Management of Material Waste

This chapter focuses on a vital but neglected field of waste management which is important not only to materials managers but to environmental, economics, and energy-related areas as well. A trilogy of energy, economics, and environment is impacted by efficient and effective waste management. It is also called SOS (surplus-obsolete-scrap) management, an acronym that gives it a sense of urgency and importance. An ideal form of waste management is “not to produce it at all.” However, three words – “reduce, reuse, recycle” – substantially convey the spirit of a well-managed program on material and equipment waste. From a systems perspective, waste may be defined as any “unnecessary input to or undesirable output from a system.” Efficient collection of material waste by insisting on “segregation at source” facilitated by color-coded bins is the starting point of corrective strategies after preventive strategies have been put in place. Waste disposal should be the last priority if reuse, recycle, resale, and return to vendor do not work. Optimal disposal frequency and concept of “economic disposal quantity” and “disposal point” are inventory control issues in reverse gear. Optimal product recovery, reverse logistics, reverse supply chain, and closed-loop supply chain concepts are also briefly introduced in this chapter.