Designing a waste management program requires much more than simply placing bins and hoping the public uses them correctly. For architects and designers, integrating a seamless recycling and waste system into your building design is essential—but it can also be challenging. To help streamline the process, we’ve compiled the 10 best resources to guide you in implementing an efficient and effective recycling and waste management program for your next project.
As architects, you invest considerable effort into perfecting your designs, so it’s easy to overlook the importance of waste management. However, effective waste management is critical for the functionality and sustainability of any commercial or residential space. You’re likely already familiar with key industry phrases like standardizing programs, increasing recycling stations, and reducing contamination—all strategies aimed at improving diversion rates and lowering facility costs. While these methods are well-established, executing them successfully requires a thoughtful and comprehensive approach—and that’s where you can make a significant impact.
At Busch Systems, we’ve curated a list of essential resources to help you design and implement a top-tier recycling and waste management system. Even better, they’re all available for free!
The 10 Resources for Designing an Exceptional Waste Management Program:
1. Designing for Better Waste Management
So why is it so important to spend time considering waste management in your designs? This blog perfectly sums up the current problems with waste management in buildings and will inspire you to change the way buildings operate to have a major impact on the environment.
2. Architects Change Recycling Habits with Design
This article explains the ongoing study in which the designers of a university campus building developed a waste management program that has been diverting more waste than other buildings on campus. Their design has so far impacted the behavior of visitors, encouraging them to properly recycle. The article outlines a few key elements of design that have helped encourage waste diversion and explains plans to further the research.
3. Sustainable Architecture: Going Zero-Waste in Modern Construction
This article discusses the zero-waste movement in construction, highlighting its benefits for sustainability and eco-friendliness. It contrasts current wasteful practices with zero-waste principles, which focus on resource conservation and recycling. The article also provides practical steps for implementing these principles in construction projects
4. Zero Waste in Architecture: Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
This resource takes a deeper dive into reuse by highlighting the importance of flexibility and material reuse in sustainable construction. It emphasizes how adaptable designs and reusing materials can reduce environmental impact and promote a circular economy.
5. Understanding Zero Waste Design: A Guide for Building Professionals
This guide explains zero waste design, which focuses on minimizing waste through resource efficiency and recycling. It highlights the benefits of this approach, including reduced environmental impact and lower waste management costs. Key principles include waste prevention, adaptability, and lifecycle thinking.
6. Designing Out Waste: A Design Team Guide for Buildings
This document is a resourceful guide that introduces the need for waste minimization in design and provides a number of tips to help you with your next building. We recommend checking this one out as it follows 5 key principles to reducing waste while providing detailed solutions to improve the design of waste management in buildings.
7. Designing a Trash-Free Future
This short article explains some of New York City’s plan to reach their zero waste goals by tacking ways to reduce waste in different types of buildings within the city. This is a great initiative and something all architects working on city projects should consider in their plans to reduce waste through design.
This paper expands beyond waste management in single buildings and views it from a larger picture. It outlines a number of reasons why urban areas need more waste management solutions and can help spark some creativity in your future designs that will benefit our planet by encouraging waste minimization in communities.
9. Solid Waste Management Architecture using Wireless Sensor Network technology
This report explains a creative technological solution to making waste management easier within a facility. This is a popular idea that many architects have been exploring in order to find new ways to provide smart and simple waste management solutions in buildings. Check out this article to generate some of your own ideas for the future of recycling.
10. Architizer: 7 Projects Utilizing Recycled Forms and Salvaged Designs
Building off of some of the principles from the article above, this blog is intended to help generate creativity for your next project. Take a look at these 7 prime examples of recycled materials in architecture around the world.
And there you have it! Plenty of resources to get your journey to sustainable waste management started. We’ll continue to update this page as we see more great information come down the pipe. And again, if you think we’ve missed some more resources, feel free to comment below.
