February 11th, 2008

Eco-Smart Product Stewardship

Posted by Jason Pelletier, Low Impact Living

One topic we’re thinking a lot about these days at Low Impact Living is the topic of product stewardship. One part of being smart environmentally-conscious consumers is to think about how goods are made, where they come from, how they get to us, and how we consume and dispose of those products.  Digging into the is often not easy and takes some research and extra awareness.

Our friends at Earth911.org have done an excellent feature on the topic of Product Stewardship.We invite you to review it. They discuss the issues of product lifecycle, supply chains, and the roles governments, retailers and consumers play in the product stewardship cycle.  We all need to think more about how we can support products that are locally manufactured, made of recycled, sustainable and non-toxic materials, and finally close the loop by disposing of/recycling products appropriately at the end of their useful life. Product stewardship covers all of these steps of the consumption chain.

Another excellent resources on this topic is the Product Stewardship Institute. The PSI works with state and local government agencies to partner with manufacturers, retailers, environmental groups, federal agencies, and other key stakeholders to reduce the health and environmental impacts of consumer products.  They are currently working in such diverse product categories as carpeting, fluorescent lighting, medical waste, paint, phone books, and tires.

To give you an example of how important these issues are, the PSI estimates that approximately 2.7 million tons of carpet and rugs are disposed of annually, representing about 1.2 percent of the municipal solid waste stream in the US.  There are also over 300 million scrap tires generated every year!  The PSI works with industry and government to help create new uses for these waste streams…and/or to re-engineer products at the front end of the supply chain to reduce wasted later on.

Tune back into the Low Down later this week when we will cover product stewardship as it relates to clothing production.

Popularity: 1% [?]