post-consumer waste was often contaminated with disposable items (plastic straws, sauce sachets) or contained meat bones or other items not accepted by their service. During site visits and interviews, businesses serving food and beverages were asked about the drivers for implementing food waste collection services. It was interesting that very few businesses implemented food waste collection services in order to save money (although the fact that it often resulted in reduced waste charges assisted with smooth implementation). Common drivers for establishing food waste collection systems included: health and safety (separating out the waste stream likely to be heavy odorous, and potentially leak) space saving (food could be stored separately enabling other general waste to be collected less frequently business positioning as a leader in good environmental practices. TRANSPORT, POSTAL AND WAREHOUSING’ The TRANSPORT, POSTAL AND WAREHOUSING division has a moderate waste generation profile of 0.7 tonnes per EFTE. This division is medium in size compared to other divisions used for this study (accounting for 3% of total C&I waste generation). The division’s waste profile includes a high proportion of readily recyclable freight packaging materials such as cardboard, timber pallets and plastic film. The recycling rate from this division is already fairly high as material streams are generally clean and easy to separate at source. Warehousing can have a somewhat inconsistent waste flow unlike other industries such as MANUFACTURING and RETAIL TRADE (which have a relatively consistent waste flow). Flow of waste from warehousing can be influenced by shipments in and out and decisions to intermittently designate large volumes of product/materials to waste. There can be a large amount of unpacking from suppliers and repacking for distribution to customers/consumers within this sector. Some sites undertake a high degree of reuse of this packaging and most are strong recyclers of freight packaging. One waste than can be a significant contributor to landfill from the TRANSPORT, POSTAL AND WAREHOUSING industry is timber packaging (pallets and packaging of large goods). In the summary sheet data, timber is grouped together in the category. While there are ‘organics’ some good systems for reuse of standard pallets, a lot of product is now shipped and transported nationally and internationally using non-standard pallets or skids. There are few reuse options for these and when they are disbursed to customers the options for recycling are less practical.
post-consumer waste was often contaminated with disposable items (plastic straws, sauce sachets) or contained meat bones or other items not accepted by their service. During site visits and interviews, businesses serving food and beverages were asked about the drivers for implementing food waste collection services. It was interesting that very few businesses implemented food waste collection services in order to save money (although the fact that it often resulted in reduced waste charges assisted with smooth implementation). Common drivers for establishing food waste collection systems included: health and safety (separating out the waste stream likely to be heavy odorous, and potentially leak) space saving (food could be stored separately enabling other general waste to be collected less frequently business positioning as a leader in good environmental practices. TRANSPORT, POSTAL AND WAREHOUSING’ The TRANSPORT, POSTAL AND WAREHOUSING division has a moderate waste generation profile of 0.7 tonnes per EFTE. This division is medium in size compared to other divisions used for this study (accounting for 3% of total C&I waste generation). The division’s waste profile includes a high proportion of readily recyclable freight packaging materials such as cardboard, timber pallets and plastic film. The recycling rate from this division is already fairly high as material streams are generally clean and easy to separate at source. Warehousing can have a somewhat inconsistent waste flow unlike other industries such as MANUFACTURING and RETAIL TRADE (which have a relatively consistent waste flow). Flow of waste from warehousing can be influenced by shipments in and out and decisions to intermittently designate large volumes of product/materials to waste. There can be a large amount of unpacking from suppliers and repacking for distribution to customers/consumers within this sector. Some sites undertake a high degree of reuse of this packaging and most are strong recyclers of freight packaging. One waste than can be a significant contributor to landfill from the TRANSPORT, POSTAL AND WAREHOUSING industry is timber packaging (pallets and packaging of large goods). In the summary sheet data, timber is grouped together in the ‘organics’ category. While there are some good systems for reuse of standard pallets, a lot of product is now shipped and transported nationally and internationally using non-standard pallets or skids. There are few reuse options for these and when they are disbursed to customers the options for recycling are less practical.