Waste and recycling in aged care facilities
Prepared by Aged and Community Services Australia in partnership with Green Industries SA and Rawtec Pty Ltd, funded through the GISA Business Sustainability Program. September 2018. The original is on the Green Industries SA website.
Summary published
Twenty-six South Australian aged care facilities were reviewed across 2017 and 2018. Waste generation ranged from 0.85 to 7.83 kilograms per residential bed per day — a ninefold spread between the best and worst performer.
Landfill diversion ranged from under 1% to 77%, with the typical facility at 40%. The guide finds the difference between facilities is mainly operational.
The financial driver was the levy. The SA waste levy went from about $28 a tonne in 2014–15 to about $100 in 2019–20, and metropolitan landfill gate rates reached $130 to $150 a tonne including levy — against $30 to $50 a tonne to send food waste to a commercial composter.
Waste per bed per day, best to worst
Landfill diversion range
SA facilities reviewed
Landfill reduction achieved at RSL Care SA
What the 26 facilities showed
What the waste is made of
Even at the better practice facility, continence product waste is 30.3% by weight, followed by dry materials sent to energy recovery at 29.4%.
Food waste is 11.8% and garden waste 9.7% at the better practice facility. Food waste to a commercial composter costs $30–$50 a tonne against $130–$150 to landfill.
What one facility achieved
RSL Care SA’s War Veterans’ Home went from 44.8 to 25.7 tonnes a year to landfill between 2011 and 2017, and food waste from 7.3 to 5.1 tonnes — a 30% reduction. Waste costs stayed flat through a $74 per tonne levy increase.
RSL Care SA separates ten, including confidential paper, container deposit containers, scrap metal and e-waste.
Eligible containers are 1.3% by weight at the better practice facility, at 10 cents each. It is the only stream on the list that pays.
Procurement and tenancies
The guide’s seven-step tendering process and procurement checklist target the contract. Bin signage comes second.
Cafes, hairdressers and allied health services operating inside a facility need waste segregation written into the tenancy contract.
The tools it comes with
Estimates baseline waste generation and recycling, then benchmarks the facility against the others reviewed.
Four sections that walk a facility through identifying opportunities and building an implementation plan, area by area.
Turns the assessment into a plan with owners and dates.
Task by task through preliminary review, tender, evaluation and contracting.
Separate sections for kitchen and servery, operations and maintenance, offices and administration, residential and public areas, and tenancies. Each one sorted against the waste hierarchy.
The per-bed-per-day figures exclude waste from renovations and construction and demolition, and exclude large events and temporary activities. The guide “does not claim to be exhaustive” and notes that “factors are subject to change and readers should make their own enquiries to confirm the current situation” — the levy rates in it now understate the current position. Reference to a particular product or company “does not constitute an endorsement”.
Related work
Other guidance for organisations managing their own waste.
The full guide runs to about 40 pages and includes the area-by-area guidance, the bin colour and size reference and the RSL Care SA case study.
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