Simple and Clear Steps to Improve Your Waste Collection Program
The success of your waste management program depends in part on your waste collection infrastructure, which determines how your waste program is working on the ground.
Is your waste collection program being properly implemented, maintained and optimized? Are your waste bins in the right places, clearly labeled, and helping you capture all materials? Are you certain you’re not at risk for non-compliance fines? Many facilities find it difficult to answer these questions.
Now imagine if you could get a scorecard that lets you know, at a glance, how your waste collection infrastructure is functioning across your entire facility, and what you need to do to reduce waste material generation upstream and increase capture of divertable materials downstream. That is what the Great Forest Waste Infrastructure ScorecardSM does.
What is a Waste Infrastructure Scorecard?
To understand how your waste collection program is functioning, you need to see it in action.
This involves a physical walkthrough of your facility to document how waste is being discarded, collected and moved. The comprehensive waste infrastructure site review will examine every aspect of your facility’s waste collection program. It will:
- Document the locations and quantity of your waste bins.
- Note how clear and consistent your labels and signage are.
- Investigate if there are any chokepoints in your infrastructure that prohibit maximum capture of divertable materials.
- Determine if your program is in compliance with local, state and federal laws.
- Include interviews with employees, tenants, janitorial crews, building management and other stakeholders to get further insight into your operations and a deeper understanding of how your waste program is being utilized.
- Provide additional observations and recommendations tailored to your facility, and more.
These observations and other data are then analyzed and translated into scores to produce your Waste Infrastructure ScorecardSM.
What Does Your Score Reveal About Your Waste Collection Program?
A score (out of 100) is provided based on your program review.
- below 60% means you have Room for Improvement
- 60 – 74% means you are a Good Performer
- 75 – 89% signals a High Performer
- >90% indicates you are an Exemplary Performer
How is Your Waste Infrastructure Score Calculated?
Each aspect of your building’s waste management and collection process is reviewed against both legal requirements and best practices. Buildings receive a point for each item that meets legal compliance or best practice standards. For example, if 55 out of 68 items observed meet the criteria, the building will earn a score of 81%.
Buildings receive overall scores as well as scores for key areas such as the loading dock, office and retail spaces, to help pinpoint areas for improvement.
How to Use Your Waste Infrastructure Scorecard
The scorecard report will include:
- Overall score and scores for different areas of your facility
- Photographs that document violations and other notable aspects of your waste collection program
- Identification of non-compliance issues that may result in costly fines
- Recommended next steps on what to do to bring your program up to standard and into compliance
- Checklist of best practice opportunities to follow
Follow the recommended checklist of items to optimize your waste collection and improve your facility’s waste management procedures and logistics. This simple-to-understand report enables you to easily benchmark performance, track progress, and set priorities to improve your waste management collection program and move towards Zero Waste and other sustainability goals.
Note that your waste infrastructure scorecard provides an analysis of the soft data (eg: bin locations, signage, compliance) that is more difficult to quantify. The scorecard is one of the few tools that helps you analyze this critical information and fills in the crucial gaps on operational efficiency. For a complete picture of your waste management program, use your scorecard alongside hard data from waste audits, which measure the amount of waste your program is generating and diverting.
A scorecard review should be done annually or whenever a new waste program is implemented.
Take a look at this case study below to see how one company used their scorecard.
Case Study: Improving Waste Collection With a Scorecard
Client: Large Class A office building located in midtown Manhattan.
Challenge: The building’s management needed to ensure full compliance with applicable local, state and federal legal requirements, to avoid costly fines.
Great Forest Solution:
Great Forest conducted a Waste Infrastructure Scorecard review of the building and identified a variety of legal non-compliance points, exposing the building to approximately $5000 in financial penalties. This included bins that were not sufficiently labeled.
Via the scorecard report, Great Forest provided management with written and pictorial documentation of all non-compliance points, and provided guidance on how to rectify the issues and ensure compliance.
In addition, the Waste Infrastructure Scorecard report supplied an overview of best practice opportunities the building could utilize to go above and beyond the legal requirements. The building quickly implemented the simpler initiatives that Great Forest recommended, which included replacing single-use coffee cups with reusable mugs. By doing so, they were able to reduce their waste, move closer to their Zero Waste ambitions, and elevate themselves into the top tier of buildings with sustainable waste management practices.
What’s Your Waste Score?
Are you ready to learn your waste score? Talk to us about getting your own Waste Infrastructure Scorecard.
Photo: Stephen Dawson, Unsplash