Shopping frenzy – gifts, decorations, Christmas trees – is something that has become almost a compulsory element of the pre-Christmas period. Today Christmas is a highly commercialized holiday, which results, among other things, in the increased production of waste.
This contributes to the aggravation of negative climate change. Water levels are rising, temperatures are getting higher, species are dying out and the ecosystem is collapsing.
Scientists have long been looking for an answer to the question: what is the best remedy? What preventive measures should be taken?
Waste – Where And How?
We can distinguish 8 types of waste:
- overproduction, excessive production,
- excessive inventory,
- errors and quality defects,
- pauses in production, waiting process,
- excessive processing,
- unnecessary transport,
- unnecessary movement,
- unused potential of employees.
Waste occurs in virtually all parts within the supply chain – in production, storage, logistics, sales, and also at consumers. Is there any way to fix this?
The Solution May Be Ecologistics
Ecologistics is also called green logistics (ang. Greenlogistics), but you can meet with the term reverse logistics. It can be defined in many ways. In a way, as the name suggests, it is a sub-area of logistics focused on ecology. It covers all activities in the enterprise related to the collection, flow, recycling and disposal of waste in the least environmentally harmful way.
Ecology is not only processes taking place in enterprises, but also activities on a much larger scale. It is both the management of waste that has already been created, but also preventive measures. The scope of these activities also includes: educating the public on ecology and proper management, organizing non-standard waste collection or special disposal of hazardous materials.
What About This Climate?
Initially, ecology only dealt with research, but with the growing awareness of the public, it also began to provide solutions in the field of waste optimization.
Reports on the state of the environment, prepared by specialized organizations, leave no doubt – we are dealing with an environmental crisis. The “State of Global Climate 2020” report prepared by WMO shows that there is something to be afraid of. Sea levels are rising, temperatures are rising and carbon dioxide levels are rising dramatically. There are many reasons, and one of them is the constantly growing unnecessary waste production.
Conscious Management
Ecology is the first action, but prevention is equally important, i.e. preventing the excessive amounts of waste.
Christmas is the perfect time to think about it. Consumers buy goods that are often wasted. This applies to both food and, for example, missed gifts.
According to the report of the Federation of Polish Food Banks, in 2020 as many as 53.75% of Poles admit to throwing away food, most of which concerns throwing away ready, unused meals. Increased consumption also results in an increase in the waste generation (e.g. gift packaging).
Thanks to education and social campaigns in which more and more corporations are involved, the awareness of society, the willingness to expand knowledge and implement appropriate activities in the field of ecology, increases. But the question is: what can companies do to reduce the amount of loss and waste upstream in the supply chain?
Appropriate Parameters
At the beginning, it would be advisable to focus on the causes of such a large amount of unnecessary waste in the production, storage, delivery and sales phase.
The solution can be very simple – products monitoring that can cover both temperature and humidity at each stage of production and storage.
Thanks to this, entrepreneurs will be sure that the goods are maintained in appropriate conditions, and the system will notify them immediately of a significant change in parameters via alerts in the application.
This gives enterprises the opportunity to pursue two goals in the field of ecology at the same time – economic and ecological. It all comes down to reducing the costs associated with the product and its production, while the latter contributes to the protection of the environment. – adds Daria Roszczyk-Krowicka.
What the Future Holds for Poland?
Poland is on the right track towards ecologically mature production management. Trends are constantly changing, but at this stage one of the most important steps for entrepreneurs is the implementation of solutions that will bring benefits in the future in the form of savings, better image, optimized supply chain and, above all, reduction of unnecessary waste.
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