Creating Better ProductsCreating Better Products

Waste management is a phrase used by garbage collectors when they want their jobs to sound a little more glamorous or they need to dress up the job title on their resumes. However, solid waste management is a phrase that is commonly confused with daily refuse collection and the collectors who refer to themselves as waste management. All of this confusion can lead to mishandling of your industrial waste, since you should probably not be putting a lot of stuff out for the city's garbage collector to pick up. Here are the key differences between a city garbage collector and a solid waste management company.

Solid Waste Management

This is the company you call to get dumpsters and roll-off bins from and who comes back to collect and empty your bins on a previously-agreed upon schedule. The bins are assigned different materials. One is usually for cardboard and paper, another is for plastics and another is for scrap metal. A fourth bin is assigned the "don't know" designation when the waste cannot go into the regular city trash pick-up but does not fit into the other three categories of recyclable waste. Waste management in this case refers to the sorting, disposal, and recycling of all excess or leftover materials from your industrial plant.

City Refuse Collection (the Other Waste Management)

Even if you get permission from the city to use large dumpsters and oversized garbage cans for your refuse, your collection days are relatively unaffected. However, you can only put stuff that is absolutely garbage on the curb. The city will not pick up tons of scrap metal, plastics, and cardboard/paper because that is not their duty. They agree to pick up trash only, and may send a commingled recycling truck around. The recycling truck only picks up standard household goods, too, not the kind of solid waste your plant produces.

Ergo, you can take the garbage bags from the bathrooms and the break rooms in the plant and place those curbside, along with milk cartons, paper lunch sacks, etc., and that is acceptable. Everything else has to be managed and handled by a separate, privately-owned and operated waste management business. Additionally, you know exactly when the city picks up your trash and when you need to place it along the curb or side of the road, while you have to arrange pickup service for the dumpsters belonging to the private waste collection companies.

Contact a company like East Coast Engineering Inc  for more information about your waste management options.