Local authority recycling: the realities

1
Local authority recycling the realities

• Dr David Davies
• Keynote presentation
• Scottish Waste Management Conference
• Glasgow
• 6 October 2004

2
Issues to be covered

• Best practice in achieving high diversion
• Mature v. immature recycling programmes
• The continuing importance of managing residual
  waste
• But - two caveats
• International comparisons can be dangerous
• Scotland sadly neglected

3
Best practice in achieving High Diversion
4
High diversion

• Performance is most strongly influenced by
  population density and affluence
• High diversion rates can be reached in relatively
  prosperous rural/provincial areas
• But such performance is highly unlikely in
  larger, more densely populated cities
• and unwise to assume that it can be
• Worrying examples in Britain
• where this false equation is being drawn
• producing strategies that are fundamentally
  flawed
• London being the worst example

5
The overall picture percentage diversion
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Best performing provincial/urban areas

• 1,000-2,500 persons per km2
• Achieve diversion rates of 45
• Seldom exceeded
• - and not always sustained
• Some examples
• Bonn, Germany 45
• Ghent, Belgium 55
• Seattle, USA 44
• Region of Peel, Canada 45

7
Larger metropolitan areas cities

• More than 3,000 persons/km2
• Best performers lie in the range 30-36
• Equivalent to 150-200 kg/person/yr
• Some examples
• Vienna, Berlin, Stuttgart, Hanover, Munich,
  Geneva, Zürich
• Other major cities in high-performing countries
  do less well, eg. The Netherlands
• Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague - all at 16-17
  (60-70 kg/person/yr)
• (London diverted 50 kg/person in 2002/03)

8
Regional recycling/composting performance

• Combined performance of
• higher-performing rural areas
• lower performing urban areas
• Best performers
• Flanders, Belgium
• approaching 70
• but significant definitional differences
• landfill tax 61.5 per tonne
• Styria (Steiermark), Austria
• 55-56 since 1998
• very low population density - 72 persons/km2
• landfill tax 65 per tonne 5 limit on organic
  carbon

Styria
9
Austria - Graz
10
Best practice measures
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European diversion rates - kg/person
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Paper
80
13
Glass
30
14
Bio-waste
100-150
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Mature v immature recycling programmes
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Mature recycling The Netherlands - glass
recycling 2002
17
Immature recycling Britain - glass recycling,
England 2002/03 257 LAs
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Residual waste management
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The real issue residual waste
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Residual waste management

• Better performing cities and Regions have reduced
  residuals to 150-200 kg/person/year
• Flanders the most successful
• Sets targets for progressive reduction
• Central to its waste strategy
• A bottom up approach
• UK emphasis is on meeting aspirational recycling/
  composting targets
• A top down approach

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Flanders residual waste
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In conclusion
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How best to set targets?

• The UK now has a proliferation of targets
• With a top down emphasis on recycling/composting
  
• Expressed as percentages
• But landfill directive compliance ought to be the
  main driver
• Preferable therefore to follow the Flanders
  example
• With bottom up diversion targets linked to
  residual waste
• Tied to key directive dates 2010 and 2013
• With continuous year-on-year improvement
• Expressed in kg/household or kg/capita
• Giving local authorities greater flexibility

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Thank you