ORGANICS RECYCLING Get the message across
Biowastes containing high levels of contamination are a major problem for composting sites. Changing the local authority’s collection service is only part of the answer, argues Jeremy Jacobs
frustration among households? I
Over the last decade, local authorities up and down the country have responded to the pressures over landfill and successfully driven up the recycling rates of a wide range of materials. Much of this has been achieved through com- munication campaigns to influence public behaviour, and sometimes against a degree of opposition from households. With this in mind, it’s perhaps not surprising that local authorities are sceptical that changing a service once it’s been introduced successfully will still achieve the necessary buy-in from local residents. To ensure this happens, local authorities need to explain to households why the service needs to change. In the case of organic waste collections, and specifically those that are provided through a co-mingled recycling service, communicating this message to residents is vital. In recent years, the biowaste management industry has noted an increasing presence of physical contaminants in the biowastes collections that are delivered to composting sites. This has been a particular problem where paper and card wastes are co-mingled with organic waste.
Plastic coatings
The problem is that many paper and card items contain plastic coatings, metals, inks or other ingredients that tend not to biodegrade enough during composting. As a result, low-quality compost is produced, which is not compliant with PAS 100: 2011 specification.
To start with, the quality of the end product is unac- ceptable to customers. What’s more, the compost itself can damage the environment, wildlife and the food supply chain. Then there’s the financial cost; the fall out for the industry has been immense. Feedback from members of the Association for Organics Recycling has revealed that addi- tional processing to remove contamination for the compost could be costing the industry up to £78M a year while the cost to landfill the process rejects could be as high as £19M. While none of these issues directly impact on councils, developments in the European Parliament could have a bearing on the way local authority collections are delivered
10 Local Authority Waste & Recycling March 2012
t is a challenge that every local authority officer will know all too well. How do you communicate to local residents that a recy- cling service they have got used to will soon be changing without causing some level of
in the future. Judging by the political mood in Brussels, it looks likely that compliance with end of waste criteria (which currently means compliance with PAS 100 and PAS 110 specifications) will sooner or later become a regulatory requirement for councils that intend to count the input materials processed through composing and anaerobic diges- tion towards their recycling performances.
If that is the case, local authorities will need to work closely with their contracted biowaste processors to assist them wherever possible to produce composts and digestates that comply with PAS 100 and PAS 110 quality criteria. “Paper and card” contamination has prompted a number of local authorities to remove these items from organic wastes collections. According to WRAP, 57 councils operate kerbside collection schemes, including cardboard, but this number is likely to drop significantly in the near future. One of the drivers behind this change in service is the revised Waste Framework Directive, which states that in the future local authorities will not be able to count the amounts of waste materials sent to composting towards their recycling performances unless the resulting compost complies with PAS 100: 2011 specification. Defra’s guidance on the waste hierarchy supports the
move towards separate organic waste collections. The chal- lenge is getting this message across to households. To help local authorities achieve this, the Association of Organics Recycling and WRAP have developed a “change of service” leaflet, which will be launched in March.
Available on the website below as an electronic template, councils will be able to adapt it for their individual collec- tion schemes. The leaflet will explain to households why removing cardboard ensures that garden waste can be turned into quality compost for a variety of uses, and will also outline what residents should do with their card wastes.
www.recyclenow.com
Jeremy Jacobs is managing director of the Association of Organics Recycling
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56