How to conduct a waste audit for the education sector

Estimated reading time: 5 min

A waste audit is a hands-on review of the different types of waste your educational setting produces. It can be conducted at a high level, for example reviewing all waste for a building, or at a more detailed level, for example reviewing waste per department or area, such as your canteen and kitchen.

If you prepare and serve food on site, or if students bring in their own food to eat on site, it’s likely that you will have some food waste to deal with. To find out more about identifying, measuring and reducing food waste in your kitchens and canteens, visit Guardians of Grub.

Best practice case study

Busy Bees Nurseries, the UK’s leading provider of early childhood education and care, has partnered with 1st Waste and specialist supplier Keenan Recycling to reduce waste, with a particular focus on diverting food waste from landfill.
Read the full case study: Nourishing young minds and the environment - Keenan Recycling reducing food waste in early childhood education

The idea of a waste audit is to identify where waste is generated across your educational setting or site. With this knowledge, you can take steps to reduce it and ensure you comply with legislation concerning waste handling, storage and disposal.

Undertaking a waste audit will help you to establish:

What types of waste your educational setting produces
Where waste is generated across – whether for the whole building or site or for each department or area
Who generates waste in your setting

Once complete, you can then develop a waste action plan with your priorities and targets for reusing, recycling and recovering your waste.

Good to know
Your existing waste or recycling service provider, if you have one, may be better placed to undertake the audit process for you – especially if your waste may include items that could cause an injury, such as broken glass, , or

There are a number of options for carrying out a waste audit. The one you choose will depend on a number of factors, such as how much time you have to conduct the waste audit and whether or not your students will be involved with the process.

In this section, we’ll look at two standard methods for conducting a waste audit:

Standard Waste Audit – which looks in-depth at the waste produced across your site or a specific area of it
Visual Bin Audit – which is a light-touch approach with minimal to no waste sorting

Standard Waste Audit

This waste audit can be carried out by staff members, but would also be suitable for students in Key Stage 4 and above. Some students may need to be supervised, so include this consideration in your risk assessment.

To conduct your waste audit, start by downloading the Waste Audit template.

You will need:

Time and space to conduct your audit
A tarpaulin or plastic sheet to tip waste out onto for sorting
Appropriate (PPE) as identified via a (to protect you and your clothes)
Containers for sorting the waste into
Weighing equipment
A pen to record your findings
Your waste audit template

1. Conduct a risk assessment

You should produce a risk assessment before undertaking a waste audit to ensure that you’ve considered and mitigated all risks, such as those entailed by manual handling. Make sure everyone is properly briefed on the task before starting the audit, including your Health & Safety officer or team, if you have one.

If you don’t already have your own Risk Assessment template, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has one here together with examples of completed risk assessments for various activities and workplaces.

Take extra care if your waste is likely to contain , or potentially .

2. Collect your waste

Gather your waste, including general waste, all recyclables, kitchen waste and waste from litterbins (if applicable), ensuring these materials are kept separate from each other during your audit.

3. Sorting

Tip the waste onto your tarpaulin or plastic sheet and sort it into the different material types using your sorting containers. Use the waste audit template as a guide when deciding the number of different material types.

4. Measuring

Weigh each type of waste, remembering to deduct the weight of the container to arrive at the of the material.

5. Recording

Record the date, time and location of your audit and the weights of each material on your form.

6. Repeat twice

Where possible, it’s a good idea to repeat the audit (steps 2-5) twice more (three times altogether) and average your totals. This will provide a more accurate picture of the types and quantities of waste and recycling your educational setting produces.

7. Calculate your results

Using the average net weight for each material stream, calculate your annual waste and recycling total, for example by multiplying by 52 if you have measured by the week.

Tips for carrying out your waste audit

Choose the right location and date(s) for your audit – the best time to undertake it will be the day before your waste is collected
Secure a suitable area for opening waste sacks and containers and sorting the waste materials
Keep your audit dates secret so that employees won’t change their behaviour and skew your results, but make sure that cleaners and facilities staff know so they don’t empty the bins.

What happens if I can’t complete a standard waste audit?

If you can’t complete a full waste audit, you could opt for a visual bin audit instead. This is a simple and effective way to assess whether the bins in your educational setting are being used correctly. You simply look into each bin and report on what you can see at the top of it.

A visual bin audit isn’t a replacement for a full waste audit, where all waste is tipped out, sorted and weighed, but it can be useful if you’re short of time and space. To complete your visual bin audit, just follow these easy steps:

Choose the number of bins to audit and their location. If you have a small or medium-sized educational setting, audit each different waste type you currently collect, such as general waste, dry mixed recycling, paper, cardboard and food waste. If you’re short of time or your educational setting is large or has multiple sites, audit a sample of bins instead of all of them. For example, you could audit just five indoor general waste bins and five outdoor general waste bins, as well as five recycling bins from other areas of your building(s).

Audit the bins as close as possible to bin collection time. You’ll need to speak to your cleaner, waste collector or facilities management team to identify the best day and times.

List what you can see at the top of each bin and record whether it’s in the correct bin or if you could do better at separating certain items for recycling and composting.

Good to know
Eco-Schools provides a seven-step sustainability programme that includes resources and lesson plans for Early Years and older students. Step 2 provides an Environmental Review, which includes reducing and managing waste and resources sustainably. For more information, visit Eco-schools Seven Steps.
Recycle Now Schools provides free classroom resources to support teachers and Key Stage 1 and 2 students to understand what recycling means, why we should recycle and how our actions can make a difference. The Resources link to the curriculum: PSHE, Science, English and Art in England.