One massive byproduct of cities and urbanization is solid waste output, ranging from household hazardous waste to industrial waste to construction and demolition debris. When waste management is neglected, it can clog city drains, negatively impact infrastructure, and threaten civilian health. And the larger cities grow, the more pressing the issue becomes.
Today, proper and robust waste management is essential for the development of sustainable and livable cities.
But what is modern waste management and why does it matter?
Let’s discuss commercial waste management benefits.
What Is Waste Management?
For burgeoning cities, commercial waste management is an all-encompassing field that covers policies, infrastructure initiatives, and best practices related to solid waste output.
Civil engineers—specifically, waste management engineers—play a vital role in commercial waste management. Depending on their primary focus, they may provide expert services that cover a range of sustainability initiatives, such as:
Designing waste management facilities – Land surveyors with geotechnical engineers civil engineers and structural engineers can assist cities on projects like wastewater treatment plants or recycling facilities.
Implementing waste disposal workflows – Waste needs to be continuously and efficiently removed from civilian centers and then transported to facilities for sorting, recycling, and disposal. Engineers can design or improve systems that treat waste or optimize processes and procedures that remove treated waste.
Promoting sustainable construction practices – Construction projects may be legally required to abide by sustainable construction legislation like hazardous waste controls and duty of care. Waste management engineers can offer guidance on the implementation of robust environmental practices that lower construction costs, benefit the environment, and ensure compliance.
Advising on waste-related laws, policies, and regulations – Civil leaders regularly turn to waste management engineers for assistance with crafting waste-related laws, policies, and regulations.
Finding ways to limit environmental impact – Engineers may promote technologies and policies like recycling that proactively mitigate the deleterious effects of waste on the environment.
Benefits of Commercial Waste Management
For cities and their populaces, commercial waste management plays a critical role in making cities safe and livable. Depending on the specific waste management application, it can yield several tangible benefits, including:
Civil Safety
Waste represents a safety hazard for a city’s inhabitants. Both solid waste, debris, and trash are vectors for disease. For instance, if local water bodies were contaminated by industrial waste, people and animals that drank the water could become gravely ill. By efficiently managing waste, you can ensure that cities are inhabitable and sustainable.
Pre-Incident Preparedness
Whether a city is hit by a natural disaster, a power failure, or a terrorist attack, such shocks can generate more waste or damage the existing waste management infrastructure systems responsible for transporting and treating the waste. As the EPA notes:
“Homeland security incidents may generate waste streams, such as chemical, biological and radiological-contaminated wastes, which typically are not handled by communities or waste management facilities.”
Installing robust waste management infrastructure and policies helps a city be better prepared for an unexpected event. This, in turn, yields several immediate benefits, including:
Saving time and resources in the midst of an incident
Enabling leaders to be more agile and efficient with their waste management decisions
Improving community resilience to market shocks
Ensuring that recovery will be effective and hazardous waste removed as quickly as possible
Optimized Construction Activity
Construction sites are significant sources of commercial waste and debris. Implementing on-site waste management practices contributes to the following benefits:
Helps construction managers avoid accidents and protect worker safety
Reduces construction costs, specifically those related to waste disposal
Ensures that the jobsite environment is safe for workers and nearby civilians
Makes it easier to track and manage construction materials.
Promotes an environmentally friendly project that contributes to rather than detracts from the local ecosystem
Better for the Environment
At the end of the day, the purpose of waste management policies, infrastructure, and technologies is to promote sustainable living. By reducing total waste output and installing more environmentally friendly means of disposing and recycling waste you can:
Send less waste to landfills
Consume fewer natural resources
Reduce CO2 emissions
Lower risk of pollution incidents
Safeguard infrastructure
Conserve landfill space
Green practices ensure that cities will continue to be habitable even as their populations multiply.
MFS Engineers & Surveyors, Waste Management
Waste management policies are a critical factor that can separate an average city from a great one. And, as metropolitans scale, the importance of implementing robust waste management technologies, policies, and infrastructure increases exponentially—it’s the key to making an urban area that’s clean, desirable, and safe for its residents.
At MFS Engineers & Surveyors, waste management is a belief that we both practice and preach. In every job we do, we seek to minimize our waste footprint. Furthermore, our specialists have helped design, develop, and construct green infrastructure projects across New York and New Jersey.
If you’d like to learn more about our waste management practices, contact us today!