Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

school

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction Facility and Review of Operation..........................................................2
2.0 Fairyland Nursery and pre-primary school....................................................................2
3.0 Waste audit.....................................................................................................................3
4.0 Objectives......................................................................................................................5
5.0 Hypothesis.....................................................................................................................5
6.0 Methodology..................................................................................................................6
6.1 Phase I........................................................................................................................6
6.2 Phase II......................................................................................................................6
6.3 Phase III.....................................................................................................................6
7.0 Waste Audit Results.......................................................................................................7
8.0 Recommendation...........................................................................................................9
8.1 Source Reduction Recommendations........................................................................9
9.0 Limitations...................................................................................................................11
10.0 Reference...................................................................................................................12

Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

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1.0 Introduction Facility and Review of Operation
Sustainability has become a catchphrase over the last two decades. Its implications are
immense. When looking at systems, large or small, it is essential that sustainability be a
factor involved in the process of developing and maintaining the system. Sustainability in
a system incorporates the idea that every input is accounted for and that its final outputs
are minimized to work within, as well as be maintained, within the frameworks of the
environment. To create a stable system, limits would need to be placed on the amount of
inputs, which ultimately end up in unsustainable sinks, For example, within a waste
system, sustainability can be achieved through the reduction of waste that goes into the
landfill, Although some waste has no other way of disposal other than through the
landfill, alternatives for the most part are present. The three Rs (reduce, recycle, reuse)
can be applied to virtually every product. It is very important to seek out methods of
reduction and re-use of materials in order for systems to function sustainably. By
minimizing the ecological effects that the input and output of systems deliver on the
environment, one is aiding in the process of the developing a sustainable community as
well as stable future.

2.0 Fairyland Nursery and pre-primary school

The school has never had a waste audit performed before but is eager to find quantitative
results of waste generated when our team requested to conduct such an audit in their
school. The school is located in Pamplemousses. There are 45 children including those in
the nursery and 10 staffs. Currently all the waste is placed in a dumpster where the waste
is located weekly by the waste collector of the local authorities. At this time, there are no
recycling facilities. The rest of the waste that is generated goes directly to landfill.
Garbage is taken out once daily at 5:30pm. The school wishes to establish an official
recycling program, one that is not based on the voluntarily actions of the employees.
There is a large amount of waste generated, which goes directly to landfill. This is a
concern and major obstacle in declaring the school sustainable. The audit should isolate
the major contributors to the waste generated. After the full investigation of the system is
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complete, recommendations can be made to help transform the school into a more
sustainable system.

3.0 Waste audit

An effective waste reduction program must be based on current and accurate information
on the quantity and composition of the waste stream. Therefore, the first step is a waste
audit, a systematic procedure to review operations and subsequently, waste generation.
All operations produce waste and there is nothing shameful or wrong by recognizing it.
However, todays concern over waste generation and increasing costs of collection and
disposal are good reasons to find out how to reduce waste, increase recycling, and try to
cut costs. An audit alone will not reduce your business waste. Rather, it is the starting
point that will enable your business to make informed decisions on how to allocate
resources for source reduction and recycling programs.
It can also assist in identifying potential cost savings associated with the disposal of solid
waste. Information gathered during the solid waste audit may provide insight into
wasteful activities currently taking place at the school. Recommendations will focus on
these activities and will form the basis of the waste reduction work plan. The waste
reduction work plan will outline the recommended initiatives that the school should
implement to further reduce solid waste generation and improve the schools standing.
The waste reduction work plan must be updated on an annual basis once the results of the
annual waste audit are completed.
Steps to do a waste audit
Auditing waste is a relatively simple process but can be fiddly. The four basic steps to
doing an audit are summarised here

PLAN the audit carefully and define the study area

Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

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Good planning is essential to ensuring the audit goes smoothly. You will need to get
management support, define the objectives of the audit, organise people and deal with
other issues raised as a result of the audit. This may take some time but the more effort
you put in up front will pay dividends when the audit is under way
COLLECT the waste from the study area
Cleaners or waste contractors can collect the waste for you. You will need to talk to
building managers and cleaning supervisors to get their support. Cleaners must have clear
instructions about the types of waste they are to collect and how to label the bags to
identify the source of the waste (that is, where it came from, e.g. `Level 1 kitchen', `Level
2 offices' etc). A trial run before the start of the official collection period is a good idea.
This way you can step cleaners through the collection process and iron out any problems
SORT the waste into different categories and record the data
Sorting the waste is the interesting part. A basic layout for a sorting area is illustrated
below. After the location from which the bag of waste comes is recorded, the bag is
weighed and emptied onto the table and sorted into material categories (e.g. glass, office
plastics, metal etc.). Each category is then individually weighed and recorded. The table
is cleaned and the sorted waste disposed of, and the process is repeated for the next bag
and so on.
ANALYSE the data and write up the results
Once all the waste is sorted you will have a large number of data sheets showing the
quantity of waste by material categories that was generated within each area sampled.
This data is then entered into a database and analysed. Once the results are analysed,
recommendations can be made up.

Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

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4.0 Objectives
Audit team objectives:
1. To assess the waste system in terms of sustainability at the school.
2. To propose recommendations to minimise the waste that enters landfill from the
school given present level of waste management techniques in the country.
3. To propose the best theoretical alternatives for reduction and to determine areas of
future research in waste reduction technologies

Fairyland Nursery and pre-primary school objectives:

1. To find a quantitative amount of recyclable waste being produced in order to
implement a permanent recycling program at the school.
2. To determine the major sources of the waste and suitable ways of reducing the
amount of waste generated.

5.0 Hypothesis
After gaining some general information about the school current waste management
system, and the lack of an official recycling facilities present, it is anticipated that there
will be a high percentage of recyclable materials thrown into the waste stream. It is
believed that the waste audit will highlight the significant problems and holes within the
schools current operations. It is expected that a permanent recycling project will be
deemed necessary to create an efficient and sustainable waste system.

Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

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6.0 Methodology
The waste audit was conducted in three phases:
Phase I: Pre-Audit Activities
Phase II: Quantification and Characterization of Solid non-hazardous Wastes
Phase III: Data Interpretation and Report Generation.

6.1 Phase I
Phase I of the solid waste audit was conducted during the October 2015. Pre-audit phase
interviews and site tours were conducted to gather background information required to
conduct Phase II of the solid waste audit. A site tour took place to gather the majority of
information about the waste practices.

6.2 Phase II
Phase II of the waste audit included the physical collection of samples of solid waste
from the waste generating areas of the facility. The waste was then quantified and
characterised according to the different categories established.
Waste estimation was taken 2 days a week at 4.30p.m for a two week time period. This
was done to ensure that a fair representation of waste was observed to take into account
variations within the day care activities. Special activities, if any, were noted to make the
auditors aware of possible skewed data. The estimated volume of the waste was recorded,
along with the number of items found of each category.
Contaminants (non-recyclable material) captured in the recycling stream were also
weighed for each material type.

6.3 Phase III

Once data collection for each waste generating area was completed, annual waste
generation rates were determined. Annualizing the data was accomplished by
extrapolating waste generation data measured over the twenty four hour sample period
for the entire year by expressing the data on a per student basis. Per student rates were
then extrapolated for the remainder of the year based on the enrolment data. An example
calculation can be seen below.

Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

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Example Calculation: Classrooms
= Number of days in semester X one day sample weight / Number of students
Where: One week sample = 5.776 (cumulated during the audit)
Open approximately 351 days per year
There are 55 people at the school including the staff and students (provided by Institution
management)
Therefore each person generated 0.105 kg/per/day (5.776/55 people)
Therefore: Average total weight is 36.861 kg for one year (0.105 x 351)

7.0 Waste Audit Results

This section outlines the results of the percentage of types of waste being waste generated
at the school.
The waste audit was performed over a two week period with visual inspections of the
waste stream two days a week. Taking visual inspections allowed for a better
understanding of the types of items the day care waste stream was made up of as well as
the amount being produced. It also allowed insight into the present recycling system of
the day care and its effectiveness (Ashwood et al., 1996)
The waste audit shows that the waste categories with the highest volume were paper /
cardboard are 42.3%. Paper towels/wipes and diapers and wipes are irreplaceable within
the day care system and these present 26.8% of the waste generated. Waste categories that
included recyclable materials included metal products; paper/cardboard; recyclable
plastic which had the percentage volume of 0.5%, 42.3%, 8.2% respectively. Food makes
up over five percent of the waste stream. However, this should be expected in a day care
where there are so many children being fed.

Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

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Figure 1: All Regular Waste Stream Composition

Textiles; 0.7 Organics; 6

Paper towels/wipes,diapers; 26.8

Aluminium; 0.5

Paper /Cardboard; 42.3

Recyclable Plastics or bottles; 8.2

Non-recyclable plastics; 15.5

Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

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8.0 Recommendation
The following list of recommendations may provide the basis of the waste reduction
work plan. Recommendations will be made in order or priority according to the
Environmental Management Hierarchy:
1. Source Reduction
2. Recycling (offsite)
3. Treatment
4. Disposal
Top priority is always given to source reduction initiatives since it is through these that
resource consumption is minimized. It is also where the most significant cost savings
occur for a facility. Money is not only saved in the reduction of disposal costs but also in
the purchasing and consumption of those resources as well. Recycling is the second
priority because it still involves the consumption of that resource to a certain extent.
Money is saved in disposal costs when recycling opportunities are maximized but it still
requires the replenishment of resources.

8.1 Source Reduction Recommendations

1. To reduce the amount of fine paper waste generated at the school, paper resources
should be replaced with digital alternatives if possible. Recyclable paper is
common in the waste stream so encouraging double sided printing, and only
printing when necessary can help reduce the amount of paper in the waste stream.
A paper use policy would help enforce the commitment of the school to reduce its
paper consumption.
2. Many unopened food items were found in the waste stream. These food items
place unnecessary strain on the waste stream. It is recommended that staff and
students be educated about the importance of not wasting food, and encouraging
the students to take home any uneaten food items.
3. Non-recyclable plastic, in the form of food wrappers was prevalent in the waste
stream. It should be encourage using reusable containers and reduce waste.
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Waste Audit at Fairyland Nursery and Pre-Primary

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4. Use reusable water bottles or mug would re-enforce this commitment to avoid
plastic to waste stream and if possible provide a different bin to separate
5. During the composition sorting, many garbage bags were found within other
garbage bags. In most cases, these bags were only slightly or moderately full.
Instructing staff to only replace bags only when they have been filled to capacity
or empty smaller bags into larger bags would reduce the amount of garbage bags
in the waste stream and would save on waste and procurement costs.
6. Reduce the amount of raw materials being consumed by generated purchasing
policies that target the highest percentage of post-consumer recycled content.
Some areas have already employed products that are environmentally conscious,
so expanding these areas would further help reduce consumption of raw materials.
Examples of this would include:
a. Purchasing napkins that has recycled content
b. Purchasing paper that has recycled content
c. Purchasing paper plates and takeout food containers that has recycled content
7. As being a pre-primary school, there a lot of activities that they have to
implement, a way to promote sustainable and waste reduction, the management
can make activities around this theme. By doing so they will not only sensibiliser
the little children at their tender age itself but also their parent when doing parent
meeting. And also inculcating such activity will enable the school to use
recyclable item such as yogurt cup, plastic bottle, used paper, used newspaper or
magazines and among others for the purpose of gardening, decoration, collage etc.
8. For the excess of used paper/cardboard and recyclable plastic found at school, the
management can give them to the local recycling company branch of polypet
which are found nearby at Mon Gout.
9. Implement such a system in the classes that whenever the children have finish use
papers, cardboard etc, the unused small bit of them is place in a box rather than
throwing them directing in the bin which consequently will be collected the waste

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collectors. Separating them will be more time saving rather than separating them
when sorting the bin and with time it will become a habit on its own.

9.0 Limitations
The recommendations which are suggested are in some instances not feasible. Fairyland
nursery and pre-primary school is a small organization with limited funds to pay for
extravagant waste reduction strategies. The volume generated by the school itself is
insignificant to result in a vast program to be implemented. The employees have
themselves instituted a program which is deemed as efficient because of the low numbers
of glass and metal found during the audit and most of the paper is used on both faces.
The interest of the day care is also an issue. Because of the large amount of responsibility
of the employees and the time constraints placed upon them, time to sort and separate
waste is not available. So the difficult and awkward activities are not a viable solution
and there are no such facilities in the island to recycle wiper or diapers so these waste are
continue to be disposal as it was earlier.

10.0 Reference

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Ashwood, K, Grosskopf, M. and Schneider, E. 1996 Conducting a Waste Audit

and Designing a Waste Reduction Work Plan. Acres International, Niagra Falls,

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ON. Can Pulp & Paper Assoc 1995 Environ Conf Proc, Halifax, NS, Ott 24-26,
pl33(4).

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