Waste Is not a Waste—It’s Time to Realize

Abstract

In the modern world, managing the waste is a crucial challenge for most organizations. Some organizations dispose waste as their main objective, but they ignore to see the value in it. This paper explains the views of Divi’s Laboratories Limited (Divis) on waste, i.e., it is a profit-making byproduct. It implies that Divis looks waste as a valuable byproduct and follows the concept of byproduct value recovery management. Waste is nothing but a useful byproduct, which is further managed (6R’s strategy) through value additions at the same time ensuring less impact on environment, improved occupational health and safety, conservation of natural resources, sustainable livelihood, and carbon footprint reduction. Some value recovery management strategies that are being practiced in Divis are elaborated in this paper. The byproducts which can’t be managed or used within Divis directly due to several reasons like contamination, impurities, and safety concerns are considered as waste. Waste which can add some value to Divis or to other recipient industries with less impact on EH&S is considered as value attaining waste. The waste which can’t add value to Divis and to other recipient industries is considered as real waste, and it is managed through safe, eco-friendly waste management system. The practices that are being followed at Divis by using different strategies, techniques and by fulfilling the compliance obligations for waste management are deemed as safe disposal management.