Waste Industry could save over £12m per Year by going Mobile

A MOBILE app expert predicts that £12m could be saved across the waste industry in one year if companies recorded disposal data on their mobile phones rather than on paper.

That’s the opinion of Graham Whistance, head of workforce management app MyMobileWorkers (UK) and member of the Environment Agency Business Advisory Group for the national electronic duty of care (edoc) programme.

Under UK waste legislation, all businesses have a duty of care to ensure they produce, store and transport their waste without harming the environment. As part of this, businesses must fill in the waste transfer notes to show the waste is properly disposed of, and keep the record for two years.

According to the Environment Agency, around 23 million waste transfer notes are produced a year in the UK with around 50 million pieces of paper being stored in filing cabinets and boxes at any one time.

Now, the Environment Agency’s edoc programme is set to modernise the way waste data is collected in the UK by moving to an online system to monitor the waste journey from production and collection to transportation, treatment and disposal.

This news has been welcomed by Graham from MyMobileWorkers which allows companies to record waste transfer notes on a mobile phone app. He said: “If all of the 23 million waste transfer notes were recorded on the MyMobileWorkers app, we predict it could potentially save £12m in a year.

“This breaks down into saving £2.3m a year on paper, £8m in the administration time to process the jobs onto a computer and another £2m in allowing 10 per cent for inputting errors.”

Companies using MyMobileWorkers to record waste details include food recycling company Bioco, waste paper management specialist Revolution Recycling, document destruction service EnviroShred and waste to energy group Convert2Green.

Graham, added: “Waste companies need to be a step ahead of the game now because the benefits of digital waste transfer notes are clear- being able to collect real time data on waste movements, for improved data capture and for auditing purposes - all resulting in less administration time.”

MyMobileWorkers is the UK’s first pay-as-you-go workforce management app at 25p a job. Since it was developed in November 2011, it has helped numerous SMEs to collectively save nearly £4m through scrapping paperwork and switching work processes to a mobile app.