Reduce the volume, toxicity or environmental impacts of hazardous materials used at your business by:

• Choosing non-hazardous or less hazardous materials to replace those with higher environmental concerns
• Using recycled products as ingredients rather than new materials
• Managing products carefully to avoid unwanted spills or product waste
  

Examples:

• Replacing an acetone based cleaning product with an aqueous based product that doesn’t evaporate easily
• Instituting good housekeeping practices to spills or leaks
• Carefully managing material with sensitive shelf life to avoid product expiration
• Only ordering materials as truly needed
• Being wary of accepting free samples that may become waste if not used
  
  

Reduce the volume, toxicity or environmental impacts of wastes produced at your business by refining processes to eliminate or reduce the volume of waste produced.

Examples:

• Use rags to clean up spills instead of absorbents (unless absorbents facilitate recycling for that waste)
• Manage materials to prevent or avoid spills that create unnecessary waste and/or lost product (e.g. keep containers closed to avoid spills)
• Provide secondary containment for materials that allows re-capture of any spilled product
  
  

Reuse all or a portion of a wastestream or find a market for the off-site reuse of your waste.

Examples:

• Recycle wood pallets instead of disposing of them
• Recycle packaging material in lieu of disposal
• Recycle wastewater or waste products back into a process when feasible
• Explore whether a waste you produce could serve as a product ingredient for someone else

Treating all or a portion of a wastestream to reduce toxicity or create a recyclable material.

Example:

• Operating on-site solvent recycling units that extract useable solvent from a waste for reuse rather than disposal