Managing waste is essential for every type of business. So if you're treating it like a chore rather than something that requires management, you might be losing money every month.
Managing and recycling your waste will also earn you that “eco-friendly” tag. As per surveys, one in every three consumers is willing to spend more on eco-friendly goods. So, you're going to have a competitive advantage as well by choosing an eco-friendly waste management solution like Greenflow.
It's best to work with waste auditors if you can't dedicate in-house resources. In this guide, you'll learn how to hire the right waste auditor for your business.
Build a Team for Waste Audit
A waste audit is a process of reviewing your operation for the disposal and handling of waste. So to conduct this review, you'd need to build a team.
The team can be either your in-house staff members who hold some specialty in waste management. If you've got a big business with hundreds of employees, then there should be a representative from each business division.
Depending on the team's size and work to deal with, you should have two to three people heading the audit process.
To make things easier, you can hire waste auditors who will handle the project end-to-end.
Walk-through of Trash Site
As the next step, you'd have to survey your trash or dumpsite. You need to get accurate stats on the volume of trash your business deals with daily, weekly, and monthly, the type of waste there are, and how they are managed.
You should be paying attention to the types of materials disposed of at each point of disposal.
The walk-through should be brief and not extensive. The purpose is to prepare a preliminary report on current waste management and opportunities.
At the bare minimum, you should inspect the following areas for trash generation and handling:
- Receiving room
- Stock room
- Cafeteria and kitchen
- Production facilities
- Lounge
- Assembly line
- Shipping
- Cubicles, offices, and desks
Sorting the Garbage
The next step should be to take a hands-on approach. First thing first, you should arrange the protective gear for your staff members. It is essential since there's a chance of coming across sharp objects.
To begin, the team members should assemble at the end of the day and sort through the waste generated for that day. You should conduct such activities for two to three days and see if the type and amount of trash generated vary substantially from day-to-day.
Dump all the trash in an open plastic sheet. Sort through the materials and separate them based on their types.
Quantifying Materials
Once you've appropriately identified the types and percentages of trash you're generating each day, it's time to quantify them. This is a significant undertaking. That's because you need to ensure there's a sufficient volume of a particular type of waste to make it feasible to process them separately.
You can either use a volume-to-weight conversion mechanism or use receipts of goods purchased. Either way, you're trying to determine the approximate volume.
If you've got receipts of the past 5-6 months, you're in a good position to determine waste volume by looking at the receipts. You need to calculate the number of goods coming in and how much gets converted into the trash. You should also consider other ways in which the goods enter your facility.
For the second option, you need to use a scale and weigh each trash component. You'd use this information to determine monthly weights. You can also estimate the volume in cubic yards and determine the volume to weight conversion. It'd give you a better idea of monthly weights.
Calculate Your Diversion Rate
The diversion rate is an important metric you need to calculate. It measures how well your organization is recycling the stuff it is consuming.
You can divide the weight of recycling you've calculated by the weight of recycling plus the weight of garbage. Then, multiply this by 100 to get the diversion rate.
It is an important metric to focus on if you want to be labeled as “eco-friendly.”
Implementation
As the penultimate step, you need to implement the aspect of waste audits. You can take the help of your local environmental agencies who can potentially make the process of recycling much more manageable.
Along with that, you should develop internal processes for staff members to follow. Both of these will help you reduce the waste output while increasing the volume recycled.
Monitoring
Lastly, you need a way to monitor the changes in effect. You should have a weekly or bi-weekly review process to check the recycling efforts. From time to time, you should call in auditors from outside to conduct independent checks on waste management and suggest improvement areas.
Waste management is not only noble but profitable. By working with waste auditors, you can significantly improve your waste management both in the long and short run.
