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If you operate under the control of an IPPC Permit, you will have a requirement to carry out a waste minimisation audit regularly. If you don’t have this requirement it still makes sound business sense to conduct audits to make sure that your business is as efficient as possible and to maximise your returns.
How do I do it?
All businesses produce waste which will typically be transferred into a container from which it is removed for disposal. You can begin by examining what is in these containers, and identifying where in your process the waste is being produced and, crucially, why. The more detailed your examination of the root causes of waste production, and implementation of steps to prevent waste, the greater the savings for your business will be.
Segregation of wastes within a refuse bin may make disposal options simpler or provide more opportunities for recycling or reuse, but looking further back into your manufacturing process could identify how the waste can be avoided and result in valuable resources that you have paid for being used to manufacture product for sale.
The further up the manufacturing chain you go, the greater the savings.
Who should be involved?
Clearly your production and environmental personnel should be involved, as these people both understand the processes and the wastes that are being generated. Beyond this, the people involved will depend upon the scale and complexity of your business.
Commercial staff should be involved. It is vital to the business to understand the ramifications of any changes that are being considered. If the plant could produce an additional 10% of production, which could be sold, what effect would that have on the price? If the purity of the product could be made higher, what effect would this have on the customer’s processes and could a premium price be charged?
Supply chain personnel should be involved. It is important during the process of reviewing opportunities for improvements to understand the supply chain issues. For example, if a higher (or lower) purity feed material was to be used, where could it be sourced from; what would be the effect on price, lead time, supplier options etc.
Technical staff can be very useful because they understand the development of the product and the manufacturing process. They should be in a position to identify why process steps are the way they are and why decisions have been taken about specifications etc. They can also understand the ramifications of proposed changes and may identify other areas that could be considered.
Quality Assurance staff are very important to the process. An understanding of the variability of production, and the implications of this for customer satisfaction is crucial. Making resource efficiency improvements that result in unsaleable product is a greater waste of resources that not looking at this area at all.
Engineering staff can be involved in certain stages. They understand the implications of changing the equipment layout or design and can suggest changes that could be made to improve the processing effectiveness of the plant, along with an idea of the likely cost implications.
But what about the others?
A member of the financial department may be useful to help understand the cash flow implications, the effect on the profit and loss account, and any possible capital funding implications. They might also know of financial assistance that can be drawn down to help fund changes or improved taxation positions that could affect the viability of a change.
What about senior management or directors? An understanding of the strategic implications of change could be useful to help identify from a range of options which ones are the highest priority. They should also be able to provide direction to the group in terms of the overall business criticality of efficiency and with a better understanding of the proposed improvements, may be better able to secure internal support for investment.
And what about external bodies?
Envirowise can provide valuable help with auditing your business to identify ways to reduce the amount of waste you produce. Excellent guidance material is also available from their website: www.envirowise.gov.uk .
WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) is another body that has been set up to help identify ways to improve recycling of wastes within businesses. They can be contacted via: www.wrap.org.uk .
NISP (National Industrial Symbiosis Programme) identifies ways that your waste could become someone else’s raw materials. They may also be able to identify other sources of materials that are available from companies that you may be able to use in your processes. Their website has more details: www.nisp.org.uk .
NEPIC (North East Process Industry Cluster) can put you in contact with the regional coordinators of these programmes, as well as other regional bodies that can help you to reduce your waste production.
Contact us for more information, or to arrange an on-site discussion to begin the process of improving your resource efficiency by emailing Ian Findley on idfindley@aol.com.
 Supported by One NorthEast and Defra's Business Resource Efficiency and Waste Programme
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