Work carried out by WRAP into the business case for greater consistency shows a ‘mixed picture’ in terms of the strengths of implementing the framework.
The Waste and Resources Action Plan (WRAP) this week published a summary of local authority business cases, as part of the organisation’s work on consistency in household recycling collections.
The review by WRAP found that a commingled system for collecting recycling had a higher cost to local authorities in comparison to multi and single stream
WRAP supported seven groups of local authorities – covering 49 individual authorities – to evaluate the local business case for adopting the consistency framework.
According to WRAP, the review presents a ‘mixed picture’ across the pilot projects with respect to the overall strength of the business case to make major changes to services in line with the framework.
The three systems defined within the framework include a weekly collection of food waste, as well as the collection of a common set of dry recyclables. These include: commingled and food; two-stream and food; and, multi-stream and food. The models included some local variations relating to garden waste and residual waste.
According to WRAP, the review sought to determine through modelling whether the framework systems are capable of delivering cost and performance benefits locally that are consistent with those identified at a national level.
Commingled
One of the findings of the review was that a commingled system for collecting recycling had a higher cost to local authorities in comparison to multi and single-stream.
Above: A table illustrating the cost and recycling performance ranking of core modelled systems (Table: WRAP)
The results show that for 64% of local authorities involved in the pilot projects, commingled had the highest cost, in comparison to the other models.
The baseline (current) arrangements were seen to represent the least cost option in just over half of the results primarily because the majority do not include a separate food waste collection service, WRAP said.
In terms of recycling WRAP found that overall there was little difference between the three systems in terms of the average recycling rates achieved.
However, where the three framework systems were modelled, collection of the common set of dry recyclable materials and separate weekly food waste was seen to add (on average) approximately four percentage points to the modelled recycling performance.
For the pilots this resulted in an increase in the average recycling performance from 42% to 46%.
“The key challenge is in adding a separate food waste collection cost effectively. Less than 15% of the ‘pilot’ authorities already had a food waste service, but for 80% of those, savings could be achieved through moving to one of the optimised framework systems.”
Linda Crichton
WRAP
According to WRAP, the pilot project results demonstrate that a number of partnership areas have potential to deliver services in line with the Framework and maintain or improve recycling rates at no additional cost.
Food waste
However, for others, introducing a separate food waste collection service where one is not already operating can represent an additional cost, WRAP found.
Commenting on the findings, Linda Crichton, head of resources at WRAP, said: “The key challenge is in adding a separate food waste collection cost effectively. Less than 15% of the ‘pilot’ authorities already had a food waste service, but for 80% of those, savings could be achieved through moving to one of the optimised framework systems.
“However, for the 80% or so of the ‘pilot’ authorities currently with no weekly food waste collection and operating a fortnightly residual collection, here the opportunities for further savings or ability to add food waste at no additional cost were limited.”
Related links
Local authority business cases report
Framework for greater consistency
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
