How to Develop a Program

The diversity of business activities, processes and waste streams makes it impossible for us to write a detailed plan for every business - you know your business better than we do.

We have therefore included a simple process, some practical hints and links to other sites that can be used to develop your own program.

Management Commitment

Senior management commitment is vital to the success of a waste management program. In small business, this usually means the support of the business owner. If you do not have this support, check out the hints in Why Develop a Program?

Employee Involvement

The employees at the 'coal face' are usually the key to understanding the detail of your business processes - and the opportunities for improvement. Involving your employees in the earliest stages of an improvement program is also the best way to build 'ownership' into the process.

Understand Your Business

Well-managed businesses recognise the competitive edge that an effective improvement program can provide. You can extend your program to take control of the wasteful practices that occur in all aspects of your business operations.

Map Your Process to identify the key activities involved in your workflow, including recycles and waste disposal. This will lead directly to some useful General Tips (Business). A number of simple tools can then be used to assist the process of Information Gathering.

Idea Generation

Don't re-invent the wheel - talk to other businesses about options for waste reduction, reuse, recycling and responsible disposal. Check out the Business Case Studies available on this site and through our links page.

Pick the practical hints that suit your business, from the Business Waste Streams pages of this site.

Talk to your waste/ recycling contractor, to find out which materials can be collected, how they must be presented for efficient collection, and what costs are associated with the disposal of different materials.

Conduct a 'brain storming' session with your employees, using the information your have gathered, to identify priorities for action.

Document Your Plan

It is preferable to document the final Plan, so that you can check your future progress. Simply summarise the key points from the planning process and list your priorities for action.

However simple, you now have a plan - now get into Making it Work.