Industrial Waste Auditing

Waste auditing is as important as any other step in a waste minimization or cleaner production project. This chapter discusses different aspects of waste auditing. The scope of such discussions has been limited to waste audits within a typical manufacturing industry. With increasing popularity and attention to proactive methods, structured methodologies are being developed to systematically explore, analyze, and implement energy conservation and waste minimization or cleaner production programs in industries. Typically, a development cycle of industrial waste minimization programs comprises six phases: inception, audit, analysis, design and development, implementation, and evaluation. The waste audit phase would typically be a data collection and information synthesis phase that explores the current situation. The chapter describes the steps of waste audit methodology: preparatory works for waste audit; preassessment of target processes; assessment; and synthesis and preliminary analysis.