Cleaner production is a method to help improve the efficiency of raw material use by limiting the generation of waste products that inflate costs of production and reduce revenue.

Your trade waste officer can help you work through these six steps for cleaner production:

1. Plan and organise
Develop indicative targets, goals and objectives of what you would like to achieve. For example, you may want to aim for a 10 per cent reduction in waste, water, energy and/or labour costs.
Identify the staff who will work on a resource efficiency team.

2. Conduct a site assessment and develop a process map
Create a list of all items and goods that enter the factory, through to processing and finally where goods are packaged and stored for delivery.
Develop a flow diagram for the site to identify where materials are travelling throughout the site. This will help conduct a mass balance for the site.

3. Collect and record data
Record and review utility data against production output for the previous two years. This will help to identify your business’s performance and develop a snapshot of the current processes for which to benchmark against these changes.
Identify how much waste really costs you: include loss of raw materials, labour, energy, water and trade waste.

4. Develop an action plan
Develop a resource management action plan and:

• make the plan outcome focused
• make your plan simple and easy to follow
• assign timelines and responsibilities to key personnel
• tackle the simplest, most cost-effective issues first and develop the plan from there.

5. Implement your action plan
When implementing your action plan keep the following points in mind:

• prioritise actions from the most cost-effective with no capital costs to those that may require capital investment
• identify where the largest percentage of waste is being generated and target this area first
• start with opportunities that have direct financial benefits for no capital expenditure
• track and chart all actions and progress
• encourage continuous feedback and rewards for staff
• keep it simple

6. Monitoring and continuous improvement
Once actions have been implemented, it is important to monitor performance to look for opportunities for continuous improvement. This is not a one-off project – it should become part of your company's daily operations.

• monitor and track results
• continuous feedback and rewards for staff
• look at justifying any capital expenditure with costs saved through the program
• set new targets, goals and objectives
• start the process again and look for opportunities