The COP21 climate change conference is currently in progress.  While the major focus of climate change is around the use of fossil fuels there are other aspects that are drivers of climate change. One of these is waste.

Ecotech Services is working towards zero e-waste to landfill and takes all practicable steps in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the process.  We have a range of environmental policies in place to minimise waste and to minimise greenhouse gas emissions from our day to day operations.

In addition to these in-house measures the work that we do in repairing, refurbishing, and recycling various products leads to a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.  Repairing and refurbishing means that the embodied energy (that which has been used to produce and transport the item) is used over a longer period of time.  Recycling, one of the other areas in which we work, is virtually always a better option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Due predominantly to the complexities of supply chains, doing emissions calculations for the work done by Ecotech Services is a difficult exercise.  The New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990-2013 shows that emissions from waste itself has remained fairly constant over a thirteen year period, and in 2013 were 6.2% of total emissions.  Of that 96.4% were from landfill methane emissions.

Landfill methane emissions are created by the break down of organic material.  Since Ecotech Services generally only disposes of inert materials such as plastics, glass, and rubber rather than organic material, the climate change footprint of our waste disposal is very low.  Additionally, the plastics going to landfill (which are problematic in terms of recycling) can be considered to be carbon sequestration.