4 Ways to Increase Diversion After the Easy Wins

Your diversion program may already be doing exactly what it was designed to do. Your highest-volume, most predictable material streams are funneling into established processes, reliable end-of-life paths, and regular collection schedules.

The obvious opportunities have all been addressed.

That makes the last 20-30% of diversion gains harder to achieve. New opportunities are less visible because they don’t fall within existing program tracking. They might be materials you tried to divert before and gave up on, or waste generated during one-time projects. Maybe they’re from inventory events, small-volume streams that don’t warrant separate pickups, or gaps in how a program is supposed to work versus the on-the-ground reality.

So instead of, “What else can we recycle?” The better question is, “Where does our current diversion program stop working?” That’s the best way to find your next opportunities – and to spot the blockers keeping you from capturing them.

Where to Look for Your Next Diversion Opportunities

After you’ve solved for the obvious material streams, it’s rare to suddenly identify another major material category. Diversion improvements are most likely tied to parts of your existing program where materials are still being left behind.

Revisit Material Streams You Gave Up On

One of the best sources of new diversion opportunities may be in programs tried in the past.

Maybe you ruled out a material stream for good reasons:

• There wasn’t enough volume
• Transportation costs were too high
• Contamination requirements were difficult to meet
• The available recycler couldn’t accept the material in the form your operation generated it.

In other cases, the recycling path may have existed, but it didn’t fit the day-to-day realities of your site operations. While those are valid reasons for shelving a program, they’re not necessarily permanent ones.

Just like your own operation may have changed, recycling markets, processing capabilities, aggregation options, and logistics models continue to change too. A material that was once generated in small quantities may now be showing up across more locations, or several separate streams may be able to move together through a different processing model.

Start with the materials currently labeled “not viable,” “too difficult,” or “landfill only” and ask:

• Why did we make that decision?
• What specifically stood in the way?
• Does that barrier still exist?

The goal isn’t to revive every program that failed. It’s to make sure an old decision isn’t being driven by an outdated assumption.

Look Beyond Materials from Steady-State Operations

Everyday diversion programs are built around the materials you generate at predictable volumes. But not everything your business generates follows that pattern.

Projects, inventory events, facility changes, and other non-routine activities can create material streams that don’t fit the processes you already have in place. A store remodel may generate fixtures and construction materials. An inventory reset may create obsolete products and packaging. A site closing may produce a mix of equipment, furniture, electronics, and branded materials that your regular waste program was never designed to handle.

That means a program can work well day to day and still miss significant diversion opportunities over the course of a year. Look back at the non-routine activities your sites have handled and ask:

• What material did those events generate?
• Was there a diversion plan in place before it was created?

If the answer was determined case by case, handled locally, or simply routed through the easiest available option, there’s probably an opportunity to build diversion planning into the project itself rather than figuring it out after the material has been generated.

Look for Gaps Between the Program and What’s Actually Happening

Sometimes the diversion opportunity isn’t a new material stream at all. It’s material that already has a diversion path but isn’t consistently making it there.

That gap can show up in a lot of ways. One site may handle a material differently than another. A container may not be available where it’s needed. Employees may default to the easiest disposal option when the process is unclear. Or a local workaround may not match the company’s intended program.

Verified site-level data is especially useful in this case. As the EPA notes, measurement is critical to identifying improvement opportunities. If the same type of location is producing very different diversion results, certain materials are showing up in unexpected streams, or contamination is consistently higher at one site, those patterns can point to an operational issue rather than a recycling issue.

Comparing what should be happening with what’s actually leaving each location and where it’s going can show you where material is slipping through the cracks and why. Ask:

• Does the material actually need a new diversion path?
• Is the existing program being executed consistently?

In a lot of cases, improving diversion doesn’t require a new recycler or a new program. It’s a matter of fixing the gap between the process on paper and the reality on the ground.

Look at the Streams That Fall Below Your Current Volume Thresholds

Some materials may have a viable diversion path but still not get captured because there isn’t enough volume at individual sites to support a dedicated pickup or standalone recycling process.

That’s especially common across distributed operations. One location may generate only a small amount of textiles, electronics, packaging components, or other specialty materials. Multiplied across dozens or hundreds of sites, though, those small streams can add up to a significant amount of material.

The key is separating a volume problem from a recyclability problem. “We don’t generate enough for our current collection model” doesn’t mean the material has to go to landfill. Check whether the real barrier is the material itself or the logistics of collecting enough of it efficiently.

Look for materials that sites have been told to:

• Hold until they have enough
• Handle locally
• Dispose of it because a regular pickup doesn’t make sense

Those are good candidates for a different collection model, such as consolidation, aggregation, or mail-back recycling. The opportunity may not be to create a full-scale program at every location. It may be to find a way for small, distributed volumes to move through one larger diversion program.

Make Continuous Improvement Part of the Program

The better you get at diverting the major material streams, the less likely future diversion gains are to come from one major program change. Progress becomes more incremental, with opportunities emerging as materials, operations, markets, and available solutions change.

Instead of treating the material that still goes to disposal as a fixed part of your waste stream, keep it on the list of opportunities to revisit. When a gap surfaces, look at how much material is involved, what’s getting in the way, and if there’s a new pathway to solve it.

Over time, that approach shifts diversion from a program you establish and maintain to one you continuously improve. You’re not trying to solve every remaining material stream at once. You’re building a process for finding and prioritizing ‌opportunities with the best combination of diversion potential and operational feasibility, then moving the next one forward.

Keep Looking at What Remains

A mature diversion program keeps the remaining material visible. Knowing what still falls outside the program, why it does, and whether those reasons still hold gives you a path to your next gains.

Those may come from a new outlet, a better collection model, a site-level fix, or revisiting a decision that made sense at the time. What matters is continuing to question what still goes to disposal instead of letting it become an accepted part of the waste stream.

Not sure what’s still hiding in your waste stream? A waste audit can identify what’s being generated, where current programs are falling short, and where additional diversion opportunities may exist.

Talk to our ZeroPoint team about a custom audit for your organization.