Energy/Sustainability/Waste Reduction

Environmental Health & Safety

Environmental

Course Description

Consists of a combination of lecture and course activities designed to reinforce the concept of solid waste management within an organization. This course is especially useful for companies wishing to work towards the worthwhile goal of being zero landfill through pursuing waste prevention, refuse, reuse, reduce, recycling, and even energy recovery within their organization. Since zero waste supports sustainability, this course has an emphasis on waste prevention, doing more with less - refusing extra materials in products and processes, focusing on renewable resources, defining economic success as delivering more services with fewer energy and material resources, and moving from a linear consumption-driven economy to a cyclical service-oriented economy.

 

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course a student will be able to:

1. Understand solid waste streams.
2. Identify methods that can be implemented to reduce material use and the resulting solid waste.
3. Identify strategies for incorporating material and solid waste reduction into an overall sustainability approach. 

Course Outline

1. Solid Waste Management Background
2. Zero Landfill principles
3. Overview of the 4Rs (Refuse, Reuse, Reduce, Recycling)
4. Energy Recovery Principles
5. Finding Alternatives to Landfilling
6. Renewables
7. Workshop activities of identifying and segregating different types of Solid Waste