Waste management
Step two - Intermediate
Once you’ve conducted a waste audit and have your data, the next step is to review your findings and develop a structured waste reduction plan.
Strategies for reducing waste
- Redesign - revising the design of your products or services to reduce material usage, change packaging and ensure that modular elements are incorporated into your product can be repaired or replaced.
- Reduce – focus on digitising your systems to avoid reliance on paper and allowing more efficient use of resources and procurement processes to cut back on excess waste.
- Reuse – explore whether suppliers have the option for ‘take back’ schemes for packaging or excess materials, and whether you can use products in different ways in your operations to extend their lifespan – e.g. reusing pallets for storage.
- Recycle – make recycling points available throughout the business and encourage their usage, review materials used in your products and services and whether they can be changed to more recyclable materials instead.
- Composting – assessing food waste within the organisation and whether it can be composted on site or via a third party to avoid it entering the general waste stream, educating the wider team on changes that can be made to divert from general waste.
Setting Goals and Targets
Developing clear and measurable waste reduction targets will help to keep you accountable.
You should set your own targets and goals based around your values and wider sustainability and net zero goals. You could choose to include goals like:
- Reducing waste by 40% within 12 months.
- Achieving zero landfill waste by a set date.
- Ensuring 80% of waste is recycled, with the remaining 20% going to general waste.
Developing a waste reduction plan
Using the findings of your waste audit, there may be easy opportunities to immediately reduce your waste volume; e.g. removing food waste from your general waste bins and opting for composting.
Setting achievable targets for your waste reduction is a good place to start. Aiming for a ratio of 80% recycled waste and 20% general waste is typically the best starting point.
Reviewing the types of waste that you generate, it may also be possible to remove certain materials altogether. Linking in with circular economy principles, finding ways to extend the lifecycle of materials by diverting them into other useful streams is a good way to remove waste altogether.
Download our guide to help you write your Waste Reduction Plan.