MRF data: the case for credibility

A friend of mine described to me how his son’s teacher had told his class that only 8% of the recycling they carefully put in their green bin actually gets recycled. Sighing deeply, I explained that the recycling rate in our district is more like 40%, but that probably about 10% of the contents of our green bins gets rejected at some stage. When I got home and checked the numbers against Defra’s Local Authority statistics, it seems that the reject level is estimated at around 2%. Frankly that figure is difficult to believe.

And how can we reconcile this 2% figure with what I was told by a reprocessor recently, that they were unable to obtain feedstock of sufficient quality, to the extent that they are considering building their own MRF.

Until we can produce credible data on the fate of the material that residents take for recycling, it will remain difficult to win the support of the whole community for full and careful participation in recycling schemes.

We should publish not only the reject rates for every stage of the waste management process, but also the final destination of materials so that people know where, how and if it gets made into new products.

Every time an envelope with a UK address is found in a pile of waste in a developing country, credibility is given to that schoolteacher who implied that the whole exercise is some sort of con. There is no point in printing leaflets, knocking on doors and building expensive MRFs if the end result is mixed waste going for disposal anyway through a high level of rejects.

Two-quarter trends?

While this is only the second quarter for reporting under the new regulations, there must be an expectation that all MRFs should at least make some sort of return, even if the way in which the data is interpreted requires refining. Only 86 MRFs provided data in the second quarter, which is actually a reduction from the 90 that submitted data in the first quarter. While two quarters do not make a trend, this doesn’t appear to reflect any effort to ensure that all facilities submit accurate data. Until there is information from all facilities in England and Wales, an accurate picture will be difficult to build. There is still plenty of time for this system to mature, but there is no time to lose is ensuring that the quality of information is reliable at the earliest possible date.

Accurate data is always going to be the starting point for understanding exactly where there are weaknesses in our systems and then going on to improve them. Once the first full year of data on the effectiveness of MRFs is available, their clients will be able to exert pressure on their contractors to improve. It may be that significantly more sorting capacity is needed to produce the quality that re-processors require, and if this is the case, the sooner we know what is needed, the sooner we will be able to put it into place.

For more discussion on MRFs and material quality, sign up for the MRF Best Practice Conference, hosted by letsrecycle.com in Birmingham on December 10. For more details click here.