Supply Chain Waste Prevention Guide 2013 - from factory in-gate to till

Waste Management – Legal Tips!

• Legal Compliance. Before you do anything check you are compliant. Familiarise yourself with your duty of care around waste here
• Make sure you keep up to date with up and coming legislation as this may help shape your plans
• There are strict rules around Animal By-Products (ABP) and how you transport these, so make sure that you specifically look at this when reviewing your legal requirements.
• A Duty of Care matrix may help you with managing your compliance
• A key part of legal compliance is documentation – Waste Transfer Notes are a fundamental part of this
• Create a waste management file. Contents: Photocopies of all waste management and waste carriers licences, an updated waste management plan, records of the waste taken away from the site - transfer notes (these will need to be archived eventually) and monthly reports from waste management companies. Also you may wish to hold your exemption to waste permits and hazardous waste producer’s license and expiry date in here too.
• Subcontracting – if your waste management company subcontracts out you need to make sure you complete your duty of care with the correct company.

Waste Management – Where to start

• It’s all in the planning. Understand your skip! Carry out a waste audit to see what waste you have here
• Now that you know what you have – do you know what you do with it? Creating a waste management plan can help identify opportunities to manage your waste up the waste hierarchy
• Use resources available to help you to understand the markets for your “waste” – letsrecycle.com
• Once all attempts have been made to reduce, re-use and recycle waste you should look to divert waste away from landfill via alternative disposal routes (e.g. waste to energy plants or anaerobic digestion)
• Pull together a specific plan around how you are going to improve the site waste management which helps you to prioritise actions in order of importance (e.g. Legal compliance is the first priority).
• When looking for solutions, don’t ignore trying to avoid it in the first place. By working with others within the supply chain to minimise the waste (e.g. how it’s packed, handled and orders forecast will give the greatest savings. Find out more here
• Assign someone at the site to be responsible for the plan going forward.

Waste Management – How to make it a success

• Communicate, communicate, communicate – maybe carry out a survey to find out what your colleagues/staff know about waste and recycling. Then work on your communications, signage etc and re survey to find out if its landed.
• Keep people up to date: Develop a communication plan to promote your activities around waste management improvements to the site so that they are aware of what you are trying to achieve.
• You should also ensure that your business partners both on your site or operating on your behalf are adopting the principles of waste reduction, re-use and recycling.
• Arrange a meeting with the facilities manager for your site and any other relevant colleagues to discuss the waste management of the site.

Can’t measure it, can’t manage it

• Ensure that your waste management company is reporting back waste management information. This needs to be in a user friendly, accurate and timely way to help you to communicate with your internal and external stakeholders as well as managing your invoicing.
• You need to consider the labour requirement for separating waste out to ensure the true cost is considered and you need to think about changes to processes.
• Think about the full cost of your disposal mechanisms both carbon and £’s e.g. transporting waste further vs. sending it to a greener disposal method.
• Measuring your success:
  • How to measure
  • What to measure
  • Who to tell. 

Case Studies

• Brakes – Getting in Control of Waste; by Weight
• Sainsbury’s – Reducing Operational Waste