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It is becoming increasingly difficult for waste management organizations to deal with ever-increasing waste due to urbanization and ever-increasing operational costs and restrictions.
FREMONT, CA: The World Bank estimates that around 2 billion tons of municipal solid garbage are created annually across the globe. With the worldwide population expected to quadruple by 2050, global garbage production could reach 3.40 billion tons. Environmental services providers face a formidable obstacle in managing this garbage from collection to disposal.
The only meaningful solution is to prevent the trash from being produced in the first place, or if that is not possible, to recycle it to promote a circular economy. Companies that manage trash should update their processes and technology infrastructure to become more effective and competitive, minimizing, reusing, and recycling garbage to the greatest extent possible.
Sustainability: Implement a circular economy for sustainability
As environmental services firms grow more responsible and sustainable, they should view waste management as a last resort after doing everything necessary to avoid garbage from ending up in landfills. First, they can be innovative in reprocessing waste materials using the appropriate technology and methods to enhance source segregation.
An Australian company, for instance, has developed a method to extract elements from wasted printer cartridges and soft plastics, combine them with recycled glass and asphalt, and make high-quality road surfaces that last 65 percent longer than conventional asphalt. Then there is a Canadian waste management company that has developed a technique that can economically extract carbon from non-recyclable and non-compostable waste and turn it into gas that can be utilized to produce biofuels and chemicals for everyday products.
Many businesses turn the part of the waste that inevitably ends up in landfills into biogas and energy. Three decades ago, the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority in Pennsylvania began using waste to generate electricity. Additionally, the process converts garbage to ash, lowering its volume by 90 percent to significantly conserve landfill space. Such 'energy-as-a-service' capabilities will be essential for waste management firms to open up new revenue streams and extract more value from the garbage.
Efficacy: Modernize off-field operations
Even when waste management firms embrace cutting-edge technologies in the field, they must prepare their personnel and optimize their operations to maximize the return on their investments. Modernizing processes, technology stacks, and legacy infrastructure can help these organizations to become much more agile and responsive, which are essential characteristics in the modern business environment. To use next-generation cloud platforms, edge computing, devops, and real-time enterprise-wide optimizations, waste management organizations must migrate more workloads to the cloud.
Everything from automating operations to gaining access to analytics can increase productivity and reduce expenses. People are liberated to focus on jobs requiring more thought and less action and are empowered to make the appropriate decisions based on a deeper grasp of data and critical insights; this is the optimization of the core business function through implementing innovative solutions. Automation can also play a significant role in enhancing compliance reporting and reducing the cost of customer care.
Implementing fundamental modifications to technology stacks and their underlying infrastructure to increase their modularity and adaptability is an essential item on the modernization checklist. A modern technology stack that can interface with several platforms can make the entire organization more adaptable and receptive to shifting circumstances, requirements, and expectations. The evaluation of existing systems, digital maturity, and business objectives, along with the appropriate modernization framework, can help businesses decrease project costs and timetables and mitigate modernization risks and assure business continuity.
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