Furthermore, the study, entitled ‘Analysis of kerbside dry recycling performance in England, 2007/08', claims that the type of collection system used – be it source separated, commingled or twin-stream – is not a “defining influence” of recycling performance on its own and that no one type performed consistently better than the others – assuming a 10% rejection rate at materials recycling facilities.
It did state that, in general, councils operating a fortnightly collection of residual waste had a better recycling performance than those with weekly collection regardless of the actual recycling collection service.
The WRAP study drew WasteDataFlow information for 353 of 354 local authorities and was designed to offer benchmark figures for local authorities and allow them to compare recycling collection rates against ‘like' authorities on the basis of the demographic of the area, types of material collected and collection service.
Deprivation
WRAP claimed that the socio-demographic and geographic make-up of a local authority was found to account for almost a quarter of the variations between different council's recycling rates.
The findings of the study echo patterns seen in local authority recycling and composting league tables, which tend to pitch more rural areas, such as councils in Lincolnshire and Cotswold district council, for example, among the best performers.
This is while densely populated urban areas, such as Tower Hamlets and Newham in London, consistently rank among the lowest rates. This was evidenced in the latest fully audited household waste and recycling figures published by Defra (see letsrecycle.com story).
Drawing attention to the issue of deprivation alongside population density, the WRAP research showed a “negative correlation” between areas of dense population and deprivation with their recycling rate. The study did clarify that this was most “pronounced at the extremes (i.e. extremely rural, extremely prospering)”.
In the study, WRAP highlighted that the maximum yield of dry recyclables in kilograms per household per year was lowest in ‘other urban authorities', where it was 239kg per household per year for all five materials.
‘Other urban authorities' were defined by the Defra Classification of LA Districts and Unitary Authorities in England (2005) as areas of below 37,000 residents or where 26% of population lives in rural settlements or larger market towns.
Conversely, the greatest yield per household per year was in ‘Rural-80' classed area, meaning authorities were at least 80% of the population lives in rural settlements or larger market towns. The researched showed a maximum yield of 305 kg per household per year in these areas.
Study
In a bid to offer a fair comparison between the recycling performances of councils using source separated collections and those using commingled collections, the study invoked a projected 10% MRF rejection rate for material collected commingled.
In its methodology, WRAP claims it used the figure based on a typical average of 10.8% quoted by the Environment Agency.
WRAP assessed the greatest yield of material among different kerbside sort systems for paper and card, glass, cans, and plastic and, for those that collect it, all five materials together.
The study found the greatest yield in kilograms per household per year came from a fortnightly, single stream commingled collection system using wheeled bins coupled with a fortnightly residual waste collection.
However, the most used collections service was found to be fortnightly, kerbside sort collection using boxes or sacks alongside a weekly residual waste collection.
Phillip Ward, director for local government services at WRAP, said: “All local authorities in England have now invested in some form of kerbside collection for dry recycling. WRAP is on-hand to help local authorities make the most of these benchmarks and identify targeted actions to squeeze more from their recycling collections.”
Within the WRAP study there was a call for “greater sophistication” with regards to understanding the role of kerbside recycling collections in local authority performance. It said that this was due to all local authorities offering some sort of kerbside provision in 2007/08 and there now being a need to look at the nature and quality of the service.
Kerbside material-specific dry recycling performance, England 2007/08
|
Paper without card (kg/hh/yr) |
Paper & card (kg/hh/yr) |
Cans (kg/hh/yr) |
Glass (kg/hh/yr) |
Plastics (kg/hh/yr) |
All 5 materials (kg/hh/yr) |
|
|
Minimum* |
18 |
46 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
72 |
|
Lower quartile |
63 |
95 |
5 |
29 |
5 |
140 |
|
Median |
73 |
129 |
9 |
43 |
10 |
182 |
|
Upper quartile |
88 |
155 |
11 |
53 |
11 |
216 |
|
Maximum |
125 |
207 |
18 |
78 |
20 |
305 |
*As values are rounded to the nearest whole number, minimum values of zero occur
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