tons of trash. Additionally, they hold 91 recycling facilities, and 17 waste-to-energy facilities. However, 75% of its profits currently come from collecting waste for landfills, which is worrying because customers are now reducing waste, with major corporate customers attempting to go completely waste free. Furthermore, customers now want their waste recycled, and advocacy groups are petitioning against current landfill practices. In addition to their evolving external environment, they also host an internal environment that seems unable to swallow the changes to their customer base. Their infrastructure …show more content…
They already possess a facility that contributes no waste to landfills, and hasn’t since 2004. Even more worryingly, Walmart, the industry leading retailer, has stated their own aspirations to go waste-free. If Walmart is able to successfully reach and sustain that goal, other retailers will inevitably follow suit. Instead of viewing such a trend as an opportunity to take advantage of new customer demands, there is resistance within Waste Management to do anything other than keep burying waste. Indeed, the company culture, infrastructure, and competitive advantage remain steadfastly invested in hauling trash to a …show more content…
Indeed, their fledgling recycling capabilities represent a significant weakness. Especially their inability to turn a profit on recycling smartphones, TV’s, and other devices, as the need for such recycling is sure to to grow rapidly. On the flip side, recycling also represents a significant opportunity for Waste Management. If they can begin harnessing the growing demand for landfill sorting and recycling, the growth potential could offset the significant investment that developing recycling technology will be.
Waste Management’s foremost threat is the fact that customers are wasting less, and attempting to go waste-free. The waste that is produced now requires more sorting and recycling, something that a competitor could provide if Waste Management is unwilling to do so. Therefore, the prospect of a rival company stealing customers represents a significant threat. Additionally, advocacy groups that protest landfills represent a minor, though prevalent threat to the way Waste Management does business, and they should not be overlooked if Waste Management is to remain the industry leader in waste
In conclusion to this investigation one thing is clear and that is that recycling reeks benefits to the environment, Recycling material when compared to making material from raw material is a more efficient energy saving and more environmentally friendly way to reuse material that is usually consider as trash such as empty glass, and plastic bottles, or old newspapers. Recycling helps reduce the possible carbon emissions greatly and does reduce the human carbon footprint. But Recycling doesn’t resolve the pollution that is around the world today. Leading to new questions, questions like what about the landfills are they sustainable, and if so for how long. How long until the air becomes unbreathable? How long until Earth becomes its own furnace?
Currently in Canada, the amount of waste generated by households is increasing. As Canadians continue to consume more, the amount of waste created as a result increases as well and between 2000 and 2004, household waste increased by 19% (Statistics Canada, 2008, para. 8). While this is appears to be a frightening statistic for landfills across Canada, recycling is actually increasing as well, and at a faster rate. Over the same time period (2000-2004), household recycling increased by 65% in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2008, para. 9). This is a positive sign as it is clear that Canada’s increase in trash is being offset by a much stronger effort with regards to recycling.
Waste management is important from social, economic and environmental perspectives. It helps reduce the use of raw materials and energy, and is a great way of controlling air, water and land pollution. Vancouver citizens sort out
As of January 1, 2003, the Canadian city of Toronto, Ontario started to ship one hundred percent of its garbage into the landfills of Michigan. In 2003, Toronto exported garbage at a rate of 7.2 tons per minute. Garbage trucks from Toronto run seven days a week twenty-four hours a day, so at the rate of 7.2 tons per minute it works out to be that Michigan imports 10,368 tons of Toronto's garbage per day. But it wasn't always like this, Governor John Engler and his administration turned garbage into a growth industry. The state lowered the liability standards for landfill owners and also provided tax-free financing for new facilities. The result of these changes lead to too many landfills and not enough garbage to fill them. So the landfill owners lowered their prices and searched even harder for garbage. Today, Michigan's private landfills charge ten to fifteen dollars per ton to dump while other landfill owners in neighboring states charge twenty five to fifty dollars per ton. Toronto did the math and realized that it is cheaper to haul its garbage 300 miles and dump it in Michigan then it is to dump it close to home. And on top of that, Michigan has eliminated funds fo...
In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans generated 250 million tons of municipal solid waste, MSW1, of which only 87 million tons were recycled or composted (“Municipal Solid Waste”, 1). This value, however, does not represent the total amount waste generated by the United States since MSW only accounts for 2 percent of total waste generated. As more trash is generated, space to construct more landfills becomes an issue. In order to reduce the amount of solid waste produced, the federal government must implement and enforce a new waste disposal method that emphasizes composting food waste.
from Hugget, D., & Tansey, H. (2011). 3m's sustainability strategy & waste minimization. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Retrieved from http://mntap.umn.edu/events/wastemin2011/3M_Sustainability.pdf
Among the major environmental policies that have triggered hot debates among stakeholders and the public in general is that of privatizing solid waste management in various cities in the United States. Private companies have been operating the business of waste collection and management for many years not only in the U.S but also in the U.K and other countries. The debate has been whether by privatizing municipal solid waste (MSW) management, cost reduction and improved service quality can be achieved. Those who oppose the idea of privatizing MSW management have come up with all sorts of explanations to depict the idea as being counterproductive. However, most of these opposing arguments have overlooked the numerous benefits that would come with privatizing MSW management. The benefits not only come in terms of reduced costs and improved service quality but also in terms of creating a competitive market where contractors have to bid for opportunities to serve the community in the area of solid waste collection (Jacobsohn, 2001).
Our world is getting to the point to where we will be surrounded by trash. There are hazards happening because of the excess trash, which could have been recycled. Although the government is not doing their best to make these hazards stop, surprisingly it is the non-governed organizations that are trying to make the difference. Proven studies and facts have been made about these issues, so people should take this into consideration and start recycling more. Recycling is a beneficial process that is not required globally like it should be because citizens are uneducated on the process and what it can do. People who are not recycling do not know the hazards they are causing everywhere.
The future for these products is also quite often over looked. The components are not made to be detachable, so the different materials cannot be recycled correctly or recycled at all, which leads to landfills and pollution. Every material, from wood to steel to carbon fibre has an environmental story behind it and these can all be reused, however there is quite often not enough thought into this design aspect. These components are not labelled correctly for recycling and the result is a scarred landscape. However recycling these days has now turned into a way of life for us. Bins are now everywhere marked with the unmistakeable ‘three-green-arrow’ (another remarkable graphic design – now playing a huge role in the way we live), which lets members of the public kn...
What we are left with however, is no solution to the problem. Rogers talks about in her essay how landfills are often put away from the public view. Rogers states, “If people saw what happened to their waste, lived with the
Policy is needed to regulate which course of action should be taken and how it should be implemented. Because of this, many plans and policies revolving around the management of solid waste have been put in place. Sometimes however, a particular policy can have its shortfalls, potentially resulting in its negative aspects outweighing the positive ones. According to the Conference Board of Canada Report, “Canadians dispose of more municipal solid waste per capita than any other country” (2013). Solid waste management in particular, involves many aspects, ranging from packaging waste, food waste, etc. (White & Franke 1999), hence, the following analysis revolves around household and commercial waste – referred to as Municipal Solid Waste (White & Franke. 1999) – in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Municipal waste is a major health and environmental concern as it contributes to numerous problems like habitat destruction, surface groundwater pollution, and other forms of air, soil, and water contamination. Waste disposal methods like incineration create toxic substances, and landfills emit methane, which contributes to global warming. According to the Zero Waste Objective Report, “The impact of climate change and the increasing awareness of the role of “waste” and “wasting” in the production of greenhouse gas emissions is a constant environmental pressure… (2009). This leads to an increasing limitation of government to prevent and control the volume and toxicity of products in the waste stream and a growing need to shift responsibility to the product manufacturer.
The United States produces “about 8.25 billion tons of solid wastes each year” (Russell 1). People do not realize the impact they have on our planet and environment. When people throw anything in the trashcan, they are contributing to the destruction of our planet. The number landfills in the United States are decreasing, but the amount and volume of waste being thrown into the new landfills is increasing (Russell 4). Because of this escalating amount of garbage, Methane which contributes to global warming is an outcome of these landfills (Russell 7). As a result, our planet is suffering because of this epidemic. The garbage being put in the landfills could be recycled, but not enough businesses, ...
Recycling is important in the effort to preserve our environment for future generations. We are running out of locations to put landfills. Recycling is a simple and effective way to reduce the amount of waste stored in landfills, yet many people do not know how easy it can be. For example, whenever I go to Shoprite® and I b...
Efficient waste managing approaches help with reducing and avoiding unpleasant impact on the environment and human health, while allowing financial development and progress in the quality of people’s life. People do not even imagine what is the size and capacity of their activities and the impact they produce on the environment. Garbage is an important ecological problem. It is seems amazing that approximately all of the citizens of the world identify rubbish as a major environmental problem and yet these people still litter. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (2008), an American produces 250 million tons of garbage per year (para.2). There are different circumstances that are based on the society, environmental conditions, occupation and size of each of the different family. As Richmond (2010) stated, if no administration organizations has the responsibility or resources to concentrate their efforts on the waste disposal, then the responsibility to do that is on ...
Recycling is such a fantastic way for us to reuse the waste we once throw. Yet, not everything is easy to be done in this world. There many difficulties that face recycling process economically and socially. Usually In order to recycle, waste paper needs to be sorted and treated from any Impurities. Which means that companies will loss finance because there must be someone or something that could sort or treat these papers. Another problem is that to start recycling, companies needs a lot of good recyclable supply to pick it up; after all, they need good economic benefits (Problems with Recycling, 2014). According to the Waste and Resources Action Program, there are some barriers p...