New CIWM president highlights ‘inconsistent’ EU recycling data

In front of more than 150 guests at Glasgow City Chambers, the 2015/16 president of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) outlined his key themes for the coming year – tackling waste crime, promoting resource efficiency through education and improving waste data.

Prof. Baird also re-emphasised CIWM’s commitment to the circular economy agenda, highlighting the need to build on the work programme set out by outgoing president John Quinn and an emphasis on Producer Responsibility.

Describing Producer Responsibility as a “core building block”, Prof. Baird stressed the important role that producers and manufacturers can play in supporting collection treatment, promising a report on this subject later this year.

Data

Elsewhere, Prof. Baird also emphasised the importance of improving waste data, launching a CIWM report looking at the current framework for measuring recycling across Europe “which shows some significant inconsistencies”.

Carried out on behalf of CIWM by research firm Social, Environmental & Economics Solutions Ltd (SOENECS) and the University of Brighton, the ‘EU recycling rate harmonisation’ study explores the impacts of different definitions and methodologies used by EU Member States to calculate recycling rates.

And, as well as identifying differences in data capture and the interpretation of definitions across Member States, the report found that the four calculation methodologies set out by the European Commission yield different recycling rates with the same data sets, with an average variance of 8.6% between the highest and lowest.

Suspicions

Commenting on the report findings, CIWM president Prof. Baird said: “CIWM has repeatedly expressed concern about the accuracy and value of comparative recycling statistics and data across Europe, and this report confirms our suspicions. A measurement framework that can deliver this level of variation with the same set of data will simply not be up to the job as we move into the more ambitious territory of the Circular Economy.

“If the imminent CE package is to posit higher targets, then not only do we need a more consistent and robust calculation and reporting framework, but also a tightening up of the definitions upon which recycling performance calculations are made.”

Report author and SOENECS managing director, Dr David Greenfield, added: “This research illustrates how difficult it is to compare recycling statistics across Europe with any degree of accuracy and highlights the opportunity to explore better ways of monitoring to support circular economy principles and reflect the latest advances in waste and resource management practices. Data capture also needs to be more sophisticated and materials rather than tonnage focused.”