New York WasteMatch Materials Exchange
by TreeHugger on 11.30.04
What to do with a massive pile of cardboard boxes you’ve got lying around at work? If you’re in New York and the nearest child isn’t interested in building a spaceship or fort, put your waste up on WasteMatch’s materials exchange and someone out there is bound to have a use for it. WasteMatch works with businesses, non-profits, and government agencies to reduce solid waste by turning one company’s trash into another’s treasure. It’s a bit like eBay, and...
...many of the items are listed free so they only cost what it takes to pick them up. They’ve got everything from these aluminum kegs to a kick press – we don’t know what that one does, but we’re sure someone will be thrilled to find it. Think it’s too much effort for a company to bother listing what they’d normally chuck in the bin? Keep in mind that it often costs quite a bit to dispose of materials: WasteMatch’s slogan is “out of your dumpster, onto your bottom line.” Via Core77 ::NY WasteMatch [by KK]
There are programs like this in many areas of North America. They have been successful in Canada for over a decade. My favorite example is a company who made products from eggs and were paying to have the shells hauled away and disposed of. Meanwhile, a company only a few miles away, which made pet-food, was paying to have calcium hauled in (prevelant in egg shells). They found out about each other through a program like this and not only did each save money, they both reduced the necessity for long-distance trucking.