Drawing up a waste inventory: identifying waste deposits

As part of the implementation of an environmental management system, the preparation of an authorization file or simply to improve waste management, you may need to establish your waste management situation.

The first question to ask is how much waste your business produces. To do this, you can draw up an inventory, which will give you an initial picture of the situation.

The aim of this inventory is first and foremost to ensure that the company is aware of all the waste it produces, and that regulatory requirements are met in terms of storage, collection and disposal. This inventory will also enable us to optimize waste management by seeking out more appropriate channels (recycling, reuse), or even reducing waste at source (replacing hazardous waste with non-hazardous waste, eliminating waste production).

The time required to draw up a waste inventory is determined by the diversity of the waste produced, as well as by the number of sites involved. A tertiary sector site producing almost exclusively non-hazardous waste will generally take less time to draw up than an industrial site with a large number of processes and products, for example.

The person in charge of drawing up the inventory must have environmental skills and be familiar with at least the regulatory requirements applicable to waste.