John Conomos, Executive Director Strategic Partnerships at SKG Services, a family-owned Australian company with a 50-year history delivering cleaning, maintenance and security services across the country with a 50-year history
Most workplaces have recycling bins. That part’s done. What’s usually missing is any real understanding of what’s going into them, and that’s where things fall down.
It matters more this year than it did even 12 months ago. A second wave of large companies is now reporting on climate, Sydney is expected to run out of landfill space by 2030 and NSW’s food waste rules kicked in for the biggest generators on 1 July. A recycling sticker on a bin doesn’t get you very far against that.
One of our clients at SKG, World Square, a premium A Grade commercial tower which was recently purchased by Centuria, is a good example. In 2023, the building had three streams: general waste, recycling and secure paper. All three were contaminated, and the building had a 1.5-Star NABERS Waste rating.
The first thing we did wasn’t buy more bins. We put a weigh station in the loading dock and QR Coded every bin. Every bin was scanned by QR code and logged by stream, floor and tenant. We switched to clear bags to identify contamination, and the team photographed anything in the wrong place and shared it daily. Once we had that information, we knew where to focus. We introduced additional waste streams and met every tenant in person to explain the changes, educate them on the correct waste separation and encourage buy-in.
Two years later the building achieved a 6-Star waste rating, (and still has it). The bins were the easy bit. Measuring what goes in them, and doing something about it, is what changed behaviour.
Why is reducing, reusing and recycling important to minimising landfill?
The way we think about it, every stream needs somewhere to go, and landfill should be the last stop. Recover first, dispose last.
Some of the reducing starts with what we bring onto site ourselves. Where it suits, we use chemical-free systems, concentrates and controlled dosing, which cuts down the containers we have to transport, store and recycle. At another site we swapped single-use bin bags for recycled-plastic liners from a certified B Corp social enterprise saving over 20,000 bin liners per year from going to landfill.
Last year we designed a waste solution for a bustling fresh-food market precinct that covered 13 different streams where polystyrene boxes are sanitised and reused, organics are diverted and pallets get repaired rather than disposed of.
Organics is where the next big shift is for businesses that generate food waste. Australia has committed to halving organic waste to landfill by 2030, and food waste is something business can no longer ignore. We collect and recycle all organic waste through our recycling partners, who turn it into compost, fertiliser or feed.
But reducing waste isn’t just about food. Businesses can look at the products and materials they bring onto site in the first place. Choosing suppliers that use recycled content, recovered materials or minimal packaging can make a significant difference. Repairing and reusing equipment, furniture and materials rather than replacing them, and looking at opportunities to reduce single-use products, are other practical steps.
Ultimately, sending less to landfill takes planning, positive education campaigns, and buy-in from tenants, staff and visitors. It’s about looking at the entire lifecycle of the materials a business uses, not just what happens when they reach the bin.
How can businesses improve waste management while reducing operational and disposal costs?
Most businesses end up paying for waste twice: once to have it collected, and again through the landfill levy on general waste. If the recycling gets contaminated and the load’s rejected, you can end up paying more.
The good news is that the quickest savings usually come from better information and procedures. A lot of sites are still running bin sizes and pick-up schedules that were set years ago and have not been updated since. Once you start weighing waste where it’s handled, by stream, floor and tenant, you quickly see which collections you don’t need and where contamination keeps happening. Then, based on this evidence rather than guesswork, businesses can adjust bins and collection frequency. -Bin monitoring technology that records weight every hour and flags when a bin’s been emptied well before it’s full is also incredibly useful, helping businesses avoid unnecessary collections and make better use of the services they’re paying for.
Food waste is a great place to start for businesses that generate it. It’s heavy, and landfill levies are charged by the tonne, so diverting food from general waste can make a real difference. For our client World Square, following advice and counsel from SKG, the general waste-to-recycling bin ratio was successfully reversed – moving from five general waste bins for every recycling bin to just one general waste bin for every five recycling bins. For businesses outside the food sector, there are other opportunities to reduce cost, from reviewing packaging, choosing products made with recycled materials, reusing supplies and equipment and working with suppliers who offer take-back or recovery programs. All of which can help reduce the volume of waste being disposed of.
In NSW, the food waste rules that started in July will reach smaller sites in 2028 and 2030, so there’s a clear reason to get ahead of it. Better environmental performance and lower costs come from the same habits. The businesses that start measuring now won’t be paying to catch up later.
The role of facilities management in helping organisations achieve their sustainability targets
While targets are set in the boardroom, they’re met in loading docks, kitchens and bin rooms. And as facilities management providers who actually handle a building’s waste every day, we’re right at the point where good intentions either stick or fall over.
That role has got a lot bigger this year. Under the NSW food waste rules, in a building with lots of tenants, responsibility for managing food waste collection generally sits with the building owner or manager, rather than each tenant (though facility managers are also central to helping businesses monitor their waste, identify opportunities and report on their environmental performance). And since 1 July, a second group of large Australian companies has had to start climate reporting. From their second year that includes Scope 3 emissions, and the waste from their operations is part of that. So, owners and occupiers need waste data they can stand behind.
It’s why we build waste management into the cleaning service rather than treating it as something separate. The people who clean a site are the same people who separate, weigh and report its waste. At another 90,000 sqm A Grade commercial precinct we clean, a team of 40 cleaners check waste floor by floor every day. If recycling starts slipping on a particular floor, we see it, and that’s where the education goes. At World Square, NABERS rated 97.75 per cent of the building’s waste by weight as Excellent or Good data, and that comes from the work done on the ground.
My advice to anyone with a waste target is simple. Put measurement, reporting and audit support into your facilities management contract, not just cleaning standards.
How businesses can actually improve their environmental footprint
Everything we do at SKG comes back to one idea: measure first, then improve. We look at what a site’s producing and where it’s going wrong, set up the right streams, bins and signage, and get tenants and staff on board. Then we weigh and report every stream and keep acting on what the numbers tell us.
World Square is the clearest example. In two years, the building went from 1.5 Stars to 6 Stars for NABERS Waste, and it’s held that rating since. Adding new waste streams played a big part in keeping more out of landfill, and in 2024 the building recycled nearly three tonnes for every tonne it sent to landfill.
A 90,000 m² premium A-grade commercial tower we service shows the other side of it, which is keeping a good system running. We’ve implemented a market leading waste plan there since 2020 diverting up to 86% of waste to landfill.
We’re working on our own footprint too, not just our clients’. We’ve held ISO 14001 environmental certification since 2009, but we’re the first to say we haven’t got it all figured out. We’re still learning, and we’re always looking for better ways to reduce our impact and build on our sustainability commitments.
About John Conomos
John Conomos is Executive Director Strategic Partnerships at SKG Services, a national commercial cleaning, maintenance and security services company that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. John brings over 17 years’ experience in the cleaning industry, with a reputation for high performance and delivering best practice solutions for clients. In his previous role at Executive Director Business Developer and as a key part of the SKG ESG leadership team, he has integrated sustainability into day-to-day operations, helping prove that greener practices and service excellence are not mutually exclusive. At a company where sustainability has been embedded at every level of the business, John is one of the leaders making it happen on the ground. Visit www.skg.net.au
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