The waste industry is big business, no doubt about it. Last valued at around £9 billion in the UK alone, many have found their fiscal treasure in another man’s trash. But the relationship between waste and the bottom line is a complicated one – one which Jean-Pierre Hannequart now understands well, though he came to the industry in a rather roundabout way.

Starting out, Hannequart was a barrister based in the south of Belgium before he moved to Cambridge to work on his English. There he met a girl with whom he moved to Algeria and later back to Europe, where he subsequently spent two years rearing animals and growing vegetables. But this was no Good Life scenario. Hannequart impresses the belief behind his lifestyle then: “I was a member of a community movement. The idea was that not everything needed to be done individually, and so it wasn’t necessary to work full time.” But that’s not to say Hannequart spent his free time lying in the sun. After reading about the political ecological movement, Hannequart’s interest in environmental issues escalated, and after working with the Consul of Europe, NATO and the German Institute on such matters at a European level – and five years as a member of the technical group for the Green Party within the European Parliament – Hannequart found himself as a consultant for the OECD and later responsible for the waste management plan with the Environment Department of Brussels, a role through which he saw the need for ACR+ (Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and Sustainable Resource Management), the organisation he now heads.

“I created ACR+ as a sort of complementary activity to the waste plan”, he says, “as a permanent network to exchange information and experiences with other regional authorities.” But this wasn’t the only motivation behind the creation of ACR+. “In the first instance we looked at how many cities and regions in Europe, the US and Canada were using selective waste collection [source separated collections], because my aim was to promote selective collection and stop the investment in to more incineration plants in Brussels”, says Hannequart. “We already had so many, catering for around 500,000 tonnes.”

Formally created in Pamplona in 1994, ACR+ started life with around 25 members. This has grown to nearly 100, which include networks of local authorities, thereby acting as a forum for nearly 1,100 municipalities. Hannequart admits that boosting membership is a slow process, but cites the need for quality as a reason for this. “It’s difficult because what we need from a good member is support from a politician who is responsible for waste at a local level, and a technician who is interested in international exchange”, he says. “We also have the problem of languages. We try to work in French, Spanish and English, but in many cases we are obliged to use only English.” ACR+ requires a standard from its members, then, ensuring it’s no lackadaisical network for networking’s sake.

At the heart of ACR+’s thinking is an economically-considered understanding of waste, and the necessary path forward to ensure the most favourable outcomes in the face of financial and environmental pressures. “We must consider all aspects of waste management”, Hannequart advises. “That’s the legal, the economic and educational instruments. If we want efficient policy we have to combine the legal approach with economic incentives with a lot of education and incentivisation activities.” Incentivisation remains a dirty word in the UK, but Hannequart sees it as a positive step forward, although he is aware of its connotations. “It’s the same everywhere. A politician doesn’t like introducing tax, no matter where they are. But it’s not a question of introducing a new tax; you have to introduce a more clever system – progressively – and with a lot of social compensation.” He cites the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy as examples of places where incentivisation is doing well (see page 8 for a case study in Italy). “But you need awareness. You need people to comprehend the right direction.”

‘The right direction’, however, is not always clear. Hannequart notes the inherent problems of companies that make their money on the basis of waste volume, and the difficulties in ensuring the populous differentiates between waste reduction and waste recycling. “For me, the two are connected no more”, he says. “For waste recycling we started with the idea that waste can be an interesting resource for recovery. So we had to push more material before we could do material recovery. And to do this we need the help of citizens to make the separation between materials. I think most people would like to do something for the environment, and probably the easiest thing to do is separate waste. This awareness is growing.”

However, waste reduction is a different, more complicated matter. “You ask people, ‘What are you doing to reduce your waste?’ and they say they’re putting their glass in one container and their paper in another. So the idea of waste prevention is very connected to selective collections. But it’s a question of consumption. It’s easier to separate materials in my kitchen than it is to change my shirt, or furniture or car. That requires more from people.”

Waste prevention, according to Hannequart, is an issue of ‘before-waste’, and therefore not directly linked to the waste industry that deals in the goods, not intangible concepts. But it’s a relevant aspect that must be accounted for. “It’s becoming a more important issue”, he says. “But more importantly, it ties in with the idea of resource efficiency. One part of resource efficiency is recycling, but the other is the sufficiency debate and, as such, the dematerialisation or change in lifestyle in society.”

The inherent contradiction of the waste landscape – that we must reduce waste, yet the industry thrives on it – is exacerbated too by underlying global economic concerns. “Europe is coming up with the concept of the European Recycling Society because there are many streams being sent to Asia, and we need a true European market for recycling”, says Hannequart, highlighting the likelihood that material security will become as big an issue as energy security in the coming years. “And so we need careful use of economic instruments to ensure this can happen.”

Clearly, waste for Hannequart and ACR+ is a package deal, where education, legislation and economics must blend together to create the right policies that will ensure the longevity of both the waste industry and the planet. As such, ACR+ has its fingers in a lot of relevant pies, from developing a CD-Rom with the plastic federation to producing a book with help from a waste management company, to working on a project regarding organic waste management as part of the European Week for Waste Reduction (19-27 November 2011). But always in the background is a comprehensive, skilled understanding of the need to balance many factors to achieve results. As Hannequart advises: “If you have no control system, and no relationship between your legal economics and your education campaign, you will have lots of limitations and not much impact.”