ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

Nesting Boxes

Our Saugus Nesting Box Initiative, which we manage in partnership with Saugus Public Schools, provides natural habitat for bird species that feed on nuisance and potentially harmful insects — especially mosquitoes, which can transmit diseases such as West Nile Virus. Saugus senior citizens and Lynn Vocational Technical Institute students build the boxes and Saugus Senior Center participants decorate them. Saugus High School students install the boxes.

Being a responsible steward of the environment is fundamental to WIN Waste’s commitment to perform for the planet, and our sustainable management of waste and recycling is only a part of that commitment. We engage in ecosystem restoration, biodiversity support, and environmental awareness and education in our local communities. Here are some examples of these efforts.

WATER & WASTE TREATMENT

WIN adheres to all local, state, and federal regulations on the treatment and discharge of water from our operations and sites, including but not limited to cooling water, stormwater, groundwater, spills, leaks, and leachate. We also monitor our water consumption and strive to reduce it whenever possible.

Beyond operational resource efficiency, WIN Waste aims to reduce waste generation through our operations. We strive to manage the waste we collect in the most sustainable manner possible. By recycling and recovering precious resources from the waste stream, we reduce consumption of our planet’s limited natural resources. Our sustainable approach to end-of-life waste management includes the production of renewable energy, which helps reduce fossil fuel dependency. This supports sustainable materials management as defined by the EPA.

Wildlife Sanctuaries

WIN Waste manages several wildlife sanctuaries that are certified through the Wildlife Habitat Council. The sanctuaries provide enhanced wildlife benefits and increase public access to vanishing habitats.

Pollination Programs

Pollination is a critical component of a healthy ecosystem. Without pollination, many plants cannot grow effectively or produce the food needed to meet regional and global demand. Healthy plants also help purify water and sequester carbon. Certain species play a critical role in pollination, including birds, bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, and small mammals. WIN Waste manages programs to foster and boost the populations of such species to help pollination happen. We have more than 20 beehives at our Shrewsbury, Putnam, and Saugus, Massachusetts, monofills, and our wildlife sanctuaries produce two harvests of honey annually. Our two pollination gardens help foster local butterfly populations.

Salt Marsh Preservation

WIN Waste is a founding member of the Salt Marsh Adaptation & Resiliency Teams (SMARTeams) initiative, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service collaboration that helps preserve salt marsh ecosystems on the East Coast. Salt marshes are critical ecosystems that help preserve biodiversity and are home to several keystone species. What’s more, salt marshes store and sequester blue carbon, the atmospheric carbon captured and stored by the ocean in various ecosystems and organisms. Salt marsh plants can sequester blue carbon in their roots for long periods — often thousands of years or more — which means less carbon entering the atmosphere. In fact, compared to forests, salt marshes have a 10 times greater capacity to absorb and store carbon.

Salt marshes also help filter pollutants and excess nutrients, and they buffer against erosion and flooding. They are nursery habitat for fisheries and serve as a bountiful stopover for migratory birds.

But salt marshes are in trouble. Colonial-era agricultural practices combined with modern development and rising sea levels have eroded them, reducing their ability to provide these critical ecosystems services.

The SMARTeams initiative aims to mitigate the erosion and degradation of salt marshes and restore them to their fullest potential.

Find out more about how salt marshes work and why their preservation is so critical in the UMass report “How a Massachusetts Salt Marsh Is Changing What We Know About New England’s Coast.” winwins.co/UMassReport

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

WIN Waste recognizes that addressing climate change is a global priority that requires mobilization of resources at all levels as well as cooperation with stakeholders in the private and public policy sectors globally.

WIN Waste’s diverse responsible waste management solutions portfolio focuses on recovering as many renewable attributes from the waste stream as possible to support a sustainable materials strategy. We also use railways to transport freight. Rail is more fuel-efficient, it prevents damage to highway infrastructure, it reduces air pollution, and it produces 75% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than trucks on the road.

In addition to our sustainable service offerings, we want to reduce our own environmental impact. We have committed to identify and measure Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions.

Emission sources

- Waste processing

- Fuel consumption

- Fugitive emissions

- Electricity consumption

Emission avoidance

+ Recycling

+ Landfill diversion

+ Green energy generation

+ Vehicle mile reduction

+ Low-carbon rail