Recycling collections and reducing landfill
Recycling Lives will offer opportunities to its residents to develop new skills and undertake work experience in the challenging arena of waste and recycling, uniquely meeting two needs, the reduction of waste and the development of employment and employability.
After 4 years of extensive research and consultation, Lancashire County Council and its 15 local authorities signed up to a strategic document entitled “A Greener Strategy for a Greener Future 2001 – 2020”, pursuing strategies and policies invited by government in its “Waste Strategy 2000 for England & Wales”, drawing attention to the rapidly growing issues around waste management, the need to reduce landfill, and the need to raise awareness to separation of waste and recycling. Quite simply we could not continue to deal with waste in an unchanged way, for a variety of reasons. It stated, “Over the last four years we have seen the actual amount of municipal waste produced in Lancashire increase by 17.5%. Last year alone [2000] saw an increase of 7.5%. The Environment Agency’s Strategic Waste Assessment for the North-West expects waste to grow by 3% per year over the Strategy period.”
“This requires the development of a fully integrated waste management system through the development of partnerships between local authorities, community groups and the private sector…..The Strategy recognises the valuable role played by community and voluntary groups in the promotion and implementation of waste reduction and recovery projects at a local level throughout Lancashire. These groups need support and encouragement to build on this experience and extend the existing network of initiatives either independently or through partnership with local authorities.”
Too much waste is still not recycled or composted. The strategy relies upon a sizeable reduction in waste volumes generated in households, from the current increase of 3% per annum to 1% per annum. Landfill targets have been set ambitiously to reduce the total of waste buried in such locations from 85% in 1999/2000 to 20% by 2010. Recycling and composting targets have been significantly extended so that the current volume of recycled materials increases from 15% in 1999/2000, to 56% by 2015. Local authorities are charged with the statutory responsibility of collecting and disposing of waste produced by households in Lancashire. The District Councils are responsible for the service of waste collection, while the County Council is responsible for its disposal. Under the new strategy a framework is established for an integrated system that deals with all elements of the municipal waste stream as effectively as possible. Over half of waste in Lancashire is domestic, but as of 1999 only 15% was recycled or composted.
15% of all waste in Lancashire is collected via street and public amenity cleansing, requiring effective and efficient systems of collection, segregation and transportation for appropriate disposal. A further 25% is deposited from households at Household Waste Recycling and Disposal Centres. Much is highly recyclable material. However the tendency of householders is to regard these centres as “locations of last resort” for the disposal of material which cannot or is not collected or collectable during the normal cycle of waste collection, and the tendency of the authorities is to deposit this waste in landfill sites rather than segregate for recycling. Recycling by voluntary groups is around 6%.
The report states: “In order to achieve the ambitious targets set within the strategy, it is essential that markets are developed locally and nationally for recovered waste. The private sector operator of any recycling or composting based contract will have primary responsibility to secure markets. In addition to this the Lancashire Waste Authorities will work together with community groups and the private sector to form a Recycling Consortium that will promote the development of long-term markets for localised recycling activities, that are not included in partnership with the main waste management contractors.”
In Lancashire the new strategy has set targets which are more challenging than the European Directive, as an indication of commitment, and building in a “safety-margin”. This is also in response to an overwhelming concern raised in public consultation in Lancashire that landfill must be minimised as much as possible. Already, however, this strategy has encountered operational difficulties and delays, setting back the ability and timescale to achieve its ambitious targets. Also there is huge reliance on the projected reduction of 1% per annum in waste growth. Until 2004 good progress had been made in achieving this target, but in the year 2004/5 growth was 4%. If the 1% target is exceeded, costs and penalties will increase greatly.11
These ambitious targets set in the Lancashire Strategy require a fundamental change in mindsets. Waste must be separated in the home, and an effective operational infrastructure implemented through “the development of partnerships between local authorities, community groups and the private sector. Most importantly, householders are vital to the success of this Strategy and their support and active participation in waste reduction, re-use, recycling and composting initiatives is essential…..The Private Sector will be a key partner in delivering the Strategy…To achieve the Strategy targets, all contracts will be based on output specifications that will set performance standards to be achieved for waste recovery”.
Is the Strategy and its targets being achieved?
Since 2001 the strategy has been severely tested. Local authorities, whilst having unreservedly committed themselves to achieving the targets, are nevertheless struggling to meet the operational demands. The overall volumes recycled were targeted by 2005 to have increased from 18% per annum to 40%. For the year 2004/2005 the authorities had achieved an increase to 30.9%. Waste transfer stations, reclamation facilities, composting facilities and crucially collection and transport methods have not been successfully implemented. The mindset of householders appears to have been changed more successfully than anticipated, but the ability of local authorities to meet the operational and infrastructural requirements has not.
Performance Statistics
A target to recycle or compost 25 per cent of household waste by 2005 was set for England and Wales in the Government's Waste Strategy 2000. Lancashire County Council’s strategy sets its target for 2005 at 36%. In 2003/04 local authorities reported that around 4.5 million tonnes of household waste (17.7 per cent of total household waste) was diverted for recycling or composting through schemes run by local authorities or organisations working in partnership with them.
Recycling Performance of the Regions of England 2003-2004
The following chart sets out a regional analysis of Household Recycling Rates in England 2003-2004, from which it can be seen that the North-West is considerably behind other regions and the national averages.
source: Defra website
Recycling performance of Local Authorities in Lancashire 2004-2005
The following table shows the Recycling and Composting performance of Lancashire’s local authorities. The data shows household waste recycling and composting rates for English councils from April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005. They include the recycling rate (dry recyclables), composting rate (green waste and food waste) as well as the total amount of combined recycling and composting for the year.
Rank | Council type | Authority name | Recycling rate (%) | Composting rate (%) | Total Recycling (%) |
34 | D | Fylde | 14.10 | 18.00 | 32.10 |
39 | C | Lancashire | 19.87 | 11.02 | 30.89 |
47 | D | South Ribble | 12.13 | 18.05 | 30.18 |
75 | D | Chorley | 10.29 | 17.18 | 27.47 |
93 | D | West Lancashire | 8.78 | 17.40 | 26.18 |
116 | D | Wyre | 9.29 | 15.31 | 24.60 |
133 | D | Hyndburn | 16.46 | 7.39 | 23.85 |
147 | UA | Blackburn | 16.64 | 6.52 | 23.16 |
160 | D | Pendle | 12.75 | 9.43 | 22.18 |
166 | D | Rossendale | 16.48 | 5.40 | 21.88 |
189 | D | Preston | 12.12 | 8.92 | 21.04 |
242 | D | Ribble Valley | 9.22 | 9.33 | 18.55 |
257 | UA | Blackpool | 11.18 | 6.90 | 18.08 |
264 | D | Lancaster | 11.00 | 6.72 | 17.72 |
365 | D | Burnley | 8.28 | 4.14 | 12.42 |
Source: ODPM, Municipal Waste Data
Recycling Performance of Preston City Council
The following shows the amount of Preston’s rubbish that has been recycled over the last four years. The council aims to recycle 25% of waste in 2005/06. The rate of increase has slowed in the last year, and is unlikely to reach its 25% target this year.
source: Preston City Council website
The Response from Recycling Lives
As part of its holistic approach to the relief of homelessness and its causes, offering training opportunities and employment, Recycling Lives residents will after the first few weeks of residency undertake waste collection and recycling work in the Kent Street workshop, and associated administrative and management tasks.
- Contracts with the local authorities will be sought for the removal of rubbish and waste from roadways, footpaths and cycle-ways;
- Waste and rubbish collection will be undertaken at Housing Association properties;
- household rubbish collections will be undertaken to reduce the pressures on fortnightly district council collections, and to ease the tensions faced by householders with waste accumulation and storage in between collections;
- segregation of recyclable materials will be undertaken in a much more thorough way to increase the levels of recycled material and reduce pressures on landfill targets;
- particular emphasis will be given to the recycling of metal and white goods,
- electrical items, computers and TV monitors
- recycled materials will be prepared and sold to markets in response to demand, and/or turned into recyclate to be used within a local manufacturing process
- recycled and/or repaired goods will be sold through the Recycling Lives retail outlet on the ground floor of the Kent Street premises a weighbridge and scales will be in place to meet statutory requirements
A comprehensive range of skills will be required in the Recycling Lives workshop and associated activities:
Retail - including customer-care, cash-handling, goods receipt and delivery, shop-front maintenance
Workshop - carpentry, renovation, electrical testing, plumbing
Catering - cooking, food-preparation, food-hygiene, cleaning and laundry
ICT - word-processing, spreadsheet, database, web-design
Leading to the accumulation of skills which will enable Recycling Lives residents and local community members to become proficient in or as:
- Commercial vehicle driving
- Sales assistance
- ICT support
- Administrative assistance
- Marketing and sales assistance
- Web Design
- Catering supervision
- Housekeeping
- Store management
- Computer recycling
- White goods restoration
- Electrical work
- Scrap metal recycling
- Litter picking
- Gardens maintenance
- Plastic recycling
- Glass recycling
- Ground work
- Leaflet drops
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