Buying “green”
More than ever, PSEG is focusing on environmentally preferred purchasing of green products, encouraging the use of recycled office supplies and spurring vendors to expand their offerings of recycled products.

Generating less waste PSEG operates a clearinghouse to redeploy excess but usable items throughout its organization, return them to vendors or sell them to other businesses. PSEG also extends the useful life of items such as computer equipment and office furniture, often donating them to non-profit organizations. Since 1997, PSEG has donated over 7,800 computer systems as part of more than 600 donations to qualified organizations. In 2007 alone, PSEG prevented more than 219,000 pounds of electronics from entering the waste stream by donating, recycling, selling or redeploying the equipment.		Children in the afterschool program at the N.J. Tae Kwon Do for Youth Foundation in Jersey City use refurbished computers donated by PSEG. See the PSEG 2007 Environmental Leadership Report.

A premier recycler
Recycling is the foundation of PSEG’s resource management program. For over a decade, PSEG has recycled or reused over 90 percent of all non-hazardous solid wastes generated, not just recyclables. PSEG accomplished this by first maximizing recycling of all commodities for which there is a ready market. Some of PSEG’s recycling is coordinated through and occurs at its Paulsboro Resource Recovery Center, and the company has recently expanded its source separation recycling programs at several of its facilities. PSEG is an award-winning member of the the EPA's WasteWise program, which helps businesses preserve resources by preventing waste. 

PSEG removed and recycled 464 pounds of mercury and 822 pounds of lead through the removal and recycling of mercury containing equipment such as thermostats, gas regulators, street and fluorescent lamps, and lead-containing, surplus computers and cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors. (See PSEG on the 2008 National Partnership for Environmental Priorities (NPEP) Award Recipients).

Finding creative reuses PSEG has utilized existing markets and established new markets for items, such as plastic gas pipe and cable sheathing. With persistence and creativity, PSEG has found uses for dozens of “waste items.” High-density polyethylene plastic pipe scraps are gathered and recycled. Fly ash, a by-product of coal combustion, is used as a raw feedstock in cement and a soil replacement in land reclamation. Bottom ash is used as an aggregate and to produce blasting grit and shingles.			The Bayonne Golf Club is built on recycled fly ash from PSEG. To learn more, read the PSEG 2007 Environmental Leadership Report.

Generating less hazardous waste
By 2007, annual hazardous waste production from PSEG’s New Jersey facilities (and its New York facilities beginning in 2002) dropped to less than 25 tons per year, from 1,460 tons per year in 1992. This dramatic improvement is the result of prudent management and segregation of hazardous materials, finding uses for surplus materials, removing hazardous components before disposal and through product substitution.

Targeting heavy metals
As a partner in the U.S. EPA’s National Partnership for Environmental Priorities, PSEG is working with other corporations to reduce the use of 31 priority chemicals, including mercury and heavy metals, through non-toxic product substitution.  

Leading the way on CFL disposal
As more consumers begin use energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs, they’ll need to properly dispose of these bulbs, which contain a small amount of mercury. With the NJDEP, county household hazardous waste coordinators, manufacturers and retailers, we’re promoting safe, convenient ways to recycle CFLs.  >> 

A better bottom line
In addition to recycling, PSEG reduces its waste stream by selling unneeded items for reuse.  Each year, PSEG realizes additional revenue from the sale of  unused and surplus materials, such as scrap metal, vehicles, miscellaneous equipment, transformers and coal ash. For resources on environmentally sustainable materials management >>