Why recycle?

Your waste stream is the amount of waste your losing in different areas of the business.

Let’s be honest about waste figures. We don’t really know how much waste is generated and by who!

There are no figures collected for the Northern Territory and very few figures for Australia. Most of the information is forecast based on figures from other places, estimates of population size and is dependent on the waste being classified as a waste so it can be added to the list of things to estimate.

In 2006–07 the ABS estimated that 43.8 million tonnes of solid waste was generated in Australia. This figure is an estimate and does not include gas wastes, liquid wastes (and even some solid wastes).

Based on these estimates it was further estimated that Australia generated around 2080 kilograms (2.08tonnes) of waste for each person in 2006–07. The amount of waste estimated to be generated grew by 31% between 2002–03 and 2006–07. If waste generation has continued to grow at 4.5 per cent per year, then we currently produce around 2480 kilograms of waste per person.

The general rule of thumb suggests that:

29% came from households (MSW)
33% from the commercial and industrial sector (C&I)
38% from the construction and demolition sector (C&D)

So based on the available figures and using our own estimates we believe that the following is a good guide to use in estimating the size of the C&I waste stream generated by an organisation not in the construction industry:

Construction and Demolition Industry Calculation:

The construction industry in the Top End produces about 102 300 tonnes of waste each year. What is your company’s percentage of the total spend on new buildings and renovations?

This percentage is roughly the percentage of the waste stream you are creating.