Diversion from landfill is now a standard reporting requirement on industrial projects, and the figures reported are frequently unverifiable. They are estimated from volumes, inferred from container counts, or calculated from assumptions about what a mixed load probably contained.
A defensible diversion figure has a specific property: every tonne in the numerator and the denominator traces to a weighbridge ticket and a transfer note naming a licensed receiving facility.
What that requires operationally
- Every outbound load weighed and ticketed, including loads leaving to recovery rather than disposal
- Transfer notes raised at the point of movement, identifying the receiving facility specifically
- Receiving facility permits checked and recorded — not assumed from the fact that they accepted the load
- Hazardous streams consigned separately with chain-of-custody documentation
- Reconciliation performed continuously so that discrepancies are found while the evidence still exists
The behavioural effect
The interesting outcome of building this system is not the reporting. It is what happens on site once crews understand that every load is weighed, ticketed and traced to a named destination.
Segregation discipline improves measurably, because contaminated loads become visible as specific, attributable events rather than disappearing into an aggregate. Supervisors start correcting cross-contamination at the work front because the reconciliation will surface it either way.
Measuring properly changes behaviour more reliably than exhorting people to do better.
Our position
Our 94% average diversion rate is reconcilable to weighbridge records across every programme that produced it. We would rather report a defensible 94% than an impressive figure we could not evidence — and clients undergoing their own sustainability audits have made clear which one is actually useful to them.
DDMS Global Environment
Environmental Management
5 November 2025 · 5 min read
