Determine Physical Waste Sort Material Categories
Before conducting your physical waste sort, you need to create a list of what material categories you plan to quantify through the audit. Also, if you have recycling, choose whether to include contamination estimates in the audit. Contamination refers to the amount of non-recyclables in a recycling receptacle or vice versa, the amount of recyclables in a waste receptacle.
The number of material categories will be influenced by the goals for your waste management program and the detail needed for waste management planning. The waste can be sorted into as few as two categories (trash and recycling) or more than twenty categories. Keep in mind that while more categories provide a more detailed dataset, it also increases the workload the day of the sort as sorters have to separate out more categories and record more figures.
Common material categories are included in the table below. This is an example list meant to help brainstorm what could be included in your audit; you don’t not have to use all these categories in your audit. In addition, there could be categories specific to your organization’s operations that you choose to include that are not listed below.
Physical Waste Sort Potential Categories and Subcategories
Landfill
Non-recyclable plastic: plastic film, plastic cutlery, coffee pods, trash liners, styrofoam Non-recyclable glass: broken glass, glass cups Non-recyclable metal: aluminum foil Non-recyclable paper: soiled paper & cardboard, napkins & paper towels, paper plates Non-compostable food scraps
Recycling
Compostable
Reuse/Third-Party Recycling
As a reminder, always check with your local recycler and/or compost service to confirm what is accepted when choosing your categories.
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