WRAP’s 2008 study ‘Barriers to recycling at home’ found that less than half of people (48 per cent) understand ‘very well’ how to use their recycling services. And it’s little wonder, considering not long ago all they had to do was bung everything in a single bin, but now must contend with sometimes lengthy lists of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’, ‘yes pleases’ and ‘no thank yous’.

Little wonder it may be, but the public’s lack of understanding has massive implications on how people use their services and, indeed, whether they recycle at all. According to the report, even affirmed recyclers ‘sometimes or often’: bin things because they don’t know if they can be recycled (48 per cent); put things in the recycling even if they’re not sure they’re recyclable (36 per cent); and bin recyclables rather than going through the perceived hassle of cleaning them (19 per cent). Declared ‘non-recyclers’ (only four per cent of the sample) said they didn’t recycle because: it’s easier to throw everything in the bin (46 per cent); they haven’t seen any information about recycling (44 per cent); and they don’t know what can and can’t be recycled (32 per cent).

The upshot of all this confusion is that waste management companies and, as a result, reprocessors don’t get the quantity and quality of recyclate they could from a fully competent recycling society. Communication is therefore vital, but there are several barriers to effective communication as well.

The first of these is the many stages at which communication can go awry, as reprocessors are now so far removed from their true suppliers, the consumers. These days, reprocessors often communicate their specifications to waste management companies, who then pass information on to both collection crews and local authorities, the latter of which will often employ outside agencies to communicate with the public. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but the lines of communication aren’t always clear. Novelis Recycling’s Andy Doran notes: “We don’t often talk to local authorities is the first point you have to bear in mind in this whole value chain. We might talk to a waste management company, Veolia or someone, about what our specification is, but we’re not 100 per cent sure what they might say direct to their customers, being local authorities. And even then, what is the consumer told? So, the potential for miscommunication is an issue from the start.” And Jonathan Short, Managing Director of ECO Plastics, agrees, saying: “We have very little direct communication with the local authorities, unless we’re buying from local authorities and they’re few and far between, and even less communication with the consumer.”

Another potential barrier to effective communication with the public is the sheer variety of services offered throughout the UK. Short suggests there are 150 different configurations of recycling collection systems operating in the UK today, adding: “The sooner that consolidates and reduces, the better.” Jane Stephenson, CEO at Resource Futures, notes: “It makes it very difficult to have any national campaigns other than messaging that is quite general... because obviously not all materials are collected in all areas.” And even if they are, collection methods vary dramatically from place to place.

This is especially significant in areas of high transience, such as inner cities. May Gurney recently took over the recycling contract for Bristol, and David McGill, the contract manager, explains: “There is a bit of painting the Forth Bridge about it. We’re looking at average occupations in some parts of the city as being maybe only four years; that means that every four years, you’ve got to be going back just to maintain the message, let alone develop it.”

Everyone I speak to for this article suggests that there’s no easy solution to educating the public on recycling matters, but that engagement through very clear communication is key; Short, for instance notes: “All the evidence points to the consumer being turned off when they get disinformation or they read scare stories in the press... And the more engaged they are, the more they realise the good that they’re actually doing by contributing to the recycling stream, the more likely they are to engage in it further.” Mandy Kelly, Business Development Director at Palm Recycling, echoes this sentiment, noting: “[C]lear and concise recycling communication campaigns directed to households make it easier for both the public and Palm to carry out the service... [M]aking the public aware of what happens to the material they recycle connects them to the process of recycling, which is equally important for improved compliance.” And Jane Stephenson suggests allowing the public on tours of depots, for instance, could do wonders: “When you see that those materials are bulked up and sent off to the reprocessors, you can actually visualise the consequences of contaminating that stream, which is much more difficult to understand when you’re putting a range of materials into a box.” Indeed, a recent YouGov report commissioned by the Resource Association found that 32 per cent of people would be ‘more or much more likely’ to recycle if more information was available about what happens to their recycling after it leaves their hands.

Stephenson also explains that having a mixture of communication techniques is vital, recommending doorstepping, roadshows, talks to community groups, and enlisting volunteers, for instance, in addition to issuing standard printed materials. McGill (for whom Resource Futures does comms work in Bristol) agrees, saying: “The fairly normal annual leafleting and calendar deliveries... are going to be limited in their very nature by how many people truly read them and understand them and follow them verbatim, so we want to target areas where quality is an issue by direct canvassing... [explaining] the positive impact [residents] can have on the outcome of the service.”

Indeed, feedback can play a significant part in improving quality of collections. This is perhaps more possible in areas with kerbside sort, where individuals with contaminated recycling bins can be more easily identified; McGill notes of the Bristol service: “To quite a degree we can police quality at the kerbside because we do a kerbside separation; we have the facility to shift out contaminants that, if it were in a co-mingled stream, would still be in there at the point where it hit the MRF.” Stephenson adds that when contaminated materials are left behind, the public must be provided with an explanation that they can learn from.

From a business perspective, engaging the public impacts significantly on the economic viability of both collection/sortation and reprocessing. McGill notes that encouraging simple practices like covering paper and ensuring textile bags are firmly tied on rainy days can preserve items’ value, and that, for a kerbside-sort service, encouraging the public to present materials in an orderly fashion increases the productivity of the operatives and decreases contamination levels.

And contamination from the public can be costly for reprocessors, too, though many stress that the serious quality problems often crop up between the consumer and the reprocessor. (Short goes so far as to suggest some unscrupulous waste collectors knowingly pass on contaminated material in a misguided attempt to increase revenue: “Mixed papers today might be worth £50 a tonne, but a good plastic bottle’s worth £150 a tonne, so unfortunately some waste management companies out there will allow a level of paper to go into the bottles – they think they’re being clever and making another few pounds, but we’re picking it up through our process.”) Doran explains that, for Novelis, cigarette butts or other rubbish popped in an aluminium can by a member of the public, say, can cause problems, especially if they make it through the shredding and separation processes at the plant, and are ignited in the delacquering stage, potentially causing overheating and downtime in the system.

It’s not just process downtime and machinery repair that have to be taken into account though, as Doran explains: “Say I buy one per cent plastic; I’ve got the cost of buying the plastic at the wrong price, I’ve then got to buy another one per cent to get what I wanted, I’ve got to ship the materials twice, and there are additional energy costs from shredding and possible landfill costs.” He concludes that “the numbers get pretty fierce”, and indeed the Resource Association – of which Novelis, ECO Plastics and Palm are all members – has been compiling figures showing that contamination collectively costs its members many millions every year. While those who collect and sort recyclables may ultimately have a bigger impact on the quality of UK recyclate, it surely pays to have a
well-educated public.