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Guidance for Transport and Storage
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Planning your Transport and Storage business recycling needs

Developing a Waste Action Plan for the Transport and Storage sector

Estimated reading time: 2 min

​Now that you’ve completed your waste audit, you’re ready to develop your waste action plan. This will document what you want to achieve, how it will be done, by when, and who is responsible for each part of the plan. It also acts as a reference point to review your progress. Here’s what to include: 

  • ​​​Work out which materials could be recycled and find a service provider to recycle them. 

  • Identify key materials and consider whether these can be eliminated – for example, by requesting that your suppliers use reusable or recyclable packaging in their supply of products or ingredients. 

  • Set SMART targets – Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Reasonable and Time-bound. For example, to set up a disposable cup recycling scheme within the next 12 months.  

  • Include ‘quick wins’ to help encourage everybody to get involved and keep up their efforts. For example, consider whether your offices could become paper-free to reduce the amount of office paper you use, or whether you could install water dispensers and provide reusable cups in staff rest rooms to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic your employees produce. 

  • Communicate the actions you’re taking by using our downloadable communications resources. 

  • Encourage your employees to share their ideas to reduce, reuse and recycle each material. 

  • Develop a system to review and improve your recycling processes, monitoring progress so that you can see where you’ve made improvements and what more can be done. 

  • Don’t be afraid to change the plan if necessary – it’s better to have a live document rather than something that just gets filed away. 

Good to know 

For larger businesses, a more advanced option is to develop an Environmental Management System (EMS), which works in a similar way to other management systems, such as those that manage quality or safety. It assesses your business’s strengths and weaknesses, helps you identify and manage significant impacts, saves you money by increasing efficiency, ensures you comply with environmental legislation and provides benchmarks for improvements.