City and metropolitan councils face specific challenges in increasing recycling rates. With larger urban areas, and often a very high proportion of flats and communal collections, these authorities need to think differently about both household recycling infrastructure and resident engagement.
Urban areas also tend to have younger and more transient populations than rural areas with a higher number of non-native speakers. These challenges are part of the reason that in general cities and metropolitan areas have lower than average recycling rates.
Our analysis of 2021/22 figures from Defra shows that while other local authorities across England had an overall recycling rate of 43%, the figure for metropolitan councils was 39% and for city councils was 36%.
Key Recycling Challenges for Cities and Mets:
- High number of flats and communal collections
- Lack of space for recycling containers inside and outside properties
- Younger and more mobile populations
- Multiple languages
- Higher contamination
- Problem areas
While city and metropolitan councils may not ultimately be able to achieve the same recycling rates as less urban councils, there are a number of ways they can address some of the challenges they face and improve their overall recycling rate.
In this four part blog series we describe four initiatives that we see as key. This week we start with flats and communal collections.
Part 1 – Giving residents in flats more specific information
Recycling in flats is significantly lower than in houses. Several studies have looked into the reasons for this and drawn some common conclusions.
Residents have less space to store recycling inside their property and taking recycling to the collection point is often not easy. The communal bin stores used in flats are often out of the way, overflowing and unpleasant for residents to visit. Even motivated recyclers can be easily put off.
Another issue for residents is knowing what they can and can’t recycle and where each item should go. Better signage in communal bin stores has been proven to increase recycling, but really residents need the information with them at all times. Someone is unlikely to go back home for an item they realise they can recycle, and likewise unlikely to take back an item that a sign tells them they can’t.
The ‘How to Recycle’ web pages on most council websites are geared towards the containers provided to houses. Information for residents of flats is either hard to find or just not there. This one size fits all approach results in frustration for residents who want to recycle (low participation) and the wrong materials ending up in the wrong waste streams (high contamination).
Look up searches based on addresses or postcodes offer a much better solution, where flats and other non-standard properties can be given specific and comprehensive information quickly to help them make a good choice as they dispose of their item.
For example, Routeware’s Waste Wizard web tool, which is currently used across Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, lets residents search how to dispose of their object from a database covering tens of thousands of different items, including brand names and misspellings.
Importantly, the information is given is specific to a resident’s property. Flats and properties with communal collections are not being given inappropriate generic guidance.
Read more here about our Waste Wizard and other citizen-facing tools and apps, or contact us to set up a quick conversation.
