Green Star International

Good for the environment. Good for the bottom line.

Stevedores

GSI works closely with all stakeholders when developing strategies to reduce and recycle breakbulk waste. Stevedores play a major role in the delivery chain and are integral to the success of any waste reduction strategy. We work closely with our stevedore and hauling partners to identify their needs and motivations to ensure successful implementation of any solution. Our model strives for flexibility to minimize impacts to stevedore's tried and true operations while enabling new programs to cost effectively achieve environmental goals.

Case in Point

In 2004 we were engaged to facilitate a project to recycle wood dunnage at a Port of Portland breakbulk marine terminal. The cost and nature of unloading LoLo cargo made it unfeasible to sort dunnage from other waste materials up front, causing all materials to be difficult to recycle. We were tasked with creating a solution that would minimize impacts to the stevedore's operations while reducing the total volume and cost of disposal.Initially, we met some resistance due to skepticism at the port and with haulers; people liked the idea but other operations tried to achieve this before and failed to gain buy in and/or couldn't meet volume requirements.

By nurturing relationships with stevedores and haulers we quickly developed a scalable infrastructure to sort all incoming materials to get them where they could best be reused. Since then GSI has further refined our model; strengthened our business relationships; enhanced our technology and infrastructure; and saved our customers a great deal of money compared to the former disposal costs charged by the haulers to essentially throw the wood and metal away. Today GSI recycles over 99% of all incoming waste materials from our Portland terminals and is a model for what can be achieved through collaboration.