Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover 4 R's (2024)

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover
Before terms such as circular economy, Product Stewardship and zero waste became popular, the 4 R's Strategy provided a traditional guideline to understand a whittle down approach to waste minimization.

Providing information about Recycling Fundamentals is a key goal of Waste.netwith a focus on recycled commodity Prices and Market intelligence from over the past few decades.

Technology advancements have enabled the 4 R's Recovery Strategy to develop into default methods to encompass the spectrum for the treatment & handling of waste materials.

The 4 R's Strategy
The 4 R's provides an ecologically sound and environmentally friendly approach to minimizing and managing waste and waste streams.

The 4 R's approach attacks a waste stream in a logical and methodical method by taking steps to sequentially Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recovera waste stream into incremental fractions.

By eliminating the low hanging fruit and then focusing on the balance of the materials you will reduce the problem or challenge, and will be able to apply a suitable solution.

At Waste.net we believe that 100% of the waste stream can be diverted from disposal, the challenge is not technology, it is economic.

The greater the percentage of the waste stream you wish to divert, typically you increase the economic challenge. So you are constantly confronted with a cost justification check and balance.

Waste.net is focused on the development of a sustainable infrastructure based on the economics of markets for recovered materials and by-products.

Reduce
The success of a strategy to reduce waste is largely dependent upon the adoption of a philosophy to embrace Resource Conservation efforts. Accepting responsibility for environmental sustainability in all personal and business aspects of life.

Expanding on the Resource Conservation philosophy we must pursue a design for a recycle strategy, to not only reduce excess or waste in the manufacturing process and packaging but to provide viable product end of life options.

After taking steps to minimize the total waste streams we generate we can address the balance of the materials with a divide and conquer strategy. This will allow us to reduce the challenge into bite size pieces.

The 4 R's Reusereanimationstrategy encompasses the entire spectrum of used goods.Spanning from collectibles, antiques and memorabilia that mainly serve an ornamental purpose to fully functional general used goods.

Secondhand Items
The reuse of secondhand items occurs when an item continues its life with a new owner but still maintains its original use that it was made for.

Repairable
Repairable goods are used items that require some degree of maintenance in order to extend is life as a functional item.

Parts Salvage
The dismantling of reusable parts as a feedstock to supply the repair or remanufacturing sectors.

Generic Components
While dismantling parts you have the opportunity to accumulate generic components. These recovered components are typically referred to as Nuts, Bolts & Screws. This grouping of generic components include a wide range of sizes and shapes of items that may be suitable for any totally unrelated end use.

Remanufacturing
The refurbishing or remanufacturing of items that begin a whole new life cycle.Beyond salvage, and to enhance reuse, the industry includes repair and refurbishing, and remanufacturing. The auto core business is an prime example of a long established supply chain of raw refurbished items for rebuilders.In the future we may see renewed efforts in the design for the repurpose market that support circular economy thinking.

Repurpose
Repurpose or Upcycling of an item by converting into a use unrelated to the items original design purpose. This also starts the item on a new life span.

Surplus Inventory
Surplus Inventory refers to NEW Obsolete Inventory for Liquidation, leftover end or odd lots.An efficient method of returning unproductive inventory into the value chain exists as the Surplus Inventory Market.

Seconds
The seconds market refers to NEW off spec Inventory with minor defects,Seconds or other Surplus Inventory.

Waste Recovery Efforts Overview
The traditional 4 R's Recovery Strategy was typically thought of either as materials recovered by Rendering or as materials to be converted to electricity through Waste to Energy (WTE) Facilities.

Environmental awareness efforts, spawned in the 1960's, gained momentum surrounding the 1970's energy crisis. A general waste recoveryapproach emerged hinging around three main themes
1.) - reduce landfill or disposal
2.) - increase recycled commodities
3.) - produce energy from waste as a fuel

Several schemes where attempted to segregate mixed waste streams at hubs or centers that became known as Resource Recoveryfacilities. The key challenges that where encountered surrounded a lack of a true understanding of the wastestream and its contents. The methods and technologies to handle or separate these streams of materials had not yet been identified or developed and the fundamental economic goals where not firmly established with little or no working knowledge of the markets.

Several decades of innovation, novel ventures and a number of failures have culminated and integrated into todays revived environmental awareness of the need for a sustainable approach to the waste issue.

A "Cherry picking the low hanging fruit" approach may reduce the volume of the problem but does not resolve the issue of how to handle of the rest of the residual wastes.

So here we are, at a destination point staring at the potential Future of waste Recovery

Waste to Energy
Waste to Energy(WTE) also referred to as Energy From Waste (EFW) has been commonly limited to being thought of as the incinerationof solid wastes for the production of electricity.

This legacy, linear thinking approach creates incinerator ashand emits undesirable combustion by-products into the atmosphere.
An more sustainable approach would be needed to become a socially acceptable option, with a method devised to reduce or eliminate the emission issues.

Rendering, Food & Organic Wastes
Traditional recovery efforts have managed to deal with the sanitary requirements of rendering of specific biological wastes and market demands have accommodated the recovery of proteins, but there has always existed the challenge of how to handle wet wastes.

The large volumes of pose a big issue to deal with and there has always existed a struggle with the recovery industry at how to approach this problem.
One approach requires the segregation of the wet wastes into its own stream, separate form other general waste materials.There has always been a desire to provide a simplistic default method for the efficient recovery of all these materials that have been mixed together.

The Decomposition Methods used on organic wastes typically rely on a high degree of quality of source separation of the feedstock inputs. One common method of wet waste treatment is with Anaerobic Digestion (AD) which produces biogasand a solid residue. The solid residue fraction derived from mixed waste feedstocks tends to be poor quality due to the contamination of non-organic materials.
Pyrolysis of biomass traditionally requires a pretreatment stage drying process.

You may wish to consider the Yields produced from Food & Organic Waste or fromBiomass inputs in the Recovery 2.0 approach. The Recovery 2.0 method accommodates mix waste inputs and does not require a predrying stage.

The Future of Waste Recovery
The recovery sector has rapidly expanded its scope to include non-commodity based wastestreams that include residual materials that are difficult to directly segregate and recycle with common mechanical recycling methods.Generally these materials have been the residual by-products that could not otherwise be easily recycled.

The adoption of innovative technologies and methods for Chemical Recyclingand Bio-Refininghave opened the door for the development of the full molecular breakdown and Elemental Regeneration of Multi Matrix Composite Wastes and by-products.

These non-commodity based wastes are reduced to basic elements on a molecular level typically through Thermal Reduction methods. We refer to this approach as

Recovery 2.0

Evolving from the 1970's central resource recovery, developing through curbside and single stream collection into automated MRFs, the waste recovery industry is positioned for significant advancement.

Chemical Recycling
Chemical Recycling is a term commonly used when referring to the particle depolymerization of plastics. The typical application tends to use a hom*ogenous feedstock in order to produce a "high spec" resin output.

This form of Bio-Refining is also referred to as Chemical Recycling by some in the industry involved in the Plastic to Oil production.

Bio-Refining
Refining and Smelting have always been an integral part of a recovery strategy as a method to reclaim or purify contaminated or trace elements containing metals or inert inorganic materials.
Bio-Refiningexpands traditional metal, mineral and petrochemical refining methods and focuses them on the recovery of materials from various wastestreams and in particular hydrocarbon wastes.
Bio-Refining produces a range of BioEnergy Renewables that may be converted into chemicals or fuels.

BioEnergy Renewables
The recovery of BioEnergy Renewables addresses the entire spectrum of organic and hydrocarbon wastes.
There are a number of processes that center around a primary step in the conversion of waste into a Bio Crude product.

Residual Materials
In the quest to achieve environmental sustainability and to keep up with current Residue Generation Trends we strive to develop an innovative and comprehensive waste recovery strategy.
With the continuing evolution of mixed or complex end of life (EOL) products that include Multi Matrix Composite Wastes and by-products, the need to develop a Residual Materials Management program is paramount.
By following a multi-stage process of concentration and selective extraction to pursue the recovery of even trace amounts of desirable or undesirable elements a more circular sustainable environment may be maintained.

Elemental Regeneration
In the future we believe we will see a shift towards partial reduction or full Waste Material Regeneration.The regeneration process is an ultimate recycling solution for materials in any state (solid, liquid or gas), to reduce and separate materials back into basic elements.
The regeneration process allows you to convert materialssuch as waste plastics and segregate them into pure Hydrogen & Carbon, capture carbon dioxide, separate into carbon and oxygen, taking any complex materials and reducing and separating them back into an elemental state.
Waste Material Regeneration Molecular Element Regeneration

Recovery 2.0
As a default to ultimately treat or handle all types of residues, residual materials and Multi Matrix Composite Wastes, the

Recovery 2.0strategy has been developed.