Bundle Waste
An office waste plan should connect each material to an accepted collection route and identify who controls the service. Start with your tenancy agreement: a tenant-managed contract and a landlord's shared building service need different decisions.
Map the office streams
| Area | Separate decision |
|---|---|
| Mail room and deliveries | Clean cardboard, paper and protective packaging; confirm each accepted recycling material. |
| Workstations and records | Ordinary paper versus confidential records with an approved retention/destruction process. |
| IT and equipment | Asset inventory, data handling, batteries and an appropriate e-waste route. |
| Kitchen | Food scraps, containers and residual rubbish; verify whether the building offers organics. |
| Cleaning store | Product-specific advice for leftover chemicals and contaminated containers. |
Protect information before disposal
APP 11.2 sets requirements for covered entities to destroy or de-identify personal information in the circumstances it specifies, subject to retention exceptions. It does not require every office document to be shredded immediately. Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: Chapter 11: APP 11 Security of personal information.
Give your records owner control of release for destruction. Ask the contractor about custody, access, evidence and the material's destination. For IT equipment, approve the data-erasure or destruction method before assets leave the office.
Keep e-waste separate
Victorian landfills cannot receive e-waste. EPA guidance includes computers and batteries and explains activity-specific permissions. EPA Victoria: Electronic waste.
Inventory equipment and battery condition before arranging collection. Do not assume a household drop-off accepts commercial quantities or that a recycler offers free pickup. Request acceptance and charges in writing.
Size the service from occupancy and actual use
Observe containers before scheduled collection over a representative working period, including busy office days. Record fill level, overflow, contamination reports and missed services. A hybrid office's headcount alone is not a waste-volume measurement.
Test changes one stream at a time. Keep enough capacity for hygiene, access and collection reliability. Ask cleaners to follow the same sorting system used by staff; a well-labelled desk station is ineffective if its contents are later mixed.
Compare complete costs
Include rental, collections, minimum fees, confidential destruction, specialist removals and building-management charges. Compare the proposed annual total on the same GST basis. This guide does not provide an unsupported per-person or per-bin market benchmark.
Use the recycling-bin checklist and service audit to prepare your brief.
Sources
- EPA Victoria — Electronic waste. Checked 18 September 2026; E-waste and the law; Permissions.
- Office of the Australian Information Commissioner — Chapter 11: APP 11 Security of personal information. Checked 18 September 2026; APP 11.2; paragraphs 11.26-11.32.
