Why is the % waste diverted from landfill figure lower than I am expecting on my project dashboard (‘Actual waste sent offsite’ section)?29th March 2018

There could be a couple of reasons why the % waste diverted from landfill figure appears to be lower than you would expect. If you follow the steps below this will help you run a few checks on your data to determine the cause:
1. Check whether waste has incorrectly been marked as sent to landfill directly: From the project dashboard, click the “Reporting” tab and then select “Waste data log” from the left hand menu. Use the filters on the waste data log page by selecting “Disposal” from the drop down list in the box “Waste management route” then click “Update”. This will filter the log to show all waste data entries recorded as “sent to landfill directly”. Check if the waste management route “landfill directly” has been selected correctly, e.g. mixed construction and demolition waste is normally sent to a waste facility for recovery rather than sent to landfill directly. If the waste management route is incorrect, you can make amendments via this waste data log page by clicking on the date of the waste entry.
2. Check whether there are recycling/recovery rates entered for all waste entries which have been marked as sent for recovery:
If a waste entry is created with the waste management route “Recovery” offsite but there is not a recycling/recovery rate entered for the waste destination covering that date, then SmartWaste will mark all of that waste as going to landfill. There are a number of steps to check project data to find out if this is the case.
On “Waste data log” page, use the filters again, this time selecting “Recovery” from the drop down list in the box “Waste management route” then click “Update”. This will filter the log to show all waste data entries recorded as “sent to recovery”.
Click the button “Download as CSV” at the bottom of the page to open a file of the data. In the downloaded file, sort by the waste carrier name and destination name and find the relevant ‘date of transfer’ information for waste entries using the carriers/destinations. You can then use this information to find out if a recovery rate is given for the waste destinations used for those dates of entry.
From the waste management contractor list at the top tier/company homepage go to the “Contractors” tab and “Waste management contractors”. Find the relevant waste carrier name in the list and click “View”. In the “Waste facility/site details” section, click “Add recovery rate” next to the destination name. This takes you to the “Recovery rate records” page where you can check if a recycling/recovery rate is given for the waste facility for all of the dates when your waste was sent to this destination for recovery. If a recycling/recovery rate is missing for a certain period, you can add it via this page. Repeat this for all waste carriers/destinations for the project in question.
For example, you may have a recycling/recovery rate recorded for March to May 2016 for the waste destination, but you also sent waste to the destination in June, July and August 2016. Because you have not given a recycling/recovery rate for June, July and August for the waste destination, SmartWaste will assume that 0% of this waste was diverted from landfill (i.e. 100% sent to landfill). This affects the % of waste diverted from landfill figure on your project dashboard, but this is instantly rectified by adding recycling/recovery rates that cover all periods of waste data entry.