Waste Management Performance — If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
We believe that no matter how much you care about saving this world, protecting nature, reducing waste, or even reducing cost — you need all that to be measured. Because only measured data can tell whether you are on the path of success or on the wrong trajectory.
Then comes a question of what to measure. Only meaningful measurement can get you on the right track. When it comes to waste management performance, we encourage you to consider some good starting indicators.
- Waste Generation Quantity
- Recycling Rate
- Landfill Waste Portion
- GHG Emission
Waste Generation Quantity
“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is the most powerful step towards waste management. Reduction (can be done both by reducing and reusing materials) is pivotal to the overall waste supply into our planet. This is the most straightforward target to focus on in your waste management project.
Recycling rate
If you cannot reduce, opt for recyclable materials. But that's not enough, waste needs to be sorted properly to ensure that the recyclable materials are not ‘wastefully’ thrown into landfills and create environmental problems. In other words, this rate tells you how you select a given product and how well you can sort recyclable from general waste.
Total General waste (non-recyclable waste that goes to landfill)
Remember landfill waste is bad. Landfill causes many environmental problems from air to water, can be the root causes of many health-related issues to all of us. Simply, stop or reduce generating this type of waste.
GHG Emission Reduction
This indicator is the lagging target that sums up all of your hard work towards climate change. Your activities in waste management program can boil down to this. Because nothing comes for free — all of your waste management activities generate carbon footprint; yes even recycling process! The key point here is for you to produce the least GHG Emission from your program.
Once you get these indicators going and in place, it’s good to look around how others are doing — compare yourself to your industry, your peers, or even your role model companies. Benchmarking is a good exercise to stay active and hungry for continuous improvement.
We hope you find the above information useful; feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions at geppwastecoms@gepp.me.
