Recycling and waste management can be a very challenging process, and unfortunately, they have become even more complex in the last few years.

Not only are there now more wastes and more types of waste to manage and recycle, but more and more countries have also increased their emphasis on compliance with environment-related standards and regulations.

Meaning, that companies looking to perform recycling and waste management must now put on a lot more effort into staying in compliance with these relevant regulations.

Fortunately, there are now waste management and recycling software solutions available that can help recycling centers stay compliant and profitable in the currently saturated and highly legislative business environment.

In this guide, we will review not just one but five recycling business software we deemed the best in 2022. 

We’ve reviewed numerous waste management and recycling software systems available, and based on our research, here we will share your findings.

Let us, however, start this guide from the basics: what is recycling software?

What Is Recycling Software?

Recycling software is a type of software solution that is designed to help recycling businesses in executing, managing, and monitoring their waste management and recycling process.

As mentioned, the waste management and recycling process is now heavily regulated, so a good recycling software solution should be able to help the business stay in compliance with OSHA (Occupational Safety Health Administration) standards and regulations (or other applicable regulations in your area)  

To summarize, a recycling software solution is useful for:

• Ensuring compliance: a proper recycling center management software solution must be able to track down and include all the relevant regulations and standards applicable to the waste disposal and recycling company using the software. This may include the feature to generate comprehensive RCRA hazardous waste reports, which is often considered a compliance requirement.
• Improving cost-effectiveness: recycling software should help the company in making crucial decisions regarding the selection of transporters, waste collectors, recycling methods, disposal methods, and other decisions that may affect cost. It should also be able to manage the process of estimating costs and invoicing anticipated waste disposals.
• Scheduling: helps the company create and manage schedules for waste collection, disposal, recycling, and other related processes. This includes offering real-time alerts and notifications for crucial dates to allow the company to make enough preparations.
• Monitoring and performance analysis: providing comprehensive information and reports on both hazardous and non-hazardous waste recycling and disposal, as well as wastes generated during any aspects of the business’s workflow. This helps the recycling business make a better decision based on the quantity and details of waste profiles.
• Modernizing workflows: eliminating paper-based workflows and digitizing business processes, allowing all workflows and tasks to be more accurately tracked, monitored, and analyzed
• Automation: facilitating automation of many tasks and documents within the project to save time, minimizes errors, and ultimately allow more efficient operations
• Electronic, centralized data storage: digital storage of all documentation provides security and ease of access, while also quick adjustments to be made when regulations change.

Best Recycling Center Management Software

1. Diversys

Diversys is an all-in-one recycling center software solution focused on streamlining complex processes into sleek, elegant workflows by digitizing each step of the recycling management process.

As a result of this digitization, you’ll get high-quality data, easy analytics and reporting, and valuable insights you can use in inventory and participant management.

Below are the key features of Diversys.

Key Features:

• Program management: providing a bird’s eye view of every aspect of your program via a mobile app that tracks material movement, as well as a fully-fledged web app that gives you the configuration, management, analytics, and reporting tools you need.
• Mobile app: allowing participants to stay connected to the Diversys recycling software system while performing waste management or recycling activities, minimizing manual data entry and paper-based transactions.
• Web portal: the web app offers access to manage your entire program, from setting up your waste streams to monitoring activities via dashboards to approving invoices.
• Performance management: real-time dashboards offering real-time, actionable intelligence to help you track and analyze your performance against your goals.
• Participant management: manage user authentication to provide or revoke access to those who can contribute to your program. Diversys ensures every participant in your program is looking at consistent, high-quality data to reduce fraud, errors, and communication issues.
• Inventory management: easily set up product details and monitor the flow of materials to manage inventory.
• Integrations: seamless integrations with your existing solutions (CRMs, financial solutions, ERPs) to facilitate fully coordinated operations and quicker decision-making.
• Multi-stream support: support all types of waste streams, including glass, tires, liquids, papers, electronics, plastics, aluminum, and other materials.

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Benefits:

• Fully digitize your workflow by digitally tracking, recording, and tracing the movement of recyclables and all transactions. Eliminate slow and error-prone paper-based workflows
• Have access to your data at all times with Diversys’s cloud-based recycling management platform. Your data is always safe and secure.
• Reliable data accuracy and quality with built-in checks for location and the number of materials for both pickups and drop-offs
• Diversys can calculate even the most complex financial scenarios quickly and accurately with built-in tools that automatically factor in your unique conditions.
• Protect each step in your workflow with Diversys’s built-in security measures that ensure you always get high-quality, accurate, and audit-ready data
• Easily identify and correct mistakes even when you are on the go

2. Waste Logics

Waste Logics is cloud-based waste management and recycling software that focuses on ease of use.

With Waste Logics, you can easily create projects and monitor/analyze progress on the move, anywhere, anytime, and from any device, complete with various features to ensure data accuracy and reliability.

With the intuition interface, you can quickly gain actionable insights and review real-time operational performance in detail. Dashboards are customizable and are built around different users’ job responsibilities and tasks to further ensure ease of use and intuitiveness.

Below are the key features of Waste Logics.

Key Features:

• Intuitive, easy-to-use interface from any device
• Intelligent analytics and comprehensive reporting
• Intuitive customer payment management, easily check customer’s payment status anywhere
• Comprehensive cloud recycling software solutions comprising security tools, back-ups, maintenance, and reliability solutions
• Customizable dashboards to measure performance in detail
• Focused order update notifications
• Onsite issue management
• Route-planning and optimization features

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Benefits:

• Intuitive and easy-to-use interface and overall operations, which will translate into minimal employee training required
• Comprehensive, all-in-one cloud recycling center solutions
• Great customer payment management 
• Simple dashboard and service hub, easily track tasks, conversations, and follow-ups
• Customizable dashboards to easily monitor metrics and KPIs in detail
• Customers have easy and instant access to reports and invoices, facilitating self-service

3. Intelex

Intelex is a web-based recycling center management solution that is focused on maintaining a comprehensive, complete history of records, not only initial records but a complete history of modifications, archived records, or transmitted records.

This allows recycling businesses to produce complete and insightful reports, both for meeting compliance requirements but also to help the business evaluate its performance. As a web-based application, it’s also compatible with most major browsers, including mobile browsers, and it’s customizable to meet the company’s unique needs.

Despite its robust set of features, Intelex has an intuitive interface that is easy to use while offering a versatile user experience by including a navigator tool to guide the user on-screen through even the most complex tasks.

Here are the key features of Intelex:

Key Features:

• Maintain complete audit trails: the complete history of records created, archived, modified, transmitted, or retrieved
• Comprehensive Assets and Compliance Tracking System (ACTS)
• Meets ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 Regulatory Compliance Standards
• Intuitive navigator features, guiding users through the Intelex recycling center software system with configurable on-screen tips
• A centralized depository securely stores all documents in one place for easy finding and data security
• Enhance data analytics and reporting with visuals for easier visualization

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Benefits:

• Great navigator feature, helps in guiding users through the interface despite the rich features. Configurable on-screen navigator tips
• Focused on ensuring compliance with regulatory standards and requirements
• Very effective in monitoring and analyzing waste-related data to evaluate the effectiveness of the company’s recycling program and make the necessary changes
• Great image mapping to enhance data analytics and reports with visuals
• Easily import data for existing records in your existing recycling business system

4. Dakotasoft Waste Management

Dakotasoft Waste Management solution is waste management and recycling software based on the PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) framework, which is designed to help organizations manage the complex processing and recycling of solid and potentially hazardous waste.

Dakotasoft Waste Management software is highly versatile and configurable, allowing recycling center businesses to easily create and customize different profiles for different waste types, transporters (including authentication), and disposal facilities.

With Dakotasoft’s EHS, you can also create different Compliance Profiles to include only applicable citations for specific regulations or standards to maintain accuracy in compliance.

Below are the key features of the Dakotasoft recycling software system.

Key Features:

• Versatile compliance planning. You can easily plan and maintain futureproof waste management, recycling and EHS (Environment, Health, and Safety) programs as needed
• Customizable notifications and alerts, you can prioritize different alerts based on different criteria and needs
• Permission-based access to facilitate more advanced access control
• Interactive analytics, graphs, and reporting to help facilitate real-time analysis. Businesses can use this to evaluate the current recycling program’s performance and build a better program in the future
• The ability to create different Compliance Profiles to include only applicable citations based on the different compliance regulations being pursued
• Unique tools designed to monitor and manage activities and risks related to stormwater to meet wastewater permit requirement compliance
• Comprehensive Reference Library, providing guidance to staff for different features offered on the recycling business software.

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Benefits:

• Unique and useful water compliance features, allowing you to effectively monitor and manage risks related to stormwater. This may be useful if you need to stay compliant with wastewater-related regulations
• Configurable forms to suit various different requirements and needs
• Interactive risk analysis tools to facilitate real-time monitoring and evaluation
• Automated and automated data sync to ensure data integrity and reduce the loss or corruption of data
• Ensure complete accountability by providing audit-ready data at all times and providing visibility across all the different aspects of the waste management and recycling projects

5. Webaspx Commercial Waste Collection 

Webaspx Commercial Waste Collection is a web-based, integrated waste management solution to help businesses with waste collection, waste management, disposal, and recycling processes. 

Webaspx Commercial Waste Collection is especially focused on improving the cost-efficiency of the waste management and recycling processes by helping businesses plan and operate more efficient routes and crew assignments that minimize resource usage. Of course, optimizing costs shouldn’t mean compromising standards of quality.

It also offers features that help businesses manage customer accounts more effectively in a single dashboard, ensuring it’s quicker and easier to update contracts, invoicing, and services to maximize customer experience.

Below are the key features of Webaspx Commercial Waste Collection.

Key Features:

• Commercial waste-focused features to manage trade customer accounts more efficiently and effectively
• Route management tools to help businesses with easy route placement and management, re-sequencing, temporary or permanent route configuration
• Real-time updates for key metrics and KPIs rather than daily updates
• Comprehensive waste container and shipment inventory tools
• Automatic alerts and notifications for expired waste, waste shipments, and other activities
• Bird’s eye managerial views for all relevant data and information
• Centralized digital depot to replace paper-based and spreadsheet-based workflows to streamline workflows, improve data security, and facilitate automation

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Benefits: 

• Excellent in optimizing routes and in improving efficiency by balancing the work between different crews. Various features are designed for optimizing commercial resources and routes.
• Cost-optimization features helping companies lower the cost of waste collection and recycling, by reducing the vehicles and crews needed to finish the job
• Real-time analytics and reporting, showing the effect on performance as soon as changes are made
• Accounting for the specific parameters and safety hazards associated with each task when optimizing routes, so routes are not only optimal but always safe
• Great back-office features to help businesses quickly produce invoices and other types of documentation that are needed at any given time, reducing the time taken on administration processes while minimizing the potential of errors of manual data entry

Conclusion

Recycling center software is designed to help businesses effectively and efficiently carry out all the processes involved, from the collection to disposal to recycling of wastes, while at the same time ensuring the company stays in compliance with OSHA standards and other applicable regulations.

Above, we have shared and reviewed five of the best recycling center management software solutions available in the market, and hopefully, you can use our recommendations to make a better-informed decision when evaluating different recycling and waste management solutions to optimize your workflows.