Action Briefing Aug 2004 - Sept 2004
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Trash and Burn: Birmingham's Waste Management Strategy

When we heard that the City Council was consulting on a review of its Waste Management Strategy in June we leapt at the chance to explore ways of turning Birmingham’s poor recycling record around and help achieve the 2000 Waste Management Strategy’s ‘Vision’ of a more sustainable approach to waste in the City.

The recent controversy over plans to furnish every household with a wheelie bin has put waste back at the top of the political agenda. A pilot scheme proposed by Labour in May to provide 60,000 households with wheeled bins was scrapped by the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat controlled Council in July.

Birmingham’s waste arisings are increasing against a backdrop of tighter legislation and higher national recycling targets. The City generates approximately 534,185 tonnes of municipal waste per annum. In 2002-2003 Birmingham recycled 8.5% and composted (at central composting facilities) 2.3% of household waste giving a total recycling rate of 10.8%. The 2003-4 target is 10%, with estimates from pre-audited figures hovering at 13%. The target for 2005-2006 is 18%, and for 2010-11 it rises to 30%.

Birmingham has achieved high diversion rates from landfill via the Tyseley energy-from-waste plant but this dependence on incineration has masked poor recycling performance for some time and resulted in more sustainable ways of dealing with waste being neglected. The City Council’s contract with the operator, Tyseley Waste Disposal Ltd., requires 350,000-400,000 tonnes of waste to be delivered to the incinerator per annum for the duration of the contract. We are concerned that the need to supply the incinerator will compromise the success of future recycling schemes as well as undermining the political will to promote alternatives.
The Council must seek renegotiation of this contract and resist any move to increase the capacity of the incinerator in the meantime. For now, recycling rates can only be improved by ‘tapping into’ the remaining 130,000 or so tonnes of domestic waste currently going to landfill every year.

1. Promote with partners a waste minimisation scheme with a view to adopting a ‘Zero Waste’ strategy
The potential environmental gains from not generating so much waste in the first place can far exceed those of recycling. The concept of ‘Zero Waste’, where all waste is seen as a resource, represents a fundamental shift in the philosophy of waste management. This radical approach has been adopted by several local authorities, including most notably Bath and North East Somerset. Birmingham could make a start by reviewing suppliers and practices within the City Council itself with an aim to minimising waste.

Home composting is one example of a waste minimisation that achieves significant and immediate reductions in domestic waste. Up to 35% of the contents of a domestic bin is compostable kitchen waste and 25% is paper, which can also be composted. The City Council provides subsidised home composters, of which approximately 16,000 have purchased so far, a 4% uptake, but the scheme needs to be more widely promoted and publicised.

2. Expand existing kerbside recycling provision to include collections of five to eight recyclable materials by 2010
Kerbside recycling schemes have been consistently shown to increase recycling rates but they must be practicable and well publicised. Friends of the Earth recommends a weekly collection (on the same day as the general waste collection service) of at least five recyclable materials. Comprehensive and easily understood instructions (multilingual where necessary), easily storable collection containers, and the separation of recyclable materials on the doorstep to minimise contamination all help. Community recycling amenity sites must be maintained to a high standard (some sites are still often found to be dirty and over-filled) and new developments should provide for the separate internal and/or external storage of separated recyclable materials.

Accurately determining levels of participation is key to assessing a scheme’s success or failure. The current ‘Paper Round’ kerbside collection scheme covers 80% of a total 404,000 households but accurate figures for the total uptake are not available.

3. Raise participation and awareness
Schemes that involve effective consultation with local people enjoy higher levels of participation. If residents are made aware of recycling services and the economic, social and environmental benefits then participation will improve and the longer-term cultural change towards seeing waste as a resource will begin.

There is no reason why Birmingham people would not get behind waste minimisation and city-wide kerbside recycling schemes provided they are made easy to understand and well publicised. In its 2001 report Rewarding Recycling, the Greater London Authority comments: 'There is a common assumption that the rough correlation between social and economic deprivation and lower recycling rates is due to lack of enthusiasm. However, research by the Recycling Consortium following consultation with local people found that residents were just as aware of waste issues and that poor participation was usually a result of poor quality or inconvenient services and not lack of interest.'

The role of Waste Collection Operatives could be broadened to include encouraging residents to participate in recycling and take pride in achieving a greener city. Residents must also see the tangible benefits for increased recycling in terms of, for example, community investment from the Landfill Tax Credit scheme or profits generated from recycled goods.

Case Study: London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow has a similar population density to Birmingham. Of its over 86,000 dwellings, a high proportion are flats, multiple-occupancy housing and high-rise tower blocks. In total, 37.3% of the population of Hounslow reside in flats, 24% of which are above ground floor making kerbside recycling schemes impractical. Similarly, Birmingham has over 90,000 flats, 22.4% of the overall population residing in them (2001 Census).

In partnership with a not-for-profit company, ECT Recycling, Hounslow’s strategy aimed to deliver three schemes designed to catch all residents regardless of their form of accommodation.

For the 70,000 ground level households, a kerbside ‘Green Box’ recycling scheme is provided. Weekly collections (on the same day as general refuse collection) handle paper; domestic cardboard; telephone directories; glass jars and bottles; food tins and drinks cans; textiles; clothes and shoes; aluminium foil; motor oil; household and car batteries; and aerosols, and collection crews separate the materials at the kerbside. The inclusion of plastics in the weekly collection will be negotiated when the current contract with ECT Recycling expires.

In addition, Hounslow operates a weekly near-entrance ‘estate frame’ scheme comprising 260 small near-entrance recycling sites for all medium and high-rise estates. However, medium-sized blocks of flats (typically16-29 units) could not benefit from either scheme. To reach these households, the Council, in partnership with a manufacturer, custom-developed and introduced a ‘Hybrid’ of both the doorstep and high-rise systems, using four-wheeled units with removable drawers for each type of material. This highly flexible approach allows the collection of up to three different materials per bin and extra bins can be added to increase overall capacity. It also enabled the Council to serve medium-sized blocks with standard kerbside operations, and thus avoid complicating and fragmenting its recycling provision with multiple contracts.

The weight of the materials collected by the Hybrid system is on average equal to, and in some areas significantly greater than, the weight of materials collected through the green-box kerbside scheme. In some areas up to 5kg of recyclables were collected per week.

Case study: London Borough of Wandsworth
One of London’s largest Boroughs, Wandsworth is expecting to achieve a 2003-4 recycling rate of 17.5%, up from 10.5% in 2002-3. Recently, to encourage participation, the weekly multiple sack collection service for ground level properties and low-rise blocks was replaced by a weekly single orange sack collection. Participation is ‘opt out’, not ‘opt in’: sacks are now delivered automatically to all households every three months, unlike under the old system where residents had to contact the Council for replacement sacks.

Wandsworth saw a 120% increase in the quantity of materials being collected almost immediately after the single sack scheme was introduced. Contamination rates are less than 5%, so the increased amount collected far outweighs the contamination.

The see-through orange sacks are quicker for the operatives to collect and residents can put as many sacks out each week as they like. A simple leaflet with pictures of recyclable goods is attached to sacks. Contaminated sacks are left with a sticker explaining why the sack was rejected.

Case study: Bristol
Bristol shows how a densely populated urban environment need not be an impediment to delivering a good recycling scheme. The City Council achieved a recycling rate of 13.8% in 2002-03 thanks to the comprehensive coverage offered by the service and the broad range of materials collected.

Bristol’s doorstep recycling service boasts a coverage exceeding 95% of households, with the exception of some multiple occupancy buildings and high-rises. Near-entrance estate frames cover 10,000 excluded from the kerbside scheme. Five or more recyclable materials (paper and magazines; green, brown and clear glass; aluminium and steel cans; aluminium foil; textiles; batteries and oil) are collected weekly (along with general refuse) using a 44 litre black box and separated at the kerbside by the collection crews.

Kate Nancarrow