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4. INFORMATION COLLECTION

A detailed evaluation of the wider economic benefits and costs of recycling requires a more detailed understanding of the financial costs and incomes associated with different recycling options. For most of the studies identified above, however, the costs of the recycling schemes have generally been presented as an overall cost per tonne of waste collected or disposed of. There is little or no supplementary information that breaks these costs down further into their components.

In our analysis we have sought to obtain more detailed costs data about the key components of a waste recycling scheme that determine not only financial costs but also link with environmental costs or benefits. However, we are not in a position to make all this information public for reasons of commercial confidentiality. The questionnaire developed to compile detailed information about the net financial costs of a selection of recycling schemes in England, and data on the materials recycled, is reproduced in full at Annex 1. One omission (rectified through follow-up) was the lack of a question concerning gate fees at composting facilities.

The recycling schemes selected from which information was requested were chosen to be representative of a range of different types of recycling schemes in operation. Those factors considered were:

• location of scheme - urban, rural

• age of scheme - recently established, mature scheme operational for a few years

• type of organisation running the scheme - private company, local authority, community sector organisation

4.1 Financial Information and Scheme Performance

The following sections give outline information of the financial costs and general performance of the schemes chosen. Note that we have not been able to obtain responses from all authorities with which we spoke. All ten organisations initially interviewed expressed willingness to participate in the survey, but some found the questionnaire too onerous in the face of competing priorities. In all cases, we have followed up the questionnaire with further questions to clarify issues arising from the responses.

We have tried to probe deeply into the analysis of costs to ensure that all schemes are being costed on an equal footing. This has been a frequent criticism of past attempts to assess the 'true' costs of different options. Indeed, one can argue that there are 'pros' and 'cons' in such an approach. There are different organisations playing different roles in this sector. If one seeks to account for all outlays on an equal footing, whilst this may place schemes on a level playing field in terms of the efficiency of the resources they deploy, the different organisations will charge those to whom they provide a service in different ways. In other words, the efficiency of resource use may not reflect the cost to clients since this will be affected by the cost of capital to the organisation concerned, and the profit margins built in to any contract. The perceived opportunity cost of capital investments would be expected to be rather different in the cases of not-for-profit entities, in-house operations and commercial entities. To level the playing field in terms of accounting for such outlays risks downplaying the potential strengths and weaknesses of different types of operator within different niches of the waste management industry. Lastly, looking only at costs and revenues makes it difficult to know to what extent a scheme is 'successful' in the sense either of its not making a loss, or its ability to return an acceptable profit (dependent upon the organisation's aims and objectives).

There are also questions of detail as to how one should treat expenditure on, for example, scheme promotion. This may be an annual expenditure, yet it might be supposed that as with capital expenditure, money spent on promotional activity might be front loaded (note that the Audit Commission asks respondents to its questionnaire to treat the initial distribution of bins etc. in the same way as expenditure on buildings, so that straight line depreciation is treated as occurring over 25 years). Arguably, once schemes are more mature, the number of new participants would drop off over time. More empirical data would be useful here, but some experience suggests that sustained information campaigns do increase participation rates and diversion. In more mobile populations, presumably this is even more important. Better knowledge about why people do and do not participate might facilitate targeting of efforts at the more 'reluctant' households.¹¹

[¹¹ Some theories of behavioural change suggest that decisions to act in a particular way may occur through staged processes which may be more or less reversible at any given stage. Hence, for different individuals, sustaining educational messages will have greater and lesser significance.]

For the purposes of this analysis, we have followed Audit Commission guidelines in respect of capital expenditure, effectively annualising this on the basis of straight-line depreciation over a period of time dependent on the nature of the asset.

Note, lastly, that we are concentrating on the kerbside element. The authorities examined have bring schemes in place as well, so that the rate of recycling is greater than that implied by the kerbside scheme alone.

4.1.1 Scheme 1

This scheme operates in a fairly small district authority in a rural area. The kerbside scheme operates fortnightly collection and covers just under half of the households in the authority. The coverage is confined to more urban areas. It is run by a not-for-profit organisation. Materials collected in boxes include paper and board, aluminium, steel, glass and textiles using 7.5-tonne multi-caged vehicles. There is no MRF, but a fork-lift truck and baler are also used by the organisation. On the basis of counters used on the vehicles, the estimated participation rate is 40-45% with a put-out rate estimated at 34%. The rounds are typically 15 miles in distance and the journey from the round to the depot may be 20 miles.

The amount of materials collected is 104.6kg per household covered, or 246kg per participating household (taking this to be 42.5% of total covered). By weight, the majority is paper and board (63%) and glass (28%). 6% is steel, 2.5% is textiles and just over 0.5% is aluminium. The total costs of the scheme are £120.30 per tonne of material collected, or £12.58 per household covered, or £29.60 per participating household. Home composting is also promoted by the authority through a subsidised bin scheme operated through local garden centres using a voucher system.

On the revenue side, the scheme receives positive revenue from all materials collected. In addition, it receives recycling credits, and grant revenue from local businesses. When these are taken into account, the net cost figures for the scheme are £72.33 per tonne collected. This translates to £7.56 per household in the scheme and £17.80 per participating household. In some parts of the UK the concept of recycling credits has limited meaning. In the absence of recycling credits, the costs would be £100.70 per tonne, £10.53 per household covered and £24.77 per participating household. However, for unitary authorities, relative to the counterfactual scenario in which materials are simply delivered to landfill, recycling saves on disposal as well as collection costs.

In terms of the authority's overall performance, we estimate an 11.5% recycling rate (entirely down to dry recyclables) with the kerbside scheme contributing roughly half this. The kerbside scheme's capital costs are of the order £120 per tonne and variable costs are of the order £86 per tonne.

4.1.2 Scheme 2

This kerbside scheme is a weekly collection of mixed recyclables taking place in an urban area and it is about three years old. All households are covered in the authority and the scheme is run by a not-for-profit organisation. Materials are put out in boxes and collected in purpose built trucks which typically carry 4-tonne loads. The scheme also promotes home composting, on which compositional analysis has been carried out in the area.

106kg per household covered are collected. Since there are no estimates of participation, using high participation rate assumptions (70%),¹² one can estimate a per participating household figure of 151kg. The materials include paper and board, aluminium, steel, glass and other materials. By weight 69% is paper and board, 25% is glass, 3% is steel, 3% is other and 0.4% is aluminium. No plastics are collected. Home composting is promoted.

[¹² We use this high (for the UK) participation rate assumption so that the 'per participating household' collection figures are not over-estimated. On the other hand, calculating costs on this basis makes them look lower than they would be using what are probably more realistic assumptions concerning participation.]

The distance travelled on rounds is between 1 and 3 miles, the mean distance to the round being 9 miles. The revenue from materials sales is of the order £32 per tonne in total, but the costs of haulage are of the order £7 per tonne. The net revenue figures, therefore, are of the order £25 per tonne. The scheme benefits from neither recycling credits, nor (in its view) the PRN system. The gross costs of the scheme are £85 per tonne, or £9 per household covered. Net of revenue, these translate into £60 and £6.32 respectively.

4.1.3 Scheme 3

This is a similar scheme to that in the authority mentioned in Scheme 3 and is also in an urban area. It has been operating for over two and a half years. Again, all households are covered. Materials collected, by percentage contribution (again, no plastics are collected) are paper and board (66%), glass (27%), steel (3%), other (3%) and aluminium (0.4%). The scheme collects 102kg per household covered, or making the same assumption as made above (70% participation), 145kg per participant household. No plastics are collected, but again, home composting is promoted. 4 tonne loads are collected on rounds of between 1 and 3 miles, with the mean distance to the round being about 4 miles.

The revenue from materials sales net of haulage costs is of the order £27 per tonne. The scheme does not benefit from recycling credits or (in its view) the PRN system. The scheme's gross costs are £95 per tonne, or £9.65 per household covered. The costs net of revenue are £67.93 and £6.90. There are no figures for the overall participation rate (hence the assumptions above).

4.1.4 Scheme 4

This kerbside scheme is a weekly collection of mixed recyclables and occurs in an urban area. It has been operating for just over one year. All households are covered in the authority and the scheme is run by a not-for-profit organisation. Materials are put out in boxes and collected in purpose-built trucks, some of which carry 4-tonne loads, and others of which carry 2.5-tonne loads. The distance travelled on rounds is between 1 and 3 miles, the mean distance to the round being 9 miles.

75kg per household covered are collected, or using the 70% participation assumption, 107kg per participant household. The materials include paper and board, aluminium, steel, glass and other materials. By weight 67% is paper and board, 27% is glass, 4% is steel, 4% is other and 0.4% is aluminium. No plastics are collected.

The revenue from materials sales net of haulage costs is of the order £12 per tonne. The scheme does not benefit from recycling credits or (in its view) the PRN system. Gross costs are £100 per tonne or £7.50 per household. Net of revenue, costs are £87.83 and £6.59 respectively.

4.1.5 Scheme 5

This scheme involves a local authority in partnership with the not-for-profit sector and it collects across an authority that is partly urban and partly rural. There is a weekly collection of mixed recyclables, in green boxes, for the majority of households. This is supported by mini recycling centres at multi-resident locations, for which wheeled bins with special frames are supplied that are emptied as necessary (typically, every two weeks). About a quarter of the households in the authority are served by monthly collections in residents' own bags. The different approaches are of differing vintage. The first started in 1993, the second in 1994, the third (the oldest) in 1985.

The bulk of collection (the weekly one) takes place in purpose-built 7.5-tonne multi-caged vehicles, each with two operators. Participation in this scheme is estimated at 70% on the basis of random streetblock monitoring. The scheme also promotes home composting (through, amongst other things, subsidising bins), and one tenth of all households had purchased these as of Spring 1999.

The collected materials are taken to a MRF or to depots. The MRF includes sorting equipment for separating out metals and plastic bottles only, so its capacity is well below the total collection tonnage due to the scheme. In addition to the authority's materials, the MRF accepts some materials from other organisations.

The scheme collects 110kg per household, or 157kg per participating household. Of this, 67% is paper and board, 26% is glass, 4% is steel, 0.5% is aluminium, 0.4% is plastics and 2% is other materials. The scheme benefits from both recycling credits and from revenue from material sales. This was the only scheme in the survey that even suggested that it might be benefiting from the PRN scheme, and then only obliquely, commenting that any such revenue was 'not separately identified in payments.'

The scheme's gross costs are £123.23 per tonne, or £13.51 per household covered, or £19.30 per participating household. Net of sales and recycling credits, the costs are £51.66 per tonne, or £5.66 per household covered, or £8.09 per household participating. The treatment of capital costs is not entirely clear in the scheme. We have made an estimate as to the costs which would prevail if we account for these. The costs are the £68.82 per tonne, £7.54 per household and £10.77 per participating household.

4.1.6 Scheme 6

This kerbside scheme is a weekly collection of mixed recyclables. It takes place in an area of fairly dispersed population and it has been operating for just over one year. All households are covered in the authority and the scheme is run by a not-for-profit organisation. Materials are put out in boxes and are collected in purpose-built trucks, some of which carry 4-tonne loads, and others of which carry 2.5-tonne loads. The distance travelled on rounds is between 3 and 8 miles, the mean distance to the round being 14 miles.

142kg per household covered are collected, or assuming 70% participation rates, at least 203 kg per participant household. The materials include paper and board, aluminium, steel, glass and other materials. By weight 65% is paper and board, 29% is glass, 3% is steel, 3% is plastics and 0.3% is aluminium. This is one of only two schemes collecting plastics in our survey.

The gross costs of this scheme are of the order £140 per tonne. The revenue from materials sales net of haulage costs is of the order £11 per tonne so that net costs are of the order £129 per tonne. These translate into per household costs of £19.90 and £18.29 respectively. The scheme does not benefit from recycling credits or (in its view) the PRN system.

4.1.7 Scheme 7

This kerbside scheme is a weekly collection of mixed recyclables. It takes place in an urban area and it has been operating for just over one year. All households are covered in the authority and the scheme is run by a not-for-profit organisation.

86kg per household covered are collected, or 123kg per participant household under an assumption of 70% participation. The materials include paper and board, aluminium, steel, glass and other materials. By weight 63% is paper and board, 33% is glass, 2% is steel, 0.3% is aluminium and 1% is other materials.

The revenue from materials sales net of haulage costs is of the order £11 per tonne. The scheme does not benefit from recycling credits or (in its view) the PRN system. The gross costs are £105 per tonne, or £9 per household. The figures net of revenue are £91 per tonne and £7.78 per household.

4.1.8 Scheme 8

In this scheme run by a District Council, 25% of all households are covered by a green bin service collecting organic materials on alternate weeks, with residuals being collected in the other weeks. The rationale for this is that the Council incurs no extra collection costs. The same vehicles, crew, etc. are used. As such, the incremental costs relative to the weekly residuals collection are low. Indeed, the questionnaire reported these as zero, but the scheme has a cost in that each household covered by the scheme now has two 240-litre wheeled bins where previously they only had one. In addition, households have been given 15-litre kitchen bins. There may also have been costs in terms of scheme promotion (if only in the trial phase) and education (if only through stickers on bins informing residents as to what should and should not be put in the bins -paper has been excluded on the basis of trials).

Note this scheme was initially tested on 500 households. A survey of residents at the end of the year trial found 91% of the 72% responding were in favour of the scheme's continuation. The scheme collects 500kg of waste per household per annum. This is some 38% of the average household's waste stream in the district (and this is of significance in respect of the Landfill Directive Article 5 targets).

The District also runs a Blue Box scheme for mixed dry recyclables. This scheme covers 1,600 households. The collection figures are difficult to estimate since the authority does not collect data separately for the kerbside fraction and the recyclables coming from bring sites. The kerbside and bring scheme combined give figures, per household, of 236kg per household across the District (or 18% of the average household's arisings). The estimate from the authority for the quantities put out in the Blue Box is 400kg per household per year.

This is an unusual scheme in that it appears to force householders, by the nature of the collection system, to participate in the scheme. The materials are sent to a combined composting plant / MRF site.

4.1.9 Scheme 9

This scheme is a composting scheme run by a private company. Unfortunately, in respect of this scheme, whilst we have good information on the waste treatment facility itself, we have not had a response from the authority concerning the collection of waste for treatment. As such, we can only properly comment on the costs of this stage of the process. However, we do know the following about the collection scheme.

Organic waste collections are made on a fortnightly basis on separate dedicated rounds. These rounds are larger that the refuse rounds covering up to 6,000 houses, and require a driver and between 1 and 3 loaders depending on the social demographics of the area. Householders put out the appropriate wastes in special paper sacks, which can be shredded along with their contents, prior to composting. Information is printed on the bags explaining what can and cannot be put into the bag. A calendar is issued to households with an order form for new bags and/or compost on the reverse side. When the bags are delivered the householder is issued with a new calendar. Leaflets and promotional information are also available from council offices and sign boards are displayed at civic amenity sites. The composting takes place at a closed landfill. The collection stops from December to January as there is insufficient material to collect.

The council purchases bags at 20p. These are sold to the public, by the contractor, at a fixed price of 40p each, or £3.50 for ten. This price includes delivery of the sacks, which enables householders to make use of the service without needing access to transport. When costs for printing, stocking, storage, delivery and labour, are taken into account, there is little profit in bag sales at this price.

One advantage of this type of collection is that, as it is a 'buy-in service', the material collected tends to be of high quality, reducing contamination problems. The council does however recognise that this limits participation. There are also complications in accessing the service in that people must purchase the sacks and be aware of collection dates. Even so, collection has grown at 20% per annum since the scheme started operating (in 1993). There is some variation in the collection round costs as the number of loaders employed on each vehicle changes according to the demand for the service. As the scheme has grown the cost per tonne collected is believed to have come down from £130 per tonne to about £75 tonne.

The composting plant is run by a Local Authority waste disposal company (LAWDC). It is a 10,000-tonne open-air windrow facility. Gross costs, including depreciation, are £15.30 per tonne. Net of recycling credits and the sale of recovered materials, the costs are £10.64. The average sale value of the end-product is approximately £3 per tonne. This, however, does not include revenue from gate fees. The plant accepts 620 tonnes from the council's collections, 6,500 tonnes from Civic Amenity sites and an estimated 400 tonnes from landscaping firms (7,520 tonnes in total). The gate fees it charges vary according to the customer and where the waste has come from. However, these are rarely below £12, and for commercial / industrial wastes, may be as high as £20.

The district sees the organics collection as a valuable way of reducing queues at these sites, which in turn helps to prevent fly tipping.

4.1.10 Scheme 10

This scheme is operated by a private sector company in a unitary authority. All households are covered. There is a separate collection of paper and board fortnightly that is run as a box scheme. The vehicles used are 17-tonne refuse vehicles and 10-tonne caged lorries. In addition, there is a collection for putrescibles that takes place concurrently with the collection of residuals. This weekly collection employs split-bodied refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) and collects materials in 10-litre buckets and 55-litre boxes. Home composting is also encouraged through a subsidised bin scheme, though this is believed to have a minimal impact on the waste stream.

The composting scheme collects approximately 23kg per household covered, or about 108kg per household participating. The collection part of the scheme costs some £36 per tonne, or £0.83 per household, or £3.88 per participating household. Half of these collection costs are incurred in publicity for the scheme including advertisements in the press, on the radio and in newsletters (this is part of the contract under which the scheme is run).¹³ The low collection costs (per household) are based upon the fact that at the currently low levels of collection, the accounting for labour, maintenance and fuel has assumed zero incremental cost. The capital costs have been based upon straight-line depreciation over 5 years (which is the replacement period for the vehicles) of the incremental capital costs of the split-bodied vehicles over and above the costs of the standard RCV. If one accounts for labour, fuel and maintenance through pro-rating costs to the compostables collected, then even if the costs of publicity are removed, the costs rise to £52 per tonne, or £1.60 per household, or £7.52 per participating household.

[¹³ There has been no specific attempt to understand the effectiveness of the information campaign in, for example, increasing participation rates etc.]

The plant is an in-vessel composter of 15,000 tonne capacity. It receives 8,025 tonnes per annum, including 1,400 tonnes from kerbside collection. The capital outlays included the construction of buildings and a substantial outlay on plant and equipment. This makes this scheme quite capital intense, and net of £4,000 in sales revenue, the costs are some £86 per tonne. Depending upon how one accounts for the collection, therefore, the total costs of collection and composting are between £122 and £138 per tonne.

The paper collection scheme collects 40 kg per household covered, and 144 kg per household participating. Per tonne collection costs are £147, whilst the costs per household are £5.89, or £21.13 per participating household. The nature of the contract obliges the company to maintain the paper collection even though under current market conditions the paper is taken for use in the refuse-derived fuel (RDF) plant. Clearly, this is a potential drain on resources, but we were told that if the market situation improves, the operators might consider selling the paper to mills. There is a danger, of course, that this may have a negative impact on residents' views in respect of participation.

The RDF plant receives all residuals, as well as 4,950 tonnes of commercial waste. Separation of materials leads to recovery of steel and aluminium, and these derive revenue. Approximately half the waste arriving at the RDF plant is rejected and sent to landfill. Of the other half, some 25% is driven off as moisture. The remaining pellets are used in power stations, and the users have the right to PRNs. There was no indication that revenue was derived from the sale of the pellets, which would be strange given the value both of the PRNs and of the material itself. The costs net of sales (we have attributed revenues from aluminium and steel sales) excluding depreciation are of the order £45.90 per tonne of fuel produced. Allowing for depreciation, these are likely to be of the order £60 (the capital costs were given to us in one figure, i.e. the components were not split out according to their replacement lives).

Whilst this approach may seem somewhat expensive, it has to be viewed in the context of the shortage of landfill in the immediate area. There were three landfills operating in 1984, but two of these closed in 1985 and 1988 respectively. The council has been extending the remaining landfill, which is now believed to have void that may last for 12 years. There is plenty of scope for increased composting given the plant capacity and it is quite clear that as participation in the composting scheme increases, then the costs could fall quite dramatically (since a high proportion of these are related to depreciation on an existing capital investment). We estimate that the costs could fall by as much as £30 per tonne if the plant runs close to full capacity. At that point, the recovery would be equivalent to close to around 20% of municipal waste, perhaps as much as 33% of all biodegradable waste. Given that much of the paper will be used in the RDF plant, which also has plenty of spare capacity, this particular authority is well placed to meet Landfill Directive targets 1 and 2 (i.e., depending on the rate of growth of the biodegradable waste stream, the approach will potentially see the authority well placed well into the next decade since the final Landfill Directive target will not bite until 2020).

Table 14: Comparison of Kerbside Dry Recyclables Schemes

4.2 Comment on Performance and Costs

Table 14 compares the dry recyclables schemes for which we have good data. Schemes 8 to 10 have been excluded since they do not include dry recyclables collection. The following key observations can be made in respect of performance:

• The schemes collect between 75kg and 142kg of material per household. Between 91% and 96% of this is paper and board and glass, with the former alone accounting for two-thirds of all collected material (by weight).

• Per participating household, the range is from a low of 107kg to a high of 246 kg. The former is probably an underestimate since it is estimated on the basis of an assumed participation rate of 70% (which is about as high as one sees participation rates go across even small areas in the UK at present).

In respect of costs, the key observations are:

• The variation in gross costs per tonne is from £85 to £140. This is broadly in line with those quoted for schemes in the previous chapter, though at the lower end of the broad ranges quoted for separate kerbside schemes. The highest costing scheme is in a rural area. Generally, the figures are higher than those reported for the United States by De Rose (u.d.).

• Net costs vary more than gross costs since the effects of materials revenue and the payment or otherwise of recycling credits has important effects on the schemes. The variation is from £52 per tonne to £129 per tonne. It could be argued that even where recycling credits are not paid, some 'cost-saving' element could be attributed to schemes because they reduce not only disposal costs, but also those for collection. Note that the highest net cost is seen in the scheme that has highest gross costs. This scheme receives relatively low materials prices under its contracts, so this compounds the effect of the higher gross costs in the less densely populated area covered.

Other more general comments include:

• Where a MRF is used, this introduces an extra capital component. Some operators appear reluctant to use MRFs suggesting that this introduces a new capital item into the budget. The view was also expressed that unless well specified, the use of MRFs can involve significant down-time. Also, where separation occurs on vehicle, the merit of any MRF might lie in separation of plastic polymers were they to be collected. This then raises questions as to whether material throughput could justify the investment concerned. More generally, the debate about the pros and cons concerning the use or not of a MRF might also include considerations regarding the desirability of 'cherry picking' materials depending upon prevailing prices, and the collection logistics. The latter might relate to how much time is spent separating materials on-vehicle, and whether it is deemed to be undesirable to do this in congested areas / on narrow streets. Interestingly, in Brussels, neighbourhoods are often asked to have their cars off the street in periods when waste collection will take place.

• The costs of collection, as imputed by the organisations themselves, depend upon how they collect the materials and whether they have some responsibility for collection of residuals as well. Where they are operating alternate collections of compostables or where split-bodied vehicles are in operation, the incremental costs of materials collection is marginal. More generally, this leads to an interesting point in that all the recycling schemes, to the extent that they are collecting significant tonnages of material (and they are), are reducing the costs of residuals collection. It is true, as MEL (1999) state in their report, that recycling in the UK has failed, as far as we can see, to curb the growth in the residuals stream, but at the level of individual authorities the same may not apply. It is also true, therefore, that recycling schemes are more than 'second' collecting rounds. They are collecting significant amounts of material that would otherwise be collected on the residuals round, and therefore, there are savings in resources devoted to collection. Note that the capital costs of kerbside schemes that do not include a MRF are bound up in two elements, the vehicles and the depot. Once a scheme has matured, the former element becomes a cost which would be incurred anyway in collecting residuals if the scheme did not exist. Removing the recycling scheme is then a far from cost-free process. One scheme manager we spoke to believed that removing the scheme would imply a requirement for two extra RCVs costing something between £230-300,000. With no extra costs considered (for labour, for example), then accounting for this through straight line depreciation over five years, this amounts to something of the order of 15-20% of the net (after sales) operating costs of the scheme.

• Most obviously apparent is the fact that schemes collecting almost identical materials (in terms of percentage composition) actually receive quite different revenues (per unit collected) for the materials. The most expensive scheme noted that they were using very high specification vehicles that they had more or less been required to use in the context of the specific contract. For similar schemes, the revenue ranges from £11 to £25 net of haulage costs. The issue of recycling credits also affects overall financial performance as quoted by a scheme, although the overall costs of a waste management system should be indifferent to the payment or otherwise of such credits.

•  Dry recyclables collections are collecting almost identical materials in terms of composition (see Table 14).

• Dry recyclables collections are not always collecting only dry recyclables. They are certainly not collecting only packaging materials and newspapers and magazines. They also collect clothing, and importantly, some of them collect other materials purely out of an appreciation that they are hazardous when disposed of in the wrong way. The latter is a very important function. Whilst the Packaging Directive and the Landfill Directive have thrown the spotlight on packaging and biodegradable wastes, the potential environmental impacts of disposing of hazardous materials incorrectly should perhaps attract rather more concern than is the case at present.¹⁴

[¹⁴ The arguments for producer responsibility are particularly strong in the case of household hazardous wastes. A requirement to collect these separately would certainly incur costs. It could also alter perceptions among households in respect of the desirability of source separation of wastes in the general case.]

•  Few of the schemes studied are collecting plastics. The relative paucity of plastics collection reflects:

1. The mass of plastic collected in a vehicle is low, giving rise to higher collection costs per unit of saleable material.

2. The fact that since plastics tend to be separated by polymer for reprocessing, and since this is difficult to do on the collection round, the collection of plastics incurs added costs, either in (quite skilled) labour or in the operation of a MRF. The incremental costs associated with plastics collection at kerbside, therefore, can be considerable. Partly for this reason, some recycling schemes (and this is a general comment rather than one applicable to the schemes interviewed) have looked at the feasibility of collecting PET bottles only.

4.3 Comment on Recycling Rates

A lot of discussion has taken place recently concerning recycling rates, and what can and cannot be achieved in this regard. In particular, there have been questions raised as to where any limits might occur. M.E.L.'s (1999) work for the Energy from Waste Association has claimed to establish a 'maximum' rate of recycling of dry recyclables of 15% for local authorities in the UK. We would dispute any strong interpretation of that report's conclusion. There is a major difference between what one can regard as 'current best practice' and the point at which any 'maximum' might lie. Also, one could easily lose sight of the fact that the report itself, though it purports to have found 'maximum performance', does so with the qualifier that the figure of 15% relates to dry recyclables only 'at the level of the local authority as a whole given current operational, financial and legislative conditions.' In other words, were any of these conditions to change, the hypothesised 15% ceiling might change also.

Changes concerning, for example, a requirement to design for recycling would have an impact on what any theoretical maximum, such as one can be stated, might be. It is interesting in this regard to quote the important Global Assessment by the European Commission. In the context of waste:

'Priority in the future will need to be given to promoting an active product policy in order to make products recyclable from their design phase as well as further preventing waste generation' (CEC 1999),

and in the context of eco-efficiency,

'An Integrated Product Policy should address the entire life-cycle of production and consumption, and be based on a mix of instruments - such as labelling and eco-design, links to the Community's Environmental Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), greening of public procurement and product standards, and product-related taxes - thus addressing the whole product chain including the production, use, distribution, consumption and waste phase of products' (CEC 1999).

More generally, one can make the following points:

• Fundamentally, the amount of material which can be extracted at kerbside relates to waste quantities and waste composition. We know that this varies considerably across authorities, and across different areas within authorities. A glance at the results from Ecologika's (1998) review of seventeen kerbside refuse composition studies shows enormous variation in total wastes, as well as considerable variation in the split by category of material (recyclables, putrescibles, and those suitable for reuse, reduction or refuse collection). Immediately, one is faced with the notion that whether expressed in terms of absolute quantities or percentages, the idea that there is a standard, uniformly applicable maximum rate is simply nonsensical.

•  Also, the amount actually extracted will depend upon which materials are collected. The range of these tends to be a sub-set of what is possible. Note that according to the Ecologika (1998) study, the average contribution of putrescibles and recyclables to the total was 80.7%. The figures in A Way With Waste (DETR 1999a) suggest something of the order 60% as a maximum figure. Note that both these figures appear to relate largely to bin waste only (and the average Ecologika figure for the total is 745 kg per household per annum, in line with other studies such as MEL (1999)). This is only 60% of the total MSW stream, and therefore an unsound basis upon which to extrapolate to the total MSW stream (as was implicit in A Way With Waste). The more materials one tries to collect, the more one will extract from the waste stream. To the extent that recycling is a dynamic industry (and experience elsewhere suggests that it is), the idea of limits seems artificial because it implies stasis.

• At a time when UK waste management has to change anyway, it seems less than useful to be seeking to understand where any maximum might lie on the basis of how the world looks today. The German experience suggests that, in the context of the institutional structures in place, the recovery of materials can provide a means of gaining control over input material supplies (without necessarily exposing the companies concerned to price fluctuations in commodity markets).

Returning to discussions concerning maximum rates of recycling for dry recyclables, the figures for recycling per participating household are of interest. MEL (1999) suggest that RCV waste averages 14.2kg/week/household, or 738kg/annum/household. If one were to add recycled materials, one might estimate non-bulky and non-garden household wastes at about 800kg per annum on average. The highest rate of collection per participating household is 246kg/annum/household, or almost one third of this waste. This scheme does not operate authority wide. The best one that does, however, collects 140kg per household, or conservatively (using the 70% participation estimate), 209kg/annum/participating household. This is equivalent to slightly less than 25% of this waste.

Work we have done elsewhere suggests that in England and Wales, the average figure for all municipal waste is of the order 1,200 kg/annum/household. If all participants were recycling at the rate of 246kg per household, the kerbside scheme alone could attain a recycling rate of 20.5% of all municipal wastes. At 209kg/annum/household, the rate is closer to 17%. Note that there is a point which could be made concerning the wisdom of calculating the rate of kerbside recycling relative to the total amount of MSW. It makes more sense to consider how much of what could be extracted is being extracted. To that end, the figure of 25% calculated above seems a more accurate reflection of what is actually happening.

We know that some of the municipal waste is waste that is not from households (it is from commercial premises, and occasionally, from industrial ones), and not all of this will be sorted. Without knowing in more detail the extent of the non-household municipal component, and its fate, one cannot know what would be the recycling rate attainable were all households recycling at these rates in a situation where only household waste was collected by local authorities. This is an interesting question since the Landfill Directive targets apply to municipal waste (not just household waste) and many authorities may find that a cheap way of moving closer to targets would be to stop collecting non-household municipal waste (though some authorities may balance this view against the impacts of the loss of a revenue stream).

One hundred per cent participation may seem unrealistic in current contexts, but some other European countries do not see it as such (composting in the Netherlands, Austria and Germany, for example -see Federal Ministry for the Environment, Youth and Family Affairs 1999). It would clearly require changes in either formal (i.e. legislative) or informal institutions (e.g. social norms of behaviour). Such changes are likely to take time, and certainly at the informal level, better targeting of educational resources would be required. At present, educational messages do not appear to be tailored to increasing rates of participation. A blanket approach is more common. It may well be that different types of message appeal to different groupings.

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