Commercial and Institutional Waste

Commercial and institutional waste is primarily from retail (stores), hotels, restaurants, health care (except health risk waste), banks, insurance companies, education, retirement homes, public services and transport. Within some of these sectors, e.g. retail and restaurants, large variations are found in terms of which products and services are offered.

Available data on unit generation rates and material composition as well as determining factors are discussed in this chapter. The characterizing of commercial and institutional waste is faced with the problem that often only a part of the waste is handled in the municipal waste system, where information is easily accessible.

An important part of commercial and institutional waste is packaging waste, and enterprises with large quantities of clean paper, cardboard and plastic waste may have their own facilities for baling and storing their waste, which then can be sold to wholesale companies within the secondary raw material sector.

The data presented in this chapter is from many different sources and should be used with caution only.