Industrial and commercial waste survey for Natural Resources Wales

Challenge

SLR was appointed as lead contractor for the commission, the aim of which was to produce a report and database capturing information on the types and quantities of industrial and commercial (I&C) waste across Wales.

Solution

The SLR team co-ordinated delivery of the project, working with Anthesis (UK) Ltd on the design of survey questions and a statistical matrix. Further support was provided by Ainsworth & Parkinson and Groundwork Wales, who were appointed to carry out telephone enquiries and face-to-face interviews with participating businesses. During the five month survey period, SLR monitored progress and quality, providing regular communications and update reports to Natural Resources Wales (NRW).

Almost 1,500 business sites of differing scales and sectors provided data to inform the report. The data was checked and validated throughout the entire process from collection to analysis and grossed up using ONS data on business numbers by size (employee numbers) and sector to derive a national overview.

SLR led the data validation work, checking for group outliers, anomalies and any errors not previously identified during in-survey checks. We analysed the final data set to provide insights and statistics on the amount of I&C waste produced and how it was treated, with specific analysis of five target materials of particular interest to Welsh Government.

Impact

In producing the final report deliverable, SLR reviewed the technical methodology content provided by the sub-contractors and created a comprehensive database appendix in spreadsheet format.