Anti-litter campaigning body Keep Britain Tidy has released a new 10-point action plan to increase recycling in urban environments, following a public inquiry.

The plan has been published in ‘The Ur[Bin] Issue – Working with communities to improve urban recycling’ report, which was launched today at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in London.

Working in partnership with recycling and resource company, SITA UK, Keep Britain Tidy organised two ‘Citizens’ Juries’ in Lewisham and Manchester to find new ways of boosting recycling rates in urban environments.

The study was launched by the two organisations in response to England’s ‘flatlining’ recycling rates. (According to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) report, ‘Local authority collected waste statistics - Local authority data (England) 2012/13’, the household waste recycling rate (which accounts for 90 per cent of the 25.3 million tonnes of refuse managed by local authorities in England) reached 43.2 per cent in 2012/13 – just 0.2 per cent more than the year before. Despite this, Defra announced that from April 2014, it would be ‘stepping’ back from some areas of waste policy.)

As a result of these discussions, a range of recommendations for improvement were put forward, which were then tested by Keep Britain Tidy in an online poll of 1,000 people, to determine whether or not they were widely supported.

Report recommendations

The poll identified three main areas of improvement that need targeting to increase recycling levels in Britain: engagement; motivation; and infrastructure.

It found that there was ‘widespread confusion about the realities of recycling’, and that the public felt disconnected from it.

Looking into motivation to recycle, the juries found there was a lack of trust in local councils, and residents felt they lacked positive feedback for their recycling efforts.

People were also reportedly unable to see the benefits of recycling: ‘Participants were surprised to learn that councils have to pay to send waste to landfill and that selling recyclate can earn councils money of be used to offset costs’, the report outlined.

In terms of the infrastructure of recycling it was found that there was ‘frustration over the complexity of recycling systems’, and there was confusion because of the variety of collection systems and varying levels of maintenance.

It was also highlighted that there is a lack of recycling facilities outside of the home environment.

As such, the report makes the following recommendations:

Engagement

• have stakeholders, including national government, local authorities, the third sector, schools and businesses communicate a more consistent message on recycling, thus creating a ‘public debate on the value of resources and waste’;
• ensure that local authorities keep communication at the heart of recycling campaigns and continue to invest in exploring targeted campaigns; and
• have central government ‘support the repositioning of the waste and resource sector, not just as another service, but one that is good for the environment’, whilst highlighting the social and economic benefits of the sector

Motivation

• let local authorities to introduce a tax rebate for recycling more and reducing waste to encourage sustainable behaviour; and
• rebuild trust in recycling and demonstrate local community benefits (as almost half of those polled did not trust that local authorities spend the savings they make from recycling ‘effectively’), such as by introducing reward schemes for those who recycle well and having local authorities demonstrate where their recyclate goes and what happens to it (such as by signing up to the Resource Association’s End Destinations of Recycling Charter).

Infrastructure and service provision

• have government create a framework to drive greater consistency in waste and recycling infrastructure and services, and move towards a ‘more consistent approach in terms of materials collected and branding’, both to improve recycling tonnages and reduce contamination;
• provide food waste collections for all households by 2016 (as over 70 per cent of those polled thought weekly food waste collections could improve recycling);
• make city and town council planning requirements include household recycling obligations for developers (particularly for flats);
• improve recycling ‘on the go’, as ‘increasingly people are also eating and drinking out of the home’; and
• create packaging with eco-design (waste prevention and recyclability). Ninety per cent of those polled said that improved packaging for recycling (such as standardised labelling providing details on how the packaging can be recycled) would be an effective way of increasing recycling.

“A lack of positive reinforcement”

Phil Barton, Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy, commented: “It is clear that there is much work to do in order to enable England to meet and surpass recycling targets and that central to this is a need to engage householders and communities more deeply in understanding how recycling works, why it is important and the value of our finite resources.

“We welcome discussion from the wider sector about the recommendations in this report and how we can work together to develop informed and enabled communities, actively recycling across England.”

The Director of External Affairs for SITA UK, Dr Gev Eduljee, added: “The clear, concise, recommendations made by Keep Britain Tidy in this report have stemmed directly from householders. SITA UK fully supports them.

“From listening to our ‘jurors’ at the events, it is evident that much work remains to be done to help people living in urban environments to engage with recycling. We saw from the citizens’ juries that once householders are engaged, this empowers them to make their own positive choices and adjust their behaviours accordingly.

“However, poorly designed infrastructure, together with a lack of positive reinforcement, undermined attitudes towards recycling. It was also clear that residents living in flats and apartments found that recycling could be obtrusive and unrewarding. “

Read ‘The Ur[Bin] Issue – Working with communities to improve urban recycling’ or find out more about the Citizens’ Juries.