The Local Government Strategic Waste Action Plan Tool

Overview

This Tool has been developed to assist local government in NSW to easily evaluate their current waste diversion performance and investigate the impact system modifications may have on future waste diversion rates. The Tool assists councils to create a strategic list of system changes, activities and programs tailored to their local waste stream that will achieve a kerbside diversion of 66% by 2014. This list can be the basis for more lengthy and descriptive Waste Action Plans. Alternatively those councils with existing Waste Action Plans can use the Tool to quickly and easily check the waste diversion assumptions against published regional and state averages.

The LGSWAP Tool is MS Excel based. The 2009 version of the tool was updated in 2011 with new default data and functionality in both Excel 2003 and Excel 2007.

Inputs

The Local Government Strategic Waste Action Plan (LGSWAP) Tool can be run at 3 different levels:

1. entering minimal data such as population and then utilising NSW standard waste generation and recycling rates to produce a cursory analysis
2. linking the Tool to council's Yearly Local Government Waste and Resource Recovery Data Return so that data is automatically loaded into the required calculations
3. manually entering more specific data such as data from recent waste audits.

Sourcing and entering the most accurate and current waste information is more time consuming but produces the most comprehensive and reliable results.

Outputs

After data entry the LGSWAP Tool produces a 'Current Waste Diversion Performance Evaluation Report'. This lists the data sources used to generate the report and an overview of the waste generated and diverted from landfill.

A pie chart is produced providing a breakdown of the percentage and tonnage of material that is landfilled and a bar graph compares this information with the amount of each material recycled. The pie chart and bar graph are a visual representation of how well material is being diverted for recycling and which material types provide the greatest opportunity for improvement.

The LGSWAP Tool then allows the user to observe the changes to diversion rate overtime as a result of selecting combinations of actions and programs, changing the commencement dates of these actions, changing the expected yields from these programs as well as the percentage of households participating in the new programs. The Tool has some capability to indicate whether these changes are realistic for the specific local government waste stream characteristics that have been entered into the Tool.

The second output of the Tool is a 'Strategic Waste Action Plan Report'. This lists the data sources used in developing the action plan, the selected actions and programs and the assumed potential additional material recovery as a result of these actions. This information is represented visually as a bar graph of diversion rates over time. The diversion rate is broken down and colour coded depending on whether it is a result of current actions, planned major system changes, small scale system improvements or user defined programs.

Downloads

Download a brochure containing more information and instructions on using the tool. Local Government Strategic Waste Action Plan Tool brochure (110725SWAPtool.pdf, 358kb)

Download a copy of the Local Government Strategic Wate Action Plan 2011 Tool (110149LGSWAPtool.zip, 921 kb)

For further information on the LGSWAP Tool and to obtain copies of the Tool please contact  the Sustainability Programs Division.