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Waste auditing, from planning to reporting

A waste audit replaces guesswork with measured data: what your organization or community actually throws away, in what quantities, and where it should have gone instead. This guide walks through the full process — planning, sampling, sorting, weighing, analysis, and reporting — at the level of detail you need to actually run one.

Auditors in high-visibility vests sorting waste at outdoor tables with a platform scale in the foreground
Active sort. Crew in hi-vis and PPE at the tables, labeled category bins in view, platform scale in the foreground.
Path A

Facility & ICI Audits

Offices, schools, hospitals, retail, industrial sites. Audit a building's waste over a defined generation period to find diversion opportunities, right-size contracts, and meet regulatory requirements.

Path B

Curbside & Residential Studies

Municipal composition studies across sampled households or routes, often across multiple seasons. Measure set-out, capture, and contamination rates to design and evaluate diversion programs.

How the two paths work on this site
Most methodology is shared. Where the paths diverge — sampling design, day-of logistics, and analysis — pages carry an ICI / Curbside tab switch rather than splitting into two sites.

This guide is a project of the Circular Innovation Hub at York University. For questions, collaboration, or to report a correction, contact Dr. Calvin Lakhan or Larry Meloche.