One Person's Trash: Turning FM's Waste Problem Into a Profitable Environmental Solution

Tim Ballard | On behalf of the Environmental & Sustainability Committee, ConnexFM

Trash. It's something we all interact with on a daily basis, but the focus on what to do with it and where it goes is surprisingly niche. Yet there isn't a single creature, person, or industry on Earth that isn't affected by this circular use of resources, and day after day, more resources fall unnoticed out of the circle and into a landfill.

For many professionals in FM, waste management has already reached an unsustainable threshold. Not just environmentally, but from a business perspective, too. Waste expenses are rising, storage space is at a premium, and reusable materials used throughout facilities upkeep and operations too often end up in a garbage heap. Some of the raw materials we rely on today could become increasingly scarce within our lifetimes.

The environmental crisis aside, this problem has the potential to do serious harm to the world of FM (and the world in general). But as the old saying goes, “One person's trash is another person's profitable bottom line.” Let's take a look at how we can overcome the challenge through a little innovation and the power of modern technology.

Like with any good challenge, there are ambitious minds working to chart a course through it. Waste and circulatory-conscious professionals from every corner of the industry are coming up with ideas to raise awareness among FM professionals and present solutions on how to address the future of facility waste management. Some of these individuals are even finding ways to turn an environmentally noble cause into something of a business cost-saver, even a profitable endeavor. We spoke with several of these like-minded individuals, who each brought a different angle to the table.

The Resource Shortage Angle

Scarcity has always been a boogeyman lurking in the closet for anyone who has gone through a supply shortage. Jim Owens, President of Marrad, and a subject-matter expert on sustainable materials management, was one of the first to highlight what even minor resource shortages can do to cause downtime and drive up expenditures. The current model of acquiring supplies to service and support facilities without accountability for what happens when you're finished using them, or how you will replace them, is absolutely unsustainable. Research data from organizations like the International Energy Agency (IEA) illustrate that crucial materials in the production of certain types of plastics, alloys, and liquids may see heavy cost increases over the next several decades.

Jim Owens

President, Marrad

The Chino Open-Pit Copper Mine in New Mexico, which is facing increasing resource and environmental pressures from consumption and new regulations, impacting primary consumers in facilities management.

We're not saying that we're running out of raw materials, but according to the IEA's 2026 Global Critical Minerals Outlook, projected supply deficits for copper and lithium are expected to persist through 2035, with copper alone facing a projected 25% shortfall. In other words, several everyday reusable and recyclable materials that have found their way to the bottom of a landfill could be worth their weight in gold sooner than the environmental consequences of wasting them ever become apparent.

So how do we confront the resource shortage angle with the realization that scrap metal, pallets, and plastic wrap are becoming hot commodities? Jim shared that separating waste into categories, and then deciding what's not actually waste, is a great place to start. We're not necessarily talking about separating your plastics and metals, but rather about tracking the distinction between waste types, for example:

• Unsalvageable Garbage: Organic refuse, chemicals, and non-recyclable items.

• Recyclable Materials: Worn-out cardboard, metals, and recyclable plastics.

• Reusable Materials: Cardboard and plastic pallets and containers, etc., that have only been used once or twice.

  
  

A lot of people only see a single distinction between recyclable and non-recyclable, but Jim was quick to point out not to make the error of confusing reusable with recyclable. Even though they seem similar, recyclable items need to typically be sent away and broken down to be repurposed. Reusable items open up an entirely different opportunity, though. These are items like pallets, durable packaging, and single-use resources that have the potential to be used several times, like cardboard boxes, but often get relegated to one use before they're chucked. If invested in for quality, an organization can cut back on the amount of waste produced through replacement, often saving you more money long after the initial investment.

The Financial Angle

This brings us to our next point and topic: economic realities and potential gains of going from a trash problem to a cash solution. We spoke with Mark Wagner, the Founder and VP of Pack-A-Drum, as well as Josh Witte, Director of Energy and Sustainability with Dollar Tree, both of whom are experienced experts on sustainability in waste management operations for business, and both of whom shared an interesting and encouraging approach to waste circulation.

Josh Witte

Director of Energy, Sustainability, and ESG

Dollar Tree

Think about the idea of sustainability for a moment. A lot of people focus on sustainability as how long something can hold out - a business strategy, relationships, the environment, your resources. Josh and Mark both felt to some degree that this was a reactive approach. Something else they both shared, though, was that a truly successful strategy has to be proactive. People need something to fuel their ability to sustain something because without the right fuel, be it tangible or ideological, even the best-intended goals like reducing excess waste and empowering reusability will begin to falter.

After China tightened regulations in 2021 for what it would import as a third-party buyer of unprocessed recycling, other avenues like domestic mills in the U.S. and countries like India and Mexico became key third-party buyers to incentivize selling FM recycling.

So what was our experts' approach to this? Incentivize. Make your waste save you money, or better yet, become a source of revenue unto itself. Josh mentioned that most people won't become wealthy through reduction and tracking of waste, but once you realize what is reusable, recyclable, and the value of both, you begin to decrease your expenses for one of the largest profit drains in many industries. Some organizations, especially smaller ones, can start to see impactful changes in overall operational expenses within a month once they begin to track the data and build a solid strategy and guidelines around identifying tiers of waste. Items that are one-use, multiple use, or can be shipped off to a third-party recycler will save you more than a few pennies and give you much more than just something to feel good about.

"Waste doesn't have to be an unavoidable expense; it can be tapped into as a benefit." -- Josh Witte

Likewise, Mark Wagner provided some of his own insights from a deep personal experience, "Being wasteful about trash". He recognized that when landfills charge by space rather than weight, and trash receptacles often have gaps and unpacked refuse in bags, you end up spending multiplicatively on "trash space" you didn't even use when handed off to the landfills. Mark's solution? He made an entire career out of it, by creating tools to compact trash and recyclables at the smallest level, so that even small organizations can get three, four, or five times as much trash removed for the cost of one dump. Again, tracking not only your trash amount, but how you are condensing and organizing it, is a major factor in reducing costs in a trash game that is stacked against you when it's time to hand it off to a private removal company. Data is crucial for this.

The Data Angle

This brings us to perhaps the most important angle of all, the lynchpin that brings it all together, and empowers you and your team to save the environment, save resources, save money, and potentially profit.

Ian Cameron, Chief Innovation Officer of OSCRE International, proposes that knowing is half the battle when it comes to understanding how to build a real strategy for efficient waste and circulatory operations in a facility. We spoke to him about how his team, as well as several others in the tech industry, have developed advanced data tracking and planning tools applicable to people in industries such as real estate and commercial and industrial facilities management.

These tools aren't just there to count trash and document work orders, but are tailored to track waste and expenditure in everything from water and power 'waste' to physical refuse that can be separated, logged, and sent to be repurposed or removed in the most optimal, most cost-effective way possible. With the advent of AI technology and other smart tools that can be molded to carry out specific tasks, and even subtasks in waste, Ian felt that we couldn't have reached a better time for these tools to become available with the looming necessity for crucial data tracking for waste and circulatory management, which, as it stands, is on FM's doorstep.

Ian explained that data tracking does more than drive organization. It gives us a way to adhere to new regulations, keep up with reporting required by the government, plan realistic long-term strategies, and really take hold of how to approach something that's growing at a rate some FM's might not be prepared for.

“Data can be overwhelming, so the first question to ask yourself is how do you get better at managing the data?” -- Ian Cameron

Once you have a system to manage the data, you'll be able to use the data to manage your waste.

Keep in mind that the trash and recycling conversation has been going on for decades, with environmental impacts and implications often citing how it will affect future generations. It's a battle, and one with no clear direction on if it's being won or lost. One thing is for certain, though: waste management is something that is starting to greatly affect FM professionals right now, and you have a chance to use this information and modern tools and strategies to stem the flow of garbage before it stems the flow of you and your team.

The ConnexFM Environmental & Sustainability Committee will be discussing how we approach circulatory & waste through strategies and data during the 2026 Mid-Year Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. We hope you'll join us as we continue the discussion there. Learn more about the conference at https://www.midyearconnexfm.com/roundtables.