Early in my career I was charged with cleaning up the waste water effluent from the paper mill. It was pretty heavy from cellulose (wood) fibers but we had trouble disposing of it because there were some heavy metals included: zinc, manganese, etc. Aha! If we put the dewatered sludge in a tablet press, maybe we could sell the stuff as a vitamin supplement. Not only would have some of the same stuff as multivitamins but it would have fiber and be good for the digestion...well, that was at least the crazy thought at the time.
In a recent Fast Company article, a food processing company is doing something similar. Instead putting the peels, rinds, etc into a landfill, Baldor is reusing the 'waste' as gluten-free croutons, tea infusion aids and so on. They say carrot peelings can be reformulated and sold for thirty cents per pound; instead of spending money to truck the waste, they're selling it because it's now beneficial.
Waste plastic has been reformed into furniture. And there are a hundred other ideas out there.
Are you still throwing stuff away? What's the value and can you make money off of it?
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