When you understand the daily effort, you can refine the working parts, reduce the ineffective parts and wherever possible eliminate mere excessive repetition or redundant activities.

It goes without saying that picking up litter and emptying bins are big players in every litter management plan.

So four of the simplest actions would be;

1. Bigger bins = less servicing
2. More efficient bins = less litter near bins
3. Better cleaning machines = easier litter collection
4. Effective scheduling = staff and fleet in the right spot at the right time

Relying on yesterday’s structures and methods can only deliver at best the same results, and that won’t be good enough for the future.

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Making the most of your current bins and cleaning activities starts with a complete understanding of what bins you have and how your council cleans up litter. This is a journey that requires’s consultation with, your cleaners, the parks staff, the bin servicing crew and perhaps even not for profit groups and your contractors.

A simple question to ask each of these crews, What’s the biggest waste of your time? If your answers were provided honestly, you should have just been gifted a simple improvement opportunity.

This method of consultation leads to involvement at all levels; it’s not a team of managers making desktop decisions. When it comes to refining the working parts of any program, it’s essential to include each of those parts in on the discussion. Do this early, and do it sincerely. It should take no more than a month or so to put this together, and it can be as simple as a workflow chart or work-shadowing some staff for a few days.

Here’s an example of some things to look at, knowing most of these answers will have you well informed on how your program is running.
Please note at the moment we are not talking about litter, this is about understanding the activities it takes to manage litter.

1. Litter Bins – this is your network analysis
– how many
– where are they
– what type
– capacity

2. Litter Bin servicing – this is your service analysis
– how often is each bin serviced
– what day of the week and what time
– average capacity used at the time of service
– locations of full/overflowing bins
– location of empty/unused bins
– kilometers service vehicle travels each day
– bins serviced per vehicle per day
– other activities undertook, (empty butt bins, wipe down bins, etc., these)

The information you are compiling in 1 & 2 is about bits of metal and schedules, and these are the easiest to refine because there is no emotion involved. After all, if you have to pull out a bin and send it for recycling because it doesn’t work, that’s not the end of the world. Try doing something similar to people; that’s why I suggest that fixing your bins and schedules first is the path of least resistance and will deliver easy to achieve improvements.

3. Litter collection/cleansing in shopping areas and footpaths
– where – geographical location,
– when – time and day
– how many staff,
– tools & vehicles,
– outcomes – quality assessment
– other activities that were undertaken

4. Litter collection/cleansing in parks and green spaces
– where – geographical location
– When – time and day
– How many staff
– tools and vehicles
– outcomes – quality assessment
– other activities that were undertaken

Once you have the lists of answers for activities 3 & 4, I recommend that you then ask the staff to break down their activities within these locations into 15-minute intervals. It’s simple and will give you a very clear picture of what’s getting achieved every quarter of an hour. This will provide fingertip analysis of things like, time frames your crews are in transit, and what tools are being used.

5. Service providers, contractors, costs, accountability and audits
– comprehensive list of stakeholders
– identify all budget’s and where they sit in you organisation
– any work on contract, the length of contract and accountability
– list of audits or measures applied to litter, cleaning, and servicing (if any)

Armed with this information you can start to implement a ‘hierarchy of activities‘ to ensure that the most important activities are done and at the time when it is most appropriate. Now the most important activities will be different things to different people so make sure you seek feedback from all stakeholders.

 

Hopefully, you have been able to start pulling together some of the activities that are essential to effective litter management. It may take a little time to convince your partners in council that working together is the key, but you have to have faith and keep at it. No doubt you will come up against people who have been doing things the same way for so long that they are afraid of change.
You need to bring them along on the improvement journey with you, be inclusive, open to discussions, questions, and ideas. Teamwork and a collective commitment will eventually lead to a better outcome.

The knowledge you will have gained about your council’s actions and methods for collecting and managing litter will have you well positioned to understand the E, the effort in the litter analysis tool S-A-O-I-E (Size, Age, Origin, Impact, Effort)

This posting has been about getting you to look at some specific aspects of litter management in your organisation when you have a good working knowledge of these issues you can make accurate well-informed decisions.
 

 

Metal (bins)
People (Staff)
Paper (Contracts & Cash)

As with all of the postings, please feel free to contact me at paul@wasteadspace.com.au to discuss this or any of the postings.