Here at DEX, we highly value the effective management of reduction of waste. To put it simply, we hate waste because it affects our operational efficiency and impacts both our cost and bottom line. That’s why we work in every way possible to reduce waste in our operations and our products help reduce waste generated by society in its everyday consumption. Waste Management Concepts The waste hierarchy has taken many forms over the past decade but the basic concept has remained the cornerstone of most waste minimization strategies. At DEX, we conduct ourselves according to the below graphic illustration, which outlines the positive impact created through waste management systems operating in society.   Want to learn more about the waste management illustration? Check out these definitions for each term: Avoid. To buy less and use less. Incorporates common sense ideas like turning off the lights, rain barrels and taking shorter showers, using low flow toilets and carpooling. Reuse. Elements of the discarded item are used again. How about reuse of all those glass bottles? Recycle. Discards are separated into materials that may be incorporated into new products. This is different from reuse in that energy is used to change the physical properties of the material. Waste to Energy. Capturing useful material for waste to energy programs like methane collection, gasification and digestion and the recovery. Dispose. Incineration or the use of landfills where items are discarded into the natural environment. The DEX Process The nature of our process fits in the top tiers of the pyramid in a reuse-recycle capacity. We simply crush the post consumer and post industrial glass and incorporate it into our products. So, in effect, we change the shape of the product and not the physical properties of the material itself. The glass already embodies the characteristics we need for our products, so all we have to do is smash it a bit and throw it in our mixer. Consider the contrast of this process with other methods of recycling glass, which include remelting at high temperatures and remanufacturing it into items like fiberglass. While these methods reduce use of landfills, they require use of other high energy processes and much higher levels of logistical transportation. We can also source all the glass we need to produce quality products within a few miles of our factory, which is a major score for DEXterra, our glass terrazzo material and why we say DEX products are “as green as it gets!”