Next government advised how to improve recycling

Using the amount of waste collected as an indicator of what is eventually reprocessed is often inaccurate and misleading

 
Andy Doran, national recycling manager, Novelis

The group, which is an alliance of reprocessors, trade bodies and community recycling groups, sent an open letter earlier this month to leading figures in the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, challenging them to take action on four key issues.

The letters ask if the recipients would be “willing to undertake the four action points attached to dramatically improve how we recycle in the UK”.

The four points are:

• a “more accurate and formalised” monitoring system to record the rejection rates for contaminated materials and discount them from council recycling figures in a bit to give a “clearer record” of recycling activity and, in turn, encourage the exchange of best practice;
• a bill to be introduced requiring all councils to publish an end-use register “so that people know where their materials end up”;
• “proper” analysis of carbon footprint of recycling streams;
• and, encouraging closed loop glass recycling

Commenting on the letters, Andy Doran, national recycling manager for aluminium can recycling firm Novelis and CRR member, said: “Using the amount of waste collected as an indicator of what is eventually reprocessed is often inaccurate and misleading.

“There are at least three potential stages in the fully commingled collection and sorting process at which materials could be simply lost or legitimately rejected and these are not taken into account. Clearly this is unsatisfactory so, for the sake of clarity and precision, a change to reporting methodology is urgently required.”

Improvement

The open letters sent to the political parties include a detailed analysis of the perceived “problem” that the CRR is attempting to tackle with each measure.

For example, on monitoring rejection rates, it claims rejection rates for materials presented by collection authorities are “haphazard” and “prone to under reporting”, while it also claims that rejection rates from materials recycling facilities (MRFs) are not taken into account.

In a bid to combat this, the CRR calls for a tightening of measures surrounding material contamination, which could include a legal requirement to report and publish residual and rejection tonnages for collected material.

And, this would be coupled with all rejected material being discounted from returns issued by waste collection authorities to the government's waste database WasteDataFlow. Furthermore, CRR wants Defra to publish a ‘dry recycling rate' separate to its combined recycling and composting rate.

Destination

CRR also claims that public confidence in recycling is being undermined by “mixed messages” and media reports showing material being “dumped in developing countries”.

This is an issue which the organisation claims could be rectified by every local authority having to publish an end use register of materials collected, with “end use” defined as the moment materials are handed to a materials reprocessor.

In February 2009, the Somerset Waste Partnership (SWP) – which represents six local authorities – undertook this initiative of its own accord and published a breakdown of where material collected by the SWP in 2007/08 was sent for reuse or reprocessing (see letsrecycle.com story).

Carbon

The organisation also claims that local authorities currently lack access to “authoritative information” on the carbon impacts of the different waste collections methods.

As a result, it urges the governemtn to publish standardised guidance for local authorities on the carbon impacts of kerbside recycling methods – which would include life cycle analyses taking into account collection, sorting and distribution.

And, further to wider information on carbon impacts, the campaign group is calling for the introduction of legislation to drive more recycled glass towards remelt applications and away from alternative uses – in order to reduce the carbon footprint of glass usage.

The difference in the carbon impacts of remelt and other uses was taken into account by Defra with the launch of its consultation on proposed packaging targets earlier this month, which included plans to freeze the amount of glass being sent to aggregates and set a goal for material being sent to remelt applications (see letsrecycle.com story).