Three Rs of sustainable material management

Citation

Yadav, S.S. and Shankar, R. (2015), "Three Rs of sustainable material management", Journal of Advances in Management Research, Vol. 12 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAMR-05-2015-0032

Three Rs of sustainable material management

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Advances in Management Research, Volume 12, Issue 2.

There is a great need to ponder over whether we, human beings, can lead a reasonably comfortable life by using resources optimally. The world over, environmental protection and sustainability have been buzzwords for quite some time, and rightly so. Hitherto, the economic development, especially in the industrialized world, has been happening with little attention to sustainability. Now, the developing world is aspiring to catch up to have the luxuries of life that developed world has enjoyed for long. Why not?

One of the obvious consequences of development process has been to use more and more the goods manufactured in factories and discard them after use. The discarded products are what we refer to as “waste.” One of the ways to manage the waste has been to dispose it through landfills. When cities were small and the waste to be disposed off was in small quantities, landfills were an easy solution. But, as the urbanization is gathering momentum and waste generation is increasing with an accelerated pace, landfills are becoming more and more difficult. Every city easily generates several million tons of waste. Land is becoming scarce for residential, commercial and industrial use. The added requirement for waste disposal aggravates this problem.

The time has come when individuals as consumers, industry as producer of goods and state as regulator have to work together on a strategy of three Rs, that is, to reduce, to reuse and to recycle.

How can we reduce waste? This requires a behavioral shift in our consumption pattern. Can we, as individuals, think of buying goods that we need, in the right quantity? Yes, it should be possible. This would create a virtuous cycle. If we use and purchase only what we need, it will require less production of goods, less extraction of resources from the nature, less shipping of materials and less waste disposal. Most of us who keep upgrading too frequently our electronic gadgets such as computers and phones, possibly waste natural resources used for their manufacture. We can do businesses with minimum packaging. Plastic wrappers, plastic bags and plastic boxes can be avoided. Instead, shopping bags, made of cloths or biodegradable material, can be used. Buying high-quality items, which last much longer than low-quality ones can reduce production of waste. Low-quality items have to be replaced more frequently and, thus, generate more waste.

How can we think of reusing materials? We tend to think that something that has been with us for quite some time is worn out and, therefore, ugly or unusable. There is a need to rethink! We can find ways to reuse many things that we are ready to throw as trash. Needless to say, reusing of products helps conserve natural resources and save money, which can be spent on something more useful. It would be a good idea to buy beverages in bottles that can be returned and recycled after consuming the liquid inside. It takes several thousand years for a glass bottle to decompose in a natural process! So, reuse reduces pressure on environment. We can give away old furniture to people in need and charitable organizations. The paper sheets that have been used on one side can be reused on the other side before discarding. Old towels and clothes can be cut into pieces and reused as dusters.

Third R, that is, recycling refers to a process that takes a used material, remanufactures and sells it as a new product. Manufacturing industry has a significant role to play in this respect. A whole new set of industry may come up, which creates products out of materials that have already been once used. Recycling can, perhaps, create more jobs than land filling. Recycling has to be compared with land filling: it may be more cost-effective and environment-friendly. Since it saves natural resources and energy, it contributes to sustainability efforts. Individual consumers need to be made aware of benefits of using products created through recycling process and encouraged to buy such products.

Three Rs – reduce, reuse and recycle – are the way forward to manage material effectively for sustainable development.

These thoughts are presented here to stimulate thinking of researchers to engage in empirical work or mathematical modeling on these issues and consequently publish the outcome in research journals like JAMR.

Surendra S. Yadav and Ravi Shankar