News & Media > Environmental Services
07:07:2010
'More for less': can this really be done in waste management?
Andy Bond, development director at May Gurney Environmental Services, explores this issue.
What does it cost?
According to the Department of Communities and Local Government, the average Council Tax per household in 2009/10 was £1,175.
It is interesting to note that many people assume that several hundreds of pounds of this is devoted to waste management services. Those of us in the waste management industry know that this is not the case.
A 2008 report published by the Audit Commission (Well disposed: Responding to the waste challenge) calculated that in 2006/07 the annual cost of collection of municipal waste was £53 per household and of waste disposal a further £68 per household – a grand total of just £121 per household per annum. This is the sum that is under discussion – the ‘less’ component of the ‘more for less’ challenge. For waste management systems to be more effective, households need to be motivated to maximise the use of the services provided.
Why do we participate?
Few people know how much of their council tax is spent on waste and, as it costs the same regardless of how much we reduce, recycle or dispose of waste, the decision that the majority of us take to participate in recycling is a personal choice i.e. the desire to reduce our individual burden on the local and global environment.
In order to preserve and build on this goodwill, waste collectors should be much more accountable to the general public, reporting annually on tonnages collected, how they are processed, what the resulting commodity is used for and the environmental costs and benefits of the whole system.
Well designed collection systems producing valuable clean materials that displace virgin materials in a closed recycling loop can demonstrate huge environmental benefits, reassure people that their efforts are worthwhile and encourage further participation.
The cost of waste disposal
Residual disposal is expensive and landfill is likely to become the most expensive waste management choice over the next few years.
The current National Indicator measuring the residual waste is NI 191, and this is calculated per household. In 2008/09 the range was from 340kg at the lower end up to 991kg per household. Assuming a £35 per tonne gate and incorporating the £40 per tonne landfill tax that was in force that year, the cost per household for disposal (to landfill) ranged from £25.50 up to £74.43. The same range of disposal outcomes incorporating the £72 per tonne landfill that will be in force in 2013/14 produces results between £36.38 and £106.04 per household per annum.
The best way to secure less cost will be to adopt the best strategy for reducing the amount of waste under management. This is a powerful incentive for local authorities to invest in waste minimisation and diversion.
High recycling rates or low residual waste?
It is worth noting that having the highest recycling rate does not necessarily correlate with least waste to disposal. Many high recyclers have deployed free to all garden waste services which is most effective when a large wheeled bin is provided in authorities with large gardens. High recycling rates are common in this scenario, but are achieved at the expense of high collection costs and high residuals.
Achieving low residual waste
What do authorities with low residuals look like? Typically they have highly effective dry recycling systems targeting a large range of materials with adequate containment, lower frequency of residual refuse collections, separate weekly food waste collections and don’t provide a free to all garden waste collection service.
Almost all the councils with low residual waste have Alternate Weekly Collections (AWC) of refuse. Also the size of containment for an AWC system makes a difference with authorities using 180 litre bins performing significantly better than those with 240 litre bins.
This is not new – we have known for years that giving people more bin space resulted in more bin space being used. Comparing similar authorities in Somerset receiving identical services except for the size of the refuse bins, the reduction in annual residual waste put out by residents using a standard 180 litre bin is about 70Kg per household per annum compared to those using a 240 litre bin.
Based on a mean cost of landfill or indeed most other residual processing solutions of £100 per tonne, the additional cost of simply using a larger bin is £7 per household per annum. The pay back for changing to a smaller bin is only two and a half years – a good example of pay to save.
Food waste separately collected weekly is a significant area of opportunity. This approach is cheaper than mixed garden and kitchen waste collections as the additional cost of collecting and processing the garden waste is much higher than the cost of separate food waste collection and processing. In addition, collecting food waste separately alongside the introduction of AWC for refuse has resulted in a reduction in the overall amount of food waste produced by household.
This really is a good deal as we don’t pay to collect, process or dispose and as individual householders we save ourselves money directly by being less wasteful – arguably more than the entire cost of the waste management system. This approach also means we continue to have a weekly collection of the waste stream that people most frequently complain about when refuse collection frequency is reduced.
One system, two authorities
The structure of waste management in local government with our general split between collection and disposal responsibilities is an obstacle to better decision-making. Any situation in which the impact of decisions made by one authority falls on another authority’s budget is not one in which making the best communal decisions will thrive.
What is key is that the whole system should be evaluated for any or all possible solutions and the tax payer should not lose out because district councils can’t benefit from disposal savings or county councils can’t ensure sufficient diversion of waste at the collection stage of the system.
Benefits of partnership
Partnering is in vogue for collections and it can result in better outcomes. For example, the Somerset Waste Partnership states that an efficiency of around 8% was secured from the process of having a single collection contract for all five districts.
However, the key to this is the size of each individual authority in the partnership. As the Kelly review observed the gain was only found for aggregation up to a total of around 70,000 households and thereafter unit costs did not improve. Most current unitaries exceed 70,000 households and by and large just two districts combining will secure the full benefit of aggregation from the operations assuming they are co-terminous.
Quality counts
WRAP reports that for the majority of local authorities kerbside sort systems offer better value. There have been 10 procurements that have tested kerbside sort against a commingled solution in the last 12 months and five each where kerbside sort was a given or commingled was a given.
Where the two were tested kerbside sort or three stream recycling prevailed in every case. The market therefore supports WRAPs conclusion. Delivering more for less in the future will therefore need openness on the part of procurement to test ideas and systems as there will often be more opportunity for securing better environmental and cost outcomes when systems compete and this should be encouraged.
Benchmarking in-house service providers
One key facet of the systems issue is the number of authorities that simply do not market test services at all and the likelihood of the system being commingled.
More DSOs have adopted commingling than authorities who have outsourced. Interestingly they are also more likely to have AWC for refuse. It would therefore appear that the trade off has been one in which similar systems of collection are deployed for both recycling and refuse, and often garden waste as well.
In the coming period of public finance austerity there is clearly an opportunity for outsourcing or at least market testing to create better value. Even if authorities do not wish to open up their waste management systems to competition, they should consider employing third party expertise to analyse the costs and benefit, including the practical implementation of competing waste collection strategies.
Summary
So how will local authorities deliver more for less?
• By demonstrating bona fide markets for recyclates and the positive benefits of recycling to maximise public confidence and participation
• By being open to systemic change
• By adopting strategies that reduce waste arisings and residual waste to disposal
• By assessing solutions based on whole system costs and impacts
• By adopting separate food waste collections and AWC for refuse, preferably with smaller (140l or 180l) wheeled bins
• By partnering with each other for scale where appropriate
• By market testing in-house service provision
Conclusion
May Gurney believes that holding down the whole system cost of waste management at around £100 per household per annum is achievable despite the rising cost landfill tax, and has demonstrated this in a number of local authority areas.
Authorities that focus on minimising residual waste and optimising their collection systems are those most likely to succeed in the ‘more for less’ challenge.
The authorities facing most difficulties will be those that sign up to long-term disposal strategies that restrict their options to make changes that reduce costs and improve performance.
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