Best Practice Waste Management
On Friday 23rd February, War Veterans Home Maintenance Officer, Nick Atkins, was asked to present RSL Care SA’s waste management initiatives to the ACSA Finance Symposium held at the Morphettville Racecourse.
RSL Care SA has become recognised as an industry and State leader in efficient waste management. We are extremely proud of this achievement and in our waste management improvements across all facilities.
In 2011, we reviewed our waste and recycling activities and volumes and identified opportunities for improvements that could increase what was being recycled and also make cost savings.
Separately sorting waste enabled us to easily identify where waste was being generated. This facilitated management to establish simple strategies to cut waste across the business. In addition to creating an environmentally friendly workplace, implementing correct waste management procedures has provided staff with a greater awareness of waste issues.
We conducted a second review in 2017 to monitor our performance, and following are the results:
- Landfill volumes down by 42% (from 44.8 to 25.7 tonnes/year)
- Food waste reduced by 30% (from 7.3 to 5.1 tonnes/year)
- Recycling of 10 different waste streams
- Only stream sent to landfill is continence waste (currently no option to recycle)
Our overall waste costs have remained consistent with 2011 costs. This is despite higher costs across South Australia for waste disposal. South Australia’s waste levy currently sits at $87/tonne (up from $26/tonne in 2011).
Reducing our waste disposal has allowed us to mitigate against further waste levy increases, which are set to rise to $103/tonne by 2020.
Nick Atkins has been spearheading this important initiative. We are very pleased that Nick was asked to present to this forum targeting Chief Executives Officers, Chief Finance Officers, General Managers and the like. We hope all other aged care providers join us in achieving Best Practice Waste Management.