Want to challenge yourself to reduce household waste and increase your waste literacy?
Try our Home Waste Audit!
Learn how to do your best waste management… at home!
The Home Waste Audit is designed to increase waste literacy among participants, particularly regarding local waste management systems and how local residential waste impacts the global waste footprint. Residential waste is an important piece of the plastic cycle, and how we produce and dispose of our waste affects the amount of plastic pollution in aquatic ecosystems.
Objectives:
- Learn about the waste streams in your municipality. i.e., learn what bins you have (e.g., recycling, landfill, organics) and what goes in each of them.
- Decrease your waste footprint and divert waste away from landfills by procuring and using products that you can reuse/recycle.
Ultimately, throughout this project, you will be tracking your waste with a goal to reduce the amount heading to landfills.
How it works:
It’s easy, all you need is access to the internet, some paper (bonus if you use scrap paper), a pencil/pen, and a healthy dash of motivation. Make sure to watch our Introductory Webinar for instructions and background on WHY to take part.
The Home Waste Audit takes four weeks and can be done anytime, either by yourself or with a group of friends, family or colleagues. We provide the datasheets and instructions to log your waste and a series of short online surveys to help track your waste literacy and behaviour.
2026 Home Waste Audit Registration is Now Open!
- Introductory Webinar: Tuesday February 3, 2026 at 7 pm EST
- Home Waste Audit: Sunday February 8 – Saturday February 21
- Results Webinar: Tuesday March 10, 2026 at 7 pm EST
Instructions and materials:
There are two versions of the Home Waste Audit to choose from. You can join our facilitated version at the start of each year, which takes place over the span of two weeks. If you prefer to participate on your own, you can follow our self-directed four week version any time of the year.
2-week version (facilitated by the U of T Trash Team at start of each year)
- Instructions
- Datasheets: Excel or Google sheets (save as a copy to edit)
4-week version (self-directed – any time of the year):
- Instructions
- Datasheets: Landfill Waste; Recycling Waste
- Surveys: Survey 1, Survey 2, Survey 3
Additional Resources:
Outcomes
Our Home Waste Audit demonstrates how waste management differs between municipalities, provinces and countries, and how different people generate and dispose of their waste. It measures how much waste we divert from the landfill, and characterizes how our waste changes over the 4-week timeframe. Ultimately, the Home Waste Audit asks questions that help us understand whether we are seeding behaviours that stick and help build the pathways for a long-term impact.
Results
Publications
De Frond, H., Gutierrez, R. F., Debreceni, S., & Rochman, C. M. 2024. Home Waste Audit: A community science activity to increase waste literacy and reduce household waste. Community Science, 3, e2024CSJ000080. PDF.