Landscaping

Landscaping is an art that transforms the environment. Environmental effects can range from harmful (e.g., erosion, discharge of excess nutrients and herbicides) to beneficial (e.g., soil retention, carbon dioxide sink). Landscaping can be expensive, requiring continual outlays for labor and materials. It produces prodigious quantities of waste: trees, shrubs, brush, lumber, asphalt, concrete, and more. On average, 2 percent of a health care facility’s waste comes from landscaping. And landscaping can use large amounts of water, pesticides, fuels, and oils.

Sustainable practices can minimize landscaping costs without compromising results. The EPA’s GreenScapes Alliance encourages companies to make more holistic decisions regarding waste generation and disposal, preserving natural resources and preventing waste and pollution.

Why GreenScapes?

The GreenScapes Alliance is a partnership program bringing the combined influence of government and industry to bear on reduction, reuse, and recycling of waste materials in large land-use applications such as roadside landscaping, brownfields land revitalization, and the beautification and maintenance of office complexes, golf courses, and parks. More than 100,000 businesses involved in such activities are potential participants in the Alliance.

• Partners: businesses and agencies that will achieve actual pollution prevention results
• Allies: supportive industry associations that will advertise and promote GreenScapes philosophies to their membership and others

See current list of partners and allies.

Getting Started

To help improve both your bottom line and the environment, GreenScapes focuses on the 4 Rs:

• Reduce – Reducing the production of waste is the first and most important step toward efficient material use.
• Reuse – Reuse of products prolongs the useful life of these materials, thus delaying final disposal or recycling.
• Recycle – Recycling is the segregation, collection, storage, and removal of recyclable or compostable materials from the municipal solid waste stream.
• Rebuy – Rebuying means rethinking your purchasing habits. Look for products that meet your needs but have a better environmental profile than your current purchases.

GreenScaping also uses practices that can improve the health and appearance of your landscape while protecting and preserving natural resources. These can be studied in:

• GreenScapes: Environmentally Beneficial Landscaping A brochure describing EPA’s GreenScapes program, providing cost-efficient and environmentally friendly solutions for large-scale landscaping.
• GreenScapes Cost Calculators. Downloadable spreadsheets that can aid in your decision making and implementation of more sustainable landscape design, construction, and operations and maintenance.
• Analysis of Composting as an Environmental Remediation Technology. Summarizes information on the use of compost for managing hazardous waste streams and for remediating contaminated soil.
• Integrating Environmentally Beneficial Landscaping into Your EMS. Developed by GreenScapes and EPA’s EMS program, this document provides practical guidance, potential language, and examples of environmentally beneficial landscaping practices for each of the EMS elements.

More Resources

• P2RX Topic Hubs—Landscaping. This primer is intended as a quick guide to essential pollution-prevention (P2) information on landscaping, as well as a compilation of pertinent on-line resources.

• GreenScapes maintains a comprehensive list of available landscaping resources.

• Landscaping Waste Reduction, HERC.

• Pesticides

• Practice Greenhealth’s Ten Step Guide to Composting in a Health Care Facility. Oct 2003.

• Composting at Fletcher Allen Health Care, Oct. 1997.

• Reusable Totes, Blue Wrap Recycling and Composting, EPA’s Environmental Best Practices for Health Care Facilities, Fall 2002.

• Practice Greenhealth’s Ten Step Guide to Implementing an Integrated Pest Management Program can help your facility take its first steps toward eliminating unnecessary pesticide usage, while improving pest control practices.

• Water Efficient Landscaping. This booklet describes the benefits of water efficient landscaping. It includes several examples of successful projects and programs, as well as contacts, references, and a short bibliography.