A waste audit is an analysis of your stadium’s waste stream. It can identify what types of recyclable materials and waste your stadium generates and how much of each category is recovered for recycling or discarded. Using the data collected, your organization can identify the feasibility of enhancing its recycling efforts and potential for cost savings.

Consider contacting StopWaste.org at 1-800-786-7927 or partnership@stopwaste.org for a free waste audit. Your team’s waste hauler or locality may be willing to conduct a waste audit. Contact your waste hauler to learn more about the services it provides. Also consider joining the EPA’s free WasteWise program, which provides members with several benefits, including a technical assistance team that will help your team to conduct a waste audit and identify waste reduction opportunities.

For listings of recycling service providers near Oakland, visit Earth 911’s Business Resources directory and the Environmental Yellow Pages.

For a comprehensive discussion of waste and use reduction, see EPA’s Business Guide for Reducing Solid Waste.

Recycling and composting can save money through avoided disposal and hauling costs. Many recyclable items can also be sold on the market as a source of revenue. A waste audit can help your team identify these potential savings and revenue opportunities. Many companies have found significant savings through their own efforts to increase recycling.

The Brooklyn Brewery in Brooklyn, NY implemented a variety of recycling and waste reduction measures, including recycling its own cardboard and plastic wastes. These measures reduced annual waste generation by over 50%, saving over $25,000 a year in disposal and hauling costs.

The San Diego Wild Animal Park generates over 23,000 tons of waste annually but discards only 4% of this waste in landfills. It has implemented a comprehensive composting program for organic waste and has distributed recycling containers throughout its 1,800 acres, in addition to many other programs. In total, these efforts save the organization over $1 million dollars in landfilling and hauling fees each year.

Before implementing a recycling program, your team should conduct a waste audit. During a waste audit, the auditor investigates the sources, composition, weight, volume, and destinations of the waste that your team generates. Organizations exist that will perform this service free of charge, or they can be performed in-house by staff. By learning more about the trash your team generates, you can be better informed about the products you buy that contribute to waste and be prepared to efficiently dispose of it, saving your team money and improving your team’s environmental performance.

Performing a waste audit is an effective way to learn more about the trash your team generates. In order to create an accurate representation of your team’s waste stream and how much you’re currently diverting towards recycling, consider performing multiple waste audits during different seasons during the year.

1. Ensure proper safety measures
   Provide thick gloves to sorters and make sure that everyone has had their tetanus shots. Involve the team’s occupational health and safety director.
2. Ensure proper confidentially measures
   The waste stream may contain personal and private information that should be kept confidential. Ensure that no documents are being read during the audit, and that nothing leaves the auditing area. Have participants sign confidentiality agreements.
3. Enlist building managers, custodial staff, and waste haulers
   The help of building managers, custodial staff, and waste haulers is invaluable to a successful waste audit. These sources can assist in gathering your team’s waste and can also provide valuable insight into the current state of your recycling and waste management system.
4. Keep the timing of the audit a secret
   By keeping the timing of a waste audit secret, you ensure that the waste you analyze is a truly representative sample of the waste that your team generates on a regular basis. If people are informed of the date of a waste audit, they may increase their recycling rates or otherwise alter their behavior.
5. Collect waste
   Work with waste haulers, custodial staff, and concessions managers to collect the waste. Make sure that the waste collected is clearly labeled by date and location.
6. Sort waste
   Sort the collected waste by type, noting paper, cardboard, recyclable and non-recyclable plastics, glass, and metals, food waste, batteries, etc. Make sure to note recyclable materials that have not been recycled.
7. Analyze results and make recommendations
   What is the composition of your team’s waste stream? How much can your team increase its recycling? By what methods can your team increase its recycling? How can waste be collected more efficiently? What are the opportunities to reduce waste generation? How can your team save money by altering its waste management systems?

By conducting a waste audit, your team can be better prepared to efficiently and responsibly dispose of the waste that it generates every day. By designing a more efficient waste disposal program, your team can increase the amount of paper, plastic, and metals that it recycles, which reduces air and water pollution, helps curb global warming, and conserves our natural resources.

Waste Audit webpage
WME magazine on conducting a waste audit (1)
WME magazine on conducting a waste audit (2)
WasteWise – How to Start or Expand a Recycling Program
Minnesota Guide to Source Reduction