How to Carry Out a Commercial Waste Audit: Step-by-Step Checklist

Most businesses know roughly how often their bins are collected. Far fewer know whether those collections still match the amount of waste they actually produce.

That matters because waste arrangements tend to stay in place for years. A bin size gets chosen, a collection frequency gets agreed and, unless something goes badly wrong, nobody looks at it again. A commercial waste audit gives you a chance to do exactly that.

It can show where you are paying for unnecessary capacity, where recyclable material is ending up in general waste, whether collections are happening too often or not often enough, and whether your documentation and recycling arrangements are still compliant.

You do not need specialist equipment to get started either. A useful first audit can be carried out simply by looking carefully at what your business throws away and how the current service is being used.

Step 1: Work out what waste your business actually produces

Start with the obvious question: what are you throwing away?

For many businesses, that will include a mixture of general waste, cardboard, paper, dry mixed recycling and food waste. Depending on the type of organisation, there may also be glass, sanitary waste, confidential documents, electrical equipment or specialist materials that need their own collection arrangements.

Make a list of each waste stream and note where it is produced.

A restaurant, for example, may generate food waste in the kitchen, glass behind the bar, cardboard from deliveries and general waste across several areas of the premises. An office may produce much less food waste but significantly more paper and packaging. It is worth including smaller waste streams too. Electrical, hazardous or confidential waste might only arise occasionally, but they still need to be managed properly.

If you are unsure what collection options are available, GWR's commercial waste types page gives an overview of the main services.

Step 2: Have a look inside your general waste

This sounds simple, but it is one of the most useful parts of a waste audit. Look inside your general waste bins before collection and see what is actually in them.

Are there cardboard boxes? Plastic bottles? Cans? Food waste? Paper?

If a large proportion of the bin could have gone into another waste stream, the issue may not be that you need a larger general waste bin. You may simply need better recycling provision.

Sometimes the solution is as straightforward as moving a recycling bin closer to where the waste is being produced or giving staff clearer instructions.

This is increasingly important under workplace recycling rules too. In England, most workplaces now need to separate food waste, dry recyclable materials and residual waste, with micro-firms required to comply by 31 March 2027.

Our guide to Simpler Recycling requirements for small businesses explains the requirements in more detail.

Step 3: See how full your bins really are

You do not necessarily need to weigh every bag of waste. For a few weeks, simply check how full each container is immediately before it is emptied.

You might record it as 25%, 50%, 75% or full. What you are looking for is a pattern.

If an 1100-litre bin is being emptied twice a week but is regularly only half full, you may be paying for more collection capacity than you need. If the same bin is overflowing every time the collection vehicle arrives, the opposite is true. Do not judge the service based on one unusual week. Hospitality, retail and seasonal businesses can fluctuate significantly. A few weeks of observations will give you a much better picture.

Step 4: Look at bin size and collection frequency together

A common mistake is to look at these separately.

Changing to a smaller bin is not necessarily cheaper if it means doubling the number of collections. Equally, a large container is not automatically good value simply because it has more capacity. The right setup depends on how quickly the bin fills, how much storage space you have, site access and the type of waste involved. You may find that one large weekly collection is more practical than several smaller ones. Another business with limited space may need exactly the opposite.

The important thing is that the arrangement reflects how the site actually operates today, rather than what was agreed several years ago. GWR's commercial bin size guide can help when comparing typical container capacities.

Step 5: Pay particular attention to your biggest waste streams

Once you have looked at your general waste, it is worth identifying which materials take up the most space overall.

For hospitality businesses, that is often food waste, glass and packaging. For an office, it might be paper and cardboard. For retail businesses, packaging can account for a significant proportion of the waste generated.

These are often where the biggest improvements can be made. If food waste is still taking up substantial space in general waste bins, for example, introducing or adjusting a dedicated commercial food waste collection may reduce the amount of residual waste you need to have collected.

The same principle applies to cardboard, glass and other recyclable materials.

Step 6: Check whether your recycling is actually working

Having recycling bins on site does not automatically mean the system is working well. Check them.

If food waste, black bags or other unsuitable materials regularly appear in a recycling container, you have a contamination problem. Before assuming staff simply do not care, look at the setup itself. Are the labels clear? Are the bins in the right place? Does someone preparing food have easy access to a food waste bin? Is the recycling container further away than the general waste?

Small operational details can make a surprisingly large difference. If contamination keeps happening in the same area, there is usually a reason for it.

Step 7: Check the compliance side as well

A waste audit is also a useful opportunity to check that your records and collection arrangements are in order.

You should be able to establish who is collecting your waste, whether they are appropriately authorised, what happens to each waste stream and whether the correct documentation is available. For non-hazardous waste, that includes keeping the appropriate Waste Transfer Note information and being able to produce it when required. Hazardous waste follows different documentation requirements.

You should also check that the waste description accurately reflects what is being collected and that staff understand which materials need to be kept separate. Our Commercial Waste Duty of Care Guide covers the documentation side in more detail.

It is also worth checking that your waste carrier is licensed and appropriately registered. Businesses operating in more than one part of Great Britain should remember that workplace recycling requirements are not identical in England, Wales and Scotland. Our UK Business Waste Regulations 2026/27 guide gives a wider overview.

Step 8: Look at what the service is actually costing you

This is the part of a waste audit that often gets overlooked.

Once you know what bins you have and how heavily they are being used, look at the commercial arrangement behind them. Check your invoices and contract.

What are you paying for each collection? Are there separate bin-rental or administration charges? Are there weight allowances? What happens if a collection fails? When can prices increase?

Then compare that with what you saw during the physical audit.

If a container is routinely being collected half empty, even a competitive lift price may not represent particularly good value. Likewise, a provider with a low headline collection price may have other charges elsewhere in the agreement. We have covered this in more detail in our guide to commercial waste costs and comparing waste quotes.

The important thing is to look at what the whole service costs your business, not just the figure next to each collection.

Step 9: Ask whether some of the waste could be avoided altogether

Recycling is important, but preventing waste in the first place is even better.

Once you know what is being thrown away, look for anything that does not need to become waste at all. That might mean reducing unnecessary packaging, ordering stock differently, cutting food spoilage, switching away from disposable products or reusing packaging internally.

This is where a waste audit can start to uncover savings outside the waste contract itself. If you buy something that is never used and then pay someone to collect it as waste, you have effectively paid for it twice. That is why waste prevention sits above recycling in the waste hierarchy.

Step 10: Decide what you are actually going to change

Do not finish the audit with a long list of observations and no action.

Pick the improvements that are likely to make the biggest difference. You might decide to reduce one collection frequency, introduce a separate cardboard service, improve signage in the staff kitchen or replace an oversized container.

Make the action specific and then check whether it worked. For example: Reduce general waste collections from three per week to two after introducing separate cardboard recycling. Review bin capacity again after six weeks. That is much more useful than simply writing “improve recycling”.

Waste arrangements should be reviewed again whenever there is a meaningful change in the business, whether that is growth, new premises, a change in staff numbers or a new type of waste being produced.

If you have several sites, compare them

For multi-site businesses, there is another useful layer to the audit.

Compare similar locations against one another. If nine sites have broadly comparable operations but one consistently produces twice as much general waste, there is probably something worth investigating.

The same applies to collection frequency and cost. One site may genuinely be busier. But differences can also uncover poor segregation, oversized containers or simply an arrangement that has never been reviewed.

Our multi-site waste management guide explains how businesses can bring greater consistency to waste costs, collections and compliance across several locations.

How often should you review your waste?

There is no need to carry out a full audit every month.

For a relatively stable business, an annual review is a sensible starting point. You should also review the service when something significant changes: opening another site, increasing staff numbers, changing operating hours, introducing new products or seeing a noticeable increase in waste costs.

The warning sign is usually when nobody can remember why the current arrangement was chosen in the first place. That is often a good indication that it is time to look again.

Need help carrying out a commercial waste audit?

You can carry out much of this process yourself.

But if you are unsure whether your current bins, collections or waste streams are right for your business, GWR can review them with you.

Our free commercial waste audit looks at what your business actually produces, the containers you are using and how frequently they are being collected.

The purpose is not to add unnecessary services. It is to identify an arrangement that makes sense for the amount and type of waste you generate.

Request a free commercial waste audit

If you already know what you need and simply want to compare pricing, you can also request a commercial waste quote.