Business feasibility study for the national 'Out and About' Recycling and Litter Initiative

1. Executive summary

2. Introduction

3. Background to the Initiative

4. Market and competitive environment

5. Financial drivers

6. Business case options

7. Financial assessment

8. Facility needs analysis

9. Management and governance

10. Environmental analysis

11. Risk analysis

12. Bin design requirements

Appendix I: Cranleigh's terms of reference

Appendix II: New Zealand and international advertising bins

10. Environmental analysis

10.1 Introduction

The proposed Initiative will deliver environmental benefits for New Zealand in the following ways:

• Increasing public awareness and uptake of recycling, such that recycling behaviour becomes increasingly common place and a natural and integrated part of people's daily activities.
• Reducing the total volume of waste material currently being sent to landfill, thereby lowering the cost of landfill operation and the necessity to develop more landfill sites on land that could be used for other purposes.
• Reducing the amount of litter in public places. Litter is an incivility which reduces the perceived value of areas and makes them less attractive for use by the public.

10.2 Public awareness

Awareness of recycling has grown substantially over recent years, through a variety of mechanisms, including:

• Public information/advertising campaigns driven by central and local government, NGOs and industry (e.g. Canzbac, Keep New Zealand Beautiful and The Big Clean Up).
• Local authority provided kerbside recycling services, which are now available in most urban residential areas nationwide.
• Labels on packaged consumer goods, including:
  • the universal 'recyclable' logo
  • plastic grade labelling (1, 2, 5, etc)
  • consumer responsibility messages.
• Education (school recycling programmes, public workshops, etc).

The high visibility of the Out and About bins, due to their public locations, design and displayed advertising, means they are likely to attract attention and assist in getting the recycling message across.

10.3 Landfill reduction

Our quantitative model suggests that under a nationwide, 2,000 bin roll out approximately 280 metric tons per annum will be diverted from landfill, a fairly inconsequential figure relative to the national waste stream. This is not surprising, as the majority of landfill waste derives from residential and commercial sources, rather than public bins.

It is likely, however, that there will be flow-on benefits from the Initiative in the medium to long term through increased public recycling awareness, improved behaviour in regard to waste reduction, rubbish sorting and responsible consumption. This will in turn result in reduced waste to landfill.

A long term strategy may be to expand the Initiative to incorporate the commercial sector (for instance, by getting buy-in from mall owners to make rubbish separation and recycling a condition of tenancy on their premises). This would potentially result in a far greater volume of waste being diverted from landfills than a purely public scheme.

10.4 Litter reduction

Placement of recycling bins is unlikely to directly reduce litter, as most recycling bins will be situated adjacent or near to existing general litter bins.

Recycling bins should, however, reduce the load on existing litter receptacles, decreasing the likelihood of overflow during peak usage times. Ideally, the recycling bins would divert enough sorted waste from conventional bins so that overflow events are minimal.

It is also essential that the recycling bin design selected for the Initiative incorporates sufficient capacity and design features to prevent overflow.

10.5 Conclusion

There will be significant positive environmental benefits from implementing the Initiative from improved public awareness and uptake of recycling behaviour, rather than recycling via the bins themselves. The bins will reduce the incidence of overflow litter by introducing extra capacity.

The adoption of a charitable trust governance structure for the Out and About Initiative could generate environmental benefits in addition to those mentioned above. This would come about through donation of operational profits from the Initiative to environmentally beneficial causes, such as:

• research funding for waste minimisation/recycling technologies or other environmentally focused areas of research
• student scholarship grants for further study in environmental fields
• grants funding for environmentally focused community groups
• seed funding for eco-friendly start-up business
• school environmental education programmes and resources.