Sunday, April 2, 2017

How And Why Do You Need To Conduct Waste Audit

By Anna Morris


The society is growing increasingly sensitive about what is thrown away and how garbage is disposed. In a factory or organizational setting, discarded materials can be substantial and even affect your budget. This is why it is advisable to conduct a waste audit from time to time to establish your performance and find the best ways to deal with it.

Why should you go around auditing materials that are no longer useful to an organization? The main reason is to establish the position of the organization in terms of volume and composition of garbage. This gives you an idea of what you order or bring into an organization and what is discarded. You can tell the level of utilization of different substances ordered in such an organization.

With a figure or percentage indicating the level of efficiency, it is possible to evaluate the areas where budgetary adjustments can be made to minimize wastage. This will save the organization a lot of resources. You will re-evaluate the efficiency of systems to raise level or resource utilization by minimizing the amount wasted. This makes your systems and people more efficient.

When the auditing results are shared with everyone in the organization, the level of awareness about wastage and utilization of resources is raised. All arms or departments in your organization should be notified. They become conscious and establish their contribution towards wastage or efficiency. This promotes prudent utilization of resources as statistics are glaring on the face of all people involved. It leads to reduction in carbon footprint and raises the profile of your company or organization externally.

The process of auditing is rather simple. You need to gather people from various departments in your organization. Ensure that guys in finance and those in charge of health and safety are involved. Involving everyone generates support for your audit results. The custodial team is required to gather three days waste in one section. Provide labels to indicate dates, source and stream from where the garbage has been obtained.

The auditors should be provided with protective and safety gear like gloves, safety shoes, eye protectors and overalls. Where hazardous materials are involved the safety precautions must be enhanced. You will need a checklist to fill your findings as well as a camera to document the kind of waste collected. The garbage to be audited is that collected on a normal day as opposed to days when there are special occasions.

It is time to go through the garbage and classify it based on whether it is biodegradable or not, among other categories. Weigh different categories and record your findings. Indicate both the location and stream of each package you go through. Note the level of contamination and the elements causing decomposition. This will be important when preparing your report.

It is time to calculate the diversion rate. You divide the weight of materials being recycled by the sum of garbage recycled and overall garbage weight. You then multiply the resulting figure by 100 to get a percentage. When communicating your results to the organization, let everyone know the major sources of garbage. Use the opportunity to ask for suggestions on how each can play a part in reducing wastage or improving efficiency.




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