Waste

How waste volumes reach Properate — from waste handlers, straight from the container, or registered by hand — and why the current month is almost always incomplete.

Waste is the odd one out. Energy and water are measured by instruments that report continuously; waste is mostly reported by companies, on their own schedule, in their own formats. That single difference explains nearly every question about waste data.

Where the numbers come from

Waste handlers — volumes and fractions reported by the company that collects your waste. This is the main source for most buildings, and it covers what was actually taken away.

Bramidan — logged directly from the container or compactor, so you see fill level and volume as it happens rather than after collection.

Bin detection — image recognition that distinguishes full bins from empty ones. Useful where nothing is instrumented and nothing is reported electronically, and useful for spotting the bin that is always overflowing before a tenant complains.

Manual registration — where a handler does not report electronically at all, waste can be registered by hand in Properate. This is not a workaround to be embarrassed about: for many buildings it is the only way to get a sorting degree at all, and a monthly entry from an invoice is enough.

Fractions and waste codes

Waste arrives classified by fraction — food waste, paper and cardboard, mixed plastic, residual waste, and so on — each with a standard waste code. Properate keeps the code alongside the description, so a fraction means the same thing across buildings and across handlers even when they use different names for it.

Two figures summarise quality:

Sorting degree — how much of the total was sorted rather than going to residual waste.

Number of fractions — how many distinct waste types were separated.

Both matter for certification. Under BREEAM-NOR there are limit values behind the assessment, and the number of fractions counts as well as the proportion — a building that sorts a lot into few categories scores differently from one that separates many.

Why the current month looks wrong

This is the most common waste question, and the answer is almost always that nothing is broken.

Many waste companies submit a month's figures during the following month. So the current month is routinely partial, and a period that includes it will show a sorting degree that is not yet meaningful. Properate shows a data accuracy warning naming the months it is missing data for, precisely so the figure is not read as final.

Practical consequence: do not draw conclusions about sorting degree from a period that includes the current month, and do not compare a complete month against a partial one.

Reports and export

Waste reports can be generated for a period, and any view can be exported to Excel. For tenants who are billed on waste, or for a certification submission, that export is usually what is wanted rather than a screenshot.

Getting waste data connected