Do you know how to conduct a waste audit for your business?
According to Great Forest, paper, glass, metal, e-waste, and organic materials that can and should be recycled make up 77% of corporate rubbish. Only 23% of waste is acceptable for landfills.
If your company has been given the go-ahead to audit the amount of garbage it discards, it is up to you to identify the type of waste and determine whether you can lower your landfill disposal rate and save money.
To get your team working on what matters—making your business more waste-efficient—you need a short and simple checklist that will help you establish your following actions.
First, some background information about the situation.
What is a Waste Audit, Really?
You first need to know what a waste audit is to understand how to conduct one. A thorough audit of your company’s waste will provide you with all the information you need to optimize recycling and garbage disposal procedures to benefit your waste management procedures.
An audit, a waste diversion plan, and a waste reduction strategy make up your standard waste management plan. Additionally, there are several waste audits depending on the objectives of your company’s green team.
What Are Your Companies Waste Audit Goals?
There are several causes for waste audits, including:
- To compare the present operations and environmental effect of your business
- In order to be aware of potential areas for development
- Monitoring trends and creating new initiatives
- To divert more garbage from landfills and increase recycling, reuse, and composting
Two typical problems that need to be resolved are what waste is recyclable and what trash isn’t. Use an encyclopedia to search what can be recycled and what should be thrown away during your audit if you need access to web-based software.
Using our “Find My Municipality” tool, you can also discover the collection requirements for your neighborhood municipality. A great way to start a high-performance recycling program is to conduct a waste audit.
Now, let’s audit the garbage in your office!
1: Plan Your Waste Audit
For your green team, planning is an essential stage in the process. To complete this task properly, you must determine the who, the how, and the why. That entails setting up a formal meeting.
- Set up roles and carry out a walkthrough
The correct core team is the first step in understanding how to conduct a waste audit. Could you conduct a corporate walk-through and assign this vital responsibility to your finest green team members?
- Note where the garbage is disposed.
You’ll be able to visit each disposal site during the walk-through and note any glaring problems. On the days assigned to you, your team will collect garbage samples from these places.
- Evaluate the current waste management practices
What exactly is waste management? Outline the A-Z of what occurs from when the trash is formed, to your hauler collecting it, to it being processed at a waste transfer station, to when it arrives at the landfill after the conclusion of your first meeting.
Spend some time discussing the current management of corporate e-waste and other materials. Keep an eye out for any apparent opportunities.
2: Recruit Your Cleaning Staff
The trash audit can be carried out by your green team alone, or you can recruit the assistance of your company’s cleaning personnel. They will play a crucial role in your ability to conduct a successful audit!
- Call a staff meeting and solicit assistance.
Invite key members of the cleaning staff to your second meeting so you can discuss how to perform a waste audit with your team. Your cleaning team is the best person to ask about your company’s disposal procedures. You’ll be able to use their expertise to discover your business’s disposal procedure as much as possible.
- Run a fundamental collection procedure
You can just run over precisely what you anticipate from them once you’ve informed them, and they’re motivated to help so that no queries go unanswered. Here, you’ll need a detailed step-by-step procedure.
3: Sync Your Schedule & Timelines
- Conduct a five-day audit.
To get an average during the first week, audit your garbage for 3-5 days.
- Run intermittent audits for two weeks.
After your initial audit, do random audits for the following two weeks to ensure your averages are accurate.
After your initial audit period, choose 2-3 days from those 2 weeks to confirm that there haven’t been any significant changes to the weight or material composition. If there are, look into the reasons.
Ask your cleaning personnel whether they are aware of what is and is not recyclable. Give them access to your Ask Milo feature to make things simpler if they don’t know, or chose to sort the garbage themselves.
4: Design and Prep Your Audit Worksheets
Create or download a trash audit worksheet to help your team with the disposal audit? You can go ahead and gather the information you need for decision-making with the aid of this worksheet.
- Types of wastes (determining composition and identifying them)
Both forms of trash and types of waste audits exist. Make sure to note the composition or substance of each form of the garbage when you build your spreadsheet.
- Where certain trash kinds are produced (paper from the copying machine room, for example)
Make a space on your worksheet where you may note the source of your waste sample. Thus, you may identify the areas of a property where a specific type of material is most likely to be found.
- Requisites for completing the physical audit
In order to execute a waste audit swiftly and securely, make sure you have the necessary instruments on hand. Make a list of all the necessary instruments for the garbage audit on your spreadsheet.
- A designated sorting area
- Protective clothing/gear
- A scale
- Trash bags
- A tarp for sorting through the trash
- Labels
- Worksheets & pens
- Storage containers
- Camera or phones
- Latex or nitrile gloves
- First aid kit
- Cleaning materials
- Labeled bins
- Clear goggles
- Your team
- Waste samples
5: Collect & Sort Sample Waste
The audits will last for about 1-3 hours, depending on the amount of trash you’re sorting through. Get your protective gear on, and wait for your sample deliveries.
- Collect location samples
It would be best if you grabbed samples from every disposal location at your office. If you have a designated corporate e-waste area, it must be audited. Collect your pieces, and sort them into material categories using your tarp, labeled bins, and team.
- Take photos
Every location should be analyzed separately. Take photos of the sorted trash at the end of each location sample. For example, your waste paper recycling bin will need 3 pictures for your report.
- Record waste quantities and weight
During sorting, each bin category must be weighed and that weight must be recorded. Knowing how to do a waste audit is only step 1 – you’ll need these data quantities for later analysis in step 2.
- Estimate averages
After you’ve sorted every sample and have done the clean-up – you’ll be back in a meeting room estimating your averages. Convert your data into percentages, totals, and opportunities, and note what is recyclable and what’s not.
6: Check Estimates Against Existing Records
When all of your information has been gathered and improved, you may cross-reference it with historical data. You will identify opportunities for development in this.
- Cross-referencing with receipts for purchases
Cross-referencing your data with purchase records is step three in the waste audit process. You will have a better understanding of how waste is produced and how much of what is purchased is thrown away as a result.
- Take attention of outside influences
Trash from other sources will also be in your waste management recycling containers. Keep track of everything fascinating (like a lot of batteries in location 4).
- Cross-referencing with a waste management firm
To find hidden jewels, compare your data with those of your garbage disposal provider. Waste management companies track your recycling of shredded paper. Utilize this information as you develop your waste reduction strategy for the office.
7: Prepare Your Waste Audit Report
To produce a report for management, use the stack of waste audit worksheets that you have completed. Leadership will give you the green light if you can use statistics to demonstrate what needs to be done!
- Chart and graph your results
Spend some time making graphs and charts for your presentation at one or two of your last meetings. Compile all images and list the opportunities your audit revealed.
For instance, if your recycling process for plastic waste is contaminated, mention it in your report along with contamination rates and how it can be improved with the help of a straightforward educational tool.
- Identify benchmarks
You have the information to measure your development; excellent work! You will use these benchmarks as your initial point of reference. There is only one way to go: up!
- Set objectives for growth
From here, you should set new objectives to enhance every aspect of your waste management system. In your report, you can illustrate these objectives as percentage improvements. Set high standards for your business and rank your priorities. Work on that first, for instance, if there isn’t a glass recycling area for waste management.
Inform your management team and the rest of your business of these findings. Demonstrate to stakeholders the benefits of better waste management.
Posing the appropriate queries, such as “what can I recycle for money?” and ‘how much can we cut our landfill diversion by?’ are questions every employee at your company should entertain.
