From Results to Action

The value of an audit is realized through the program changes that follow it. This section describes how findings become ranked interventions, how targets are set at a defensible level, and how the re-audit cycle — methodology held constant — establishes whether the changes worked. It is the section the next audit is designed against.

Three levers

Every intervention an audit can motivate pulls one of three levers, and naming the lever keeps recommendations concrete. Reduce generation: less material enters any stream (purchasing changes, food-waste prevention, reuse). Improve capture: material that is generated reaches its correct stream (infrastructure, convenience, signage, service coverage) — this is the lever the §09 current-versus-potential gap measures. Reduce contamination: what reaches a diversion stream belongs there (education targeted at the specific contaminants found, feedback, container design). A recommendation that cannot name its lever, its finding, and its approximate tonnage is not yet a recommendation.

The intervention matrix

Prioritizing: impact against effort

Recommendations are ranked on two axes: the tonnage they address (from the §09 potential-diversion gap, apportioned by finding) and the effort they demand (cost, approvals, behaviour change required). The quadrant framing is coarse by design — its purpose is sequencing, not precision.

Setting targets

The §09 potential-diversion figure is a ceiling, not a target: it assumes perfect capture of every divertible kilogram, which no program achieves. Defensible targets are set as movements along the capture scale — for the Maple Centre example, organics capture of 28% might reasonably target 55–60% within two years of an infrastructure-led intervention, with the target stated alongside the baseline, the measure, and the re-audit date that will test it. Two disciplines keep targets honest: they are set per stream (a single diversion-rate target hides which program moved), and they are ratcheted from evidence — the second re-audit sets the third target, not aspiration.

Documenting the change

Interventions are documented with the same care as the audit itself, because the re-audit comparison is only as interpretable as the record of what changed between passes: what was implemented, where, when, and at what cost — plus photographs. The F-01 container inventory and its photos from the baseline audit serve as the "before" record; the same inventory is repeated when the intervention lands.

Before · garbage room

After · same room

The re-audit cycle

The re-audit is scheduled when the intervention is approved, not after it settles — a date on a calendar is what separates evaluation from good intentions. Working guidance: twelve to twenty-four months for a routine cycle, or six to twelve months after a major program change (long enough for behaviour to stabilize past the novelty period, short enough that the comparison still informs decisions). The re-audit repeats the baseline's design brief (F-00) exactly — frame, samples, season, category list version — and reports the comparison under the §10 rules, including "no detectable change" where the difference sits inside the study's precision. Where budgets permit only small audits, a consistent annual indicative sort (§03) tracks direction between full studies.

Institutionalizing the cycle

Programs that sustain improvement embed the audit rather than re-deciding it annually. Four mechanisms recur: a recurring budget line for measurement, sized from §05's kit-and-crew figures; audit and data-access clauses in collection and processing contracts, so scalehouse tonnages and composition sampling rights exist when needed; a named owner for each recommendation, with the recommendation table from §10's report serving as the tracking document; and, where O. Reg. 102/94 applies, alignment of the cycle with the regulation's annual update duty (§01), so compliance and improvement run on one calendar rather than two.

Case Study · Maple Centre organics

Baseline: food waste ~41% of garbage, organics capture 28%. The site added labeled organics totes at the kitchen and dock, briefed kitchen staff, and recut the hauler pickup. The re-audit, 14 months later, using the same F-00 design brief, measured organics in garbage at ~12% and capture near 60%. Bin cost recovered in avoided tip fees within the first year.

illustrative — numbers from the worked example in §09

Related

Tonnage attribution for ranking: §09's potential-diversion gap. Target-setting language and comparison rules: §10. Method constancy across passes: §02's design brief discipline. Small-audit trend tracking: §03's consistency principle.