Waste Prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference
Defra WREP project WR0117 Annex A: Scoping Paper
December 2005 Revised March 2010
WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Preface
This report was written originally in December 2005. It was prepared as an internal working document to help the Small Changes Big Difference team develop the concept and action plan for the project.
The report is one of four annexes to the final project report, prepared with minor revisions for publication in March 2010. It provides supporting detail to the evidence presented in the final project report. In reading the report it is important to remember that this was a scoping report. Some of the features of the project reported here changed later on as the delivery progressed and was reviewed at key points (e.g. after the interim evaluation – Annexes B and C). The final project report describes the full evolution of the project, its principal outcomes and lessons learned.
Project overview Small Changes, Big Difference (SCBD) was a two-year action research project (October 2005-October 2007) led by Hampshire County Council (HCC) working in partnership with Project Integra (PI) and Brook Lyndhurst (the evaluation partner). The project was funded through the Defra Waste and Resources Evidence Programme.
The principal objective of the project was to test a community-based behaviour change model for encouraging public action on waste minimisation, and to develop methods for capturing waste reduction impacts.
SCBD comprised four individual pilots within the overall project which worked with ‘communities of interest’ to change behaviour – an approach which theory suggests should extend the reach of the project, tackle social norms, and break down entrenched behaviours.
Three of the four pilots targeted ‘moments of change’ in people’s lives when they might otherwise be rethinking their lifestyles; the fourth explored how the workplace can be a focus for encouraging change at home.
The four communities involved in the project were:
Retired - University of the Third Age (U3A) New Parents - local NCT groups & Andover Family Learning Centre Schools - parents of children in six Hampshire primary schools Workplace - employees of Hampshire County Council
Individual householders were recruited through various community organisations/ institutions (‘delivery organisations’) and then received materials and support from HCC over a period of at least six months. This included waste saving activity ideas, a directory of local information, diary sheets to record waste changes and new behaviours, and invitations to various events.
December 2005 (revised March 2010)
WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Contents
Preface 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Objectives of the scoping paper 1 1.2 Context 1 1.3 Report structure 1 2 Literature review – waste minimisation practice and behaviour change 2 2.1 Waste minimisation in practice 2 2.2 Impact and factors for success 6 2.3 Changing behaviour 13 3 Project monitoring & evaluation 21 3.1 Constraints and issues 21 3.2 Existing toolkits 22 3.3 Monitoring and evaluation of the Hampshire pilots 23 4 Draft action plan 27 4.1 Background and principles 27 4.2 Action Plan Framework 28 4.3 Delivery arrangements 33 4.4 Next steps 36 5 Appendices 38 5.1 Waste minimisation case study examples 38 5.2 Selected case studies 46 5.3 The Delivery Organisations 68
This research was commissioned by Hampshire County Council and funded by Defra. The views expressed reflect the research findings and the authors’ interpretation. The inclusion of or reference to any particular policy in this report should not be taken to imply that it has, or will be, endorsed by Defra © Brook Lyndhurst 2005 & 2010 This report has been produced by Brook Lyndhurst Ltd under/as part of a contract placed by Hampshire County Council and Defra Waste and Resources Evidence Programme. Any views expressed in the report are not necessarily those of Hampshire County Council or Defra. Brook Lyndhurst warrants that all reasonable skill and care has been used in preparing this report. Notwithstanding this warranty, Brook Lyndhurst shall not be under any liability for loss of profit, business, revenues or any special indirect or consequential damage of any nature whatsoever or loss of anticipated saving or for any increased costs sustained by the client or his or her servants or agents arising in any way whether directly or indirectly as a result of reliance on this report or of any error or defect in this report.
Acknowledgements
Brook Lyndhurst would like to thank all of the SCBD participants who gave us their time to fill in surveys, be interviewed or participate in the focus groups, as well as Zoe Kimber at Hampshire County Council who provided a great deal of practical support to the evaluation.
December 2005 (revised March 2010)
WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Glossary
CAG Community Action Group CCN Community Composting Network CRN Community Recycling Network EAF Environment Action Fund (Defra) EEA European Environment Agency ESRC Economic and Social Research Council FRN Furniture Recycling Network HCC Hampshire County Council HWRC Household Waste Recycling Centre ILM Intermediate Labour Market NCC National Consumer Council NRWF National Resource and Waste Forum OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PI Project Integra SCP Sustainable Production and Consumption VFM Value for money WEN Women’s Environmental Network
December 2005 (revised March 2010)
WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
1 Introduction
This Scoping Paper has been prepared to support Hampshire County Council’s proposal to run pilot waste minimisation pilot projects under the Defra R&D programme.
1.1 Objectives of the scoping paper The Scoping Paper covers a number of the early activities planned for the overall project, as set out in the original proposal. These are:
Preparation of a concise literature review which identifies how waste minimisation can be taken forward in practice, taking into account: a) best practice in waste minimisation/prevention in the UK and internationally; b) intervention models that target waste minimisation as part of broader and deeper lifestyle/behaviour change, and which have the potential to operationalise existing theories on behaviour change (eg Jackson). A more detailed outline of the proposed methodology for monitoring and evaluation of the pilots. A draft Action Plan.
1.2 Context Hampshire’s original proposal makes reference to the research carried out in 2004 to support Project Integra’s (now launched) behaviour change strategy and the desire to build on that work.
The research for Project Integra included county-wide market research and audience profiling (conducted by MORI), a review of waste minimisation practice in the UK and overseas, and development of a waste forecasting model (both carried out by Brook Lyndhurst). We are building on the existing research in the present project using elements of it to:
inform selection and design of waste minimisation pilots; provide benchmarking data to use alongside newly collected data to monitor and evaluate the pilot projects.
1.3 Report structure The structure of this paper is as follows:
Section 2: Literature review - waste minimisation practice and behaviour change Section 3: Project monitoring & evaluation – existing frameworks and proposed methodology for the Hampshire pilot projects Section 4: Draft Action Plan
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 1 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
2 Literature review – waste minimisation practice and behaviour change
The following provides an overview of literature on:
Waste minimisation in practice – identifying a wide range of possibilities for intervention, including novel approaches; Impact and factors for success – current knowledge and gaps; Changing behaviour – discussion of theoretical and practice-led research on behaviour change.
It is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the literature. The purpose here is to summarise from existing research the most relevant information to inform the design, content and conduct of the proposed pilot projects in Hampshire. The review draws on and synthesises work which is presented more extensively elsewhere, as well as a small original component (conducted by Brook Lyndhurst)1. Key sources drawn on include:
Brook Lyndhurst’s literature review of Waste Minimisation Best Practice for Project Integra (2004); The review of waste minimisation undertaken by Enviros for Defra (2004); The NRWF Waste Prevention Toolkit Behaviour change literature, including the influential theoretical work by Professor Tim Jackson (this, and other sources, are described in more detail below).
Results from two recently completed evaluations of major waste-related programmes will also be used to guide the Hampshire evaluation – the NOF Transforming Waste programme, and the EAF 2002-5 round. The Defra SCP research on EAF 2005-8 will also be relevant given its focus on sustainable consumption/lifestyles (generally) and direct action at household level (some projects)2. The project team will make sure that the findings from these evaluations are considered as part of the monitoring process of the Hampshire project.
2.1 Waste minimisation in practice In 2004, when considering what research was required to support its behaviour change campaign, Project Integra was clear that it wanted to build from, rather than replicate, existing waste minimisation approaches. The PI research team wanted to learn about successful interventions that went beyond the well-established routes of re-useable nappies and home composting, to find novel interventions that would add to existing waste minimisation schemes in the County. The team had a number of specific criteria:
To identify a very broad range of practice Where practice is well established already (eg home composting and nappies), to look for novel approaches
1 This focused on projects where local authorities are working in partnership with community sector organisations, including household-level „lifestyle change‟ initiatives (including some of Defra‟s EAF 2005-8 projects). The work comprised some web-based research and follow-up telephone conversations with a number of project managers. 2 Brook Lyndhurst has been commissioned by Defra to conduct this evaluation.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 2 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Identify any monitoring and evaluation data, and potential for real impact on tonnages Focus on projects with an explicit behaviour change element Focus on projects which it would be realistic for Project Integra to replicate (i.e. that are feasible within the geographical scale of Hampshire/its Districts and associated resources)
This paper adopts the definition of ‘waste minimisation’ used by Enviros in their review for Defra, which means that we include re-use activity as well as source prevention. This fits Hampshire’s focus on changing behaviour in relation to resource use overall, rather than focusing on elements of the waste hierarchy individually.
The literature review here summarises the evidence on those areas of waste minimisation activity which are most relevant to the proposed Hampshire pilot projects – that is practical activities that can be replicated or modified for direct intervention at household level. These include:
1. Re-use, repair and exchange initiatives 2. Re-useable nappies – novel or lifestyle approaches 3. Green waste – again, novel or lifestyle approaches 4. Sustainable or ‘smart’ consumption 5. Direct household engagement
The first review carried out for the behaviour change strategy also included discussion on dedicated prevention teams inside waste authorities and waste collection arrangements – including bag limits and alternate weekly collections. These aspects are being followed up by other streams of work inside HCC/PI and are not covered in detail here.
The following section presents a headline ‘wish list’ of the main types of scheme that Hampshire could consider for inclusion in the waste minimisation pilots. More detail for individual schemes under each heading is given in the Appendix (and further discussion is available in the previous Brook Lyndhurst Best Practice Review for Project Integra). Evidence on the impact and factors for success of these schemes is discussed in section 2.2.
2.1.1. Re-use, repair and exchange initiatives Repair and re-use schemes, especially community-led initiatives, are clearly well established in the UK and overseas – for example, swapshop exchanges, deposit-refund schemes, and so on. In addition to these, the literature review identified some novel approaches.
These include:
Large scale intermediate labour market (ILM) projects at city-region level (eg Nantes, Strasbourg, Vienna), and including social enterprises (eg Bulky Bob’s in Liverpool). Many have a community focus, providing electrical goods and other bulky household goods to low income families. A distinctive feature of these schemes is the key role that economic development objectives and/or funding streams have played. Retail-led re-use initiatives on a commercial scale which close the loop between collection, re- conditioning and re-selling, most notably SuperShed in New Zealand. Annual re-use promotion events which encompass a range of re-use and waste prevention activities, timetabled for the same weeks/month each year (eg ‘Repairwork Day’ in Munich; Second Chance weeks in California).
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 3 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Commercial take-back schemes by retailers (eg Comet; department stores in Japan) Commercial ‘previously owned’ retailing (e.g. music and electronic games stores; e-Bay). This route is now being used by Oxfam to sell high-value or designer goods to a wider market than the local Oxfam shop.3
The first three types of scheme above typically involve local authorities, either as principals, or partners with community sector organisations/social enterprises. Another significant feature of some of these schemes is cross-departmental working and/or funding. The review did not find any examples of local authorities being involved in the last but Brook Lyndhurst’s analysis for Project Integra suggested this may worth considering further, including promotion of local stores and internet re-selling.
2.1.2. Re-useable nappies – novel or lifestyle approaches Since this is an area which is already being covered by WRAP at national level, and has been promoted previously by Project Integra and individual Districts, the literature review did not focus in detail on re- usable nappies.
A number of interesting communications/branding approaches were identified, however, including: ‘seeing is believing’ coffee mornings for new parents (e.g. Oxfordshire’s ‘Nappucino events’ ); and promotion to low income parents via Sure Start (e.g. Nappy Ever After in London) or use by the NHS in maternity wards (e.g. a midwife-led initiative in the Isle of Man, which also includes local manufacturing of the nappies and promotion to low income parents).
2.1.3. Green waste – novel or lifestyle approaches Again, this is an area in which practice is already well established locally. Fareham and Hart DCs are involved in the WRAP home composting trial; green waste will be part of the PI campaign after Christmas 2005 to target materials not currently collected in kerbside bins. In addition to bin promotions, and standard community composting initiatives, the review identified other – mainly promotional – possibilities, including:
Sales of compost bins through schools, incentivised by rewards to the school (e.g. West Sussex) School-based composting to deliver ‘seeing is believing’ education for children (e.g. WEN’s Green Fingered Monsters in North London) Composting ‘gurus’ or ‘master composters’, perhaps backed up by a helpline Promotion of grass cycling – the NRWF highlights US case studies which show apparently significant impacts Tailored targeting of ‘pale greens’ rather than keen gardeners or the environmentally committed (Wiltshire Wildlife Trust) Community composting linked to the provision of gardening opportunities for older people, disabled people and those without gardens4 Food waste collections run by a community organisation supported by free composting space provided by the local authority parks department (Hackney)
3 Chain Reaction, the Guardian, 7th September 2005. Oxfam e-bay site at www.stores.ebay.co.uk/oxfam-shop 4 Brook Lyndhurst‟s report for the ODPM on Sustainable Cities and the Ageing Society highlighted linking community gardening with older people‟s services as a potential sustainability win-win.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 4 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Brook Lyndhurst’s first review also identified food waste as a significant, but under-developed, area for waste minimisation, given its importance in waste arisings and apparent lack of awareness amongst the public5.
A variety of studies have indicated the scale of the problem (and potential for waste prevention). For example: £424 per UK adult per year is wasted on food6; one in six people in the UK now discards more than 10 per cent of their weekly groceries because they are past their sell by date or no longer fresh7 (particularly “Yubbies” - Young Urban Bin Baggers); food loss costs the average US family $586.76 annually8.
The resource advisor model proposed by Hampshire offers a novel way of tackling these behaviours and (perhaps) linking in with the WRAP retailer-led initiatives on consumer food packaging.
2.1.4. Sustainable or ‘smart’ consumption Dealing with food waste clearly has links to waste prevention initiatives focusing on smart shopping and sustainable consumption.
Research has shown that the public believe that they own too much ‘stuff’ and that a sizeable minority are at least open to the idea that they can help protect the environment by changing their purchasing habits.9 Few, however, are deeply engaged in the idea of smart consumption and most households will need help to change. This fact lies at the heart of the Defra R&D work being undertaken as part of its SCP programme and there are opportunities for the Hampshire waste pilots to draw on, and test, some of this work.
A range of European and US “smart shopping” initiatives were highlighted by the literature review, including:
Campaigns to promote the purchasing of ‘experiences rather than stuff’ (eg the Oxfam and Cafod Christmas campaigns; King County, US; Leicestershire ‘Many Happy Returns’) In-store ‘pre-cycling’ communication messages – e.g. helping consumers choose less highly packaged goods (Charleroi, Belgium; SMATET10 in California) Sustainable consumption observatory/watchdog – e.g. (Belgium) OBCD’s11 ‘naming’ and rating campaigns for low packaged and sustainable products Reward cards that incentivise ‘sustainable’ behaviours – for example the (failed) Rotterdam NuCard or Connexions in Doncaster schools (used for healthy eating rather than waste) Product leasing/eco-service substitution (e.g. academic work on eco-service substitution for goods in Europe, such as communal laundries in flats) Home-delivery of refillable products, for example, detergents in Italy; promotion of organic food box schemes (which have less packaging) Lifestyle magazines and advertising – e.g. Oxfordshire’s NADA magazine; Croydon’s promotion of local repair and re-use services
5 Though the review did identify a number of food waste pilot collection schemes, initiated in the main by community organisations 6 Soggy Lettuce: Are we a nation of wasters? Prudential, 2004 7 Busy Britons toss £865m of food into waste bin, RRF update 05/12/04, referencing a study by Braun 8 Jones, T. (2004) Understanding Loss in the American Food System, University of Arizona. 9 Brook Lyndhurst, Bad Habits Hard Choices 10 Save Money and the Environment Too 11 Brussels Observatory for Sustainable Consumption
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 5 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
In many cases the emphasis is on encouraging a shift in patterns of consumption to those which are more environmentally and/or sociably beneficial, rather than on the (rather less palatable) message of ‘consuming less’.
Approaches to delivery of these initiatives vary. Most of the schemes reviewed are led by local authorities, typically in partnership with local NGOs and local retailers or leisure venues, and sometimes with local media. The Italian refillable scheme is, however, manufacturer-led.
2.1.5. Direct engagement ‘Direct action’ techniques have been used both for waste campaigns and broader sustainable living initiatives. This is a widely practised model for recycling in the UK, via various door-stepping/roadshow campaigns but there are fewer examples of how this approach has been deployed to address waste prevention. Examples include: House waste ‘doctors’ who visit households and identify where they can save waste – e.g. in Enfield’s Wipe Out Waste campaign; the BBC’s recent No Waste Like Home programme Annual waste reduction weeks, involving city-wide campaigns – e.g. focusing on different lifestyle aspects on different weekdays Eco-teams/eco-advisors – e.g. Global Action Plan in Nottingham; “Waste Away” challenge in Maldon, Essex; Environmental Home Guard in Norway. Waste reduction is part of an integrated package to reduce resource consumption at home. Via ‘hands on’ educational activities at schools – e.g. composting clubs/activities Via intermediaries – such as garden stores, gardening services, or maternity units. The Brook Lyndhurst report suggested that a ‘wild card’ option might be to promote low waste messages via domestic cleaning agencies as part of a ‘green maid’ approach.
2.2 Impact and factors for success Ideally, the Hampshire pilot projects should be built on knowledge about which types of initiative have the biggest impact in terms of tonnage and/or bringing about behaviour change, and the key factors driving success.12
Unfortunately, it is difficult to say with any certainty either what the key inputs, or the performance impacts, of different approaches to waste minimisation have been.
Few systematic reviews or evaluations have been published from which comparative or benchmark data can be drawn. Those studies that have been published (e.g. Enviros, Eunomia, NRWF) note the significant weakness of the evidence base in this area. A particular weakness is that existing data is rarely benchmarked (e.g. to population or total target tonnages) so is of little use for translating to other settings.
While evidence is available on a piecemeal basis from a number of well publicised case studies, there are many more promising projects for which performance has not been documented. Information for these is only available via (costly) in-depth primary research. In developing the Action Plan, it may be worth
12 The prioritisation for „Recommended Actions‟ in the Brook Lyndhurst report to Project Integra also took into account: future waste composition (and thus minimisation potential and urgency); management objectives and priorities; and feasibility according to a matrix of short, medium and long term action against small, medium and large scale interventions.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 6 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
identifying a number of such projects for additional investigation to obtain data on key inputs and performance indicators.
In particular, our experience suggests more focused in-depth research would be required to establish precise details about aspects such as: benchmarked tonnage impacts (e.g. per participant, per target household); partner relationships and working arrangements; costs, especially for different elements of the scheme; problems and how they were solved; risk management; scale factors; transferability, and so on.
The following is a summary of the evidence as it currently stands regarding:
Impact Factors for success
Key sources drawn upon include those dealing specifically with waste minimisation, as well as other waste-related reviews where lessons may be learned, including:
Enviros (for Defra) International waste prevention and reduction practice NRWF Waste Prevention Toolkit AEA Technology (for Defra) Evaluation of Local Authority Experience of Operating Household Waste Incentive Schemes Eunomia (for Defra) Household Waste Incentive Schemes: Case Study Overviews University of Bradford Sustainable Development in Practice, Community Waste Projects in the UK Brook Lyndhurst (for Project Integra) Recycling and Waste Minimisation Communications Strategy, Literature Review Various research papers by the EEA and OECD in Europe
2.2.1. Impact As noted above, little benchmark evidence exists from which to extrapolate the quantitative potential for particular projects in Hampshire, in terms of tonnages and/or wider socio-economic benefits.
Factors which constrain the collation of such data are considered in Section 3, since these will also need to be tackled in the design of the evaluation methodology for the Hampshire projects. Here we are concerned with summarising the partial evidence on impact that is currently available.
Tonnage impacts
The Enviros report for Defra and the NRWF toolkit both provide pointers to the potential impact of different kinds of waste minimisation activities, derived from anecdotal case study evidence. In both cases, reduction potential is founded on a number of assumptions which have had to be made by the authors in the absence of hard data. The figures should therefore be seen as indicative of what might be achieved rather than conclusive evidence of what should be expected from similar kinds of project.13
13 The project team is also aware that Defra-commissioned research on the Community Waste Sector contribution to diversion is currently underway and the team is attempting to make contact with the researchers on this work.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 7 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Table 1 NRWF Waste Prevention Tool Kit Intervention Potential impact (%) Waste Aware Shopping 0.5 to 1.0
Action against unwanted mail 0.2 to 0.4
Home & community composting 1.0 to 3.0
Reuse/refurbishment 1.0 to 2.0
Product service (leasing) businesses 0.5 to 1.0
Total 3.2 to 7.4
Table 2 Enviros International Waste Prevention and Reduction Practice for Defra Intervention Potential impact (%)
Home composting Encouraging an extra 25% of households to home compost would lead to a drop in waste arisings of around 4-5%
Packaging A 10% reduction in packaging (by weight) would provide an overall saving of around 2% in household waste arisings
Unwanted mail If unwanted mail were reduced by 10% this should result in at least a 0.3% reduction in household waste overall
Nappies A 15% switch to reusables would lead to a reduction of c.0.5%
Enviros use these figures, while acknowledging them to be speculative, to suggest that a reduction of 7% to 8% could be achievable with actions in these four areas alone. Adding the impact of various reuse initiatives, Enviros conclude that “it is not unreasonable to expect gross domestic waste arisings savings from waste prevention in excess of 10% given a concerted effort across a range of actors and initiatives”.
Evidence (mainly anecdotal) drawn from the Brook Lyndhurst literature review provides further indicative benchmarks on tonnage impacts and broader social and financial outcomes.
The clearest evidence on impact is for bag limits, alternate weekly collections and variable charging14. According to the literature, these interventions can deliver substantial reductions in total residual household waste though the amounts vary from place to place, and scheme to scheme. Diversion by households from disposal to recycling is typically the biggest component of change, with source reduction figures quoted of 3% to 6%.
14 Inclusion of a policy measure in this research should not be taken to imply that it has been or will be endorsed by Defra as an option for England. A more recent and detailed review of the evidence on measures for waste prevention can be found in Brook Lyndhurst, Social Marketing Practice and the Resource Recovery Forum (2009) Household Waste Prevention Evidence Review, Defra WREP report WR1204.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 8 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Re-use, repair and exchange schemes can have a substantial impact because they take the heaviest individual items out of the domestic waste stream. Notable examples are: o The Christchurch SuperShed (NZ) re-sells around 2,500 tonnes per annum (see box below). o The ENVIE network in France collects 300,000 electro-domestic goods annually o The REUSZ scheme in Vienna handles 2,000 tonnes of equipment per annum (of which 75% is repaired or re-used)
Figures on diverted tonnes are usually available from individual community re-use schemes on request but we have not found any literature which has drawn this information together to derive comparative performance benchmarks.15
SuperShed, Christchurch, New Zealand
Christchurch has adopted an ambitious Zero Waste strategy which seeks to achieve a 65% reduction in waste arisings by 2020. SuperShed (and its sub-brand ‘RetroShed’) is just one part of the work being undertaken at the city’s three refuse stations to reduce landfill and recover more value from waste. Re- sellable goods are recovered from the refuse centres (equivalent to HWRCs) then transferred to a 2,000 sq m retail store.
The annual 2,500 tonnes channelled through SuperShed is a tiny percentage of overall waste arisings in Christchurch (c.900,000 tonnes). However, it is difficult to make a meaningful comparison to UK MSW because total arisings include commercial as well as domestic waste, and the council manages only around 33% of waste produced.
Some further context can be provided by: Christchurch has 130,000 households – so SuperShed re-sales are around 19kg per household per year (though it must be remembered that the supply includes commercial sources) c.35,000 tonnes are collected as black bag waste from households and 21,000 tonnes are recycled each year (excluding composting).
Data on sustainable consumption/lifestyle change initiatives is especially scarce, and often depends on self-reported behaviour change by participants.16 Examples include:
o OBCD (Brussels) anti-advertising (junk mail) campaign – 11% households participated; 1,800 tonnes of waste avoided; o SMATET (California) ‘pre-cycling’ campaign – 54% of consumers claimed their shopping habits changed; sales of ‘minimally packaged’ products rose 20% and fell 36% for ‘over- packaged’ products; o Maldon (Essex) – Waste Away Challenge claimed a 30% per household reduction in residual waste; o EcoTeams – the Nottinghamshire teams reported a 50% reduction in residual waste (from recycling and source prevention. This is of comparable scale to figures for bag limits/alternate collections, though for far fewer households);
15 For example, the evaluation of Community Waste Projects in the UK by Bradford University (Lucking and Sharp) did not include estimates of diversion impact. 16 The NCC‟s review of sustainable consumption initiatives, 16 pain-free ways to save the planet notes, for example: “One of the first questions a policy-maker needs to ask is „how much does it cost?‟ For many schemes, there is no simple answer”. They argue that VFM depends a great deal on what the objectives were and how it is measured; they also show there is currently little data.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 9 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
o Oxfam and Cafod ‘sold’ over 45,000 goats in Christmas 2004 as alternative presents. Charities also sold chickens and tools in Africa.
A very important issue that needs to be considered in relation to all of these possible approaches is the question of scale. Some of the projects identified appear to achieve impressive per household impacts but operate on such a small scale that they are may not have a significant impact on waste arisings overall at the city/district level. However, some projects are individual components of integrated city- wide initiatives on waste management. Further questions therefore need to be asked about the replicability of projects at a larger geographical scale, as well as value for money, either on their own or as part of a package of measures.
With the present evidence base it is almost impossible to derive good comparative measures of VFM (tonnage impact per capita or per household or, more intangibly, per unit of behaviour change) for interventions of different type and scale. Generating this kind of data for a range of activities should be a core activity for the Hampshire pilots.
Social and economic impacts
The best documented evidence here is for individual projects with an ILM component, in terms of job creation and training (eg Bulky Bob’s in Liverpool, the ENVIE network, REUSZ in Vienna and SuperShed in New Zealand). Information on low-income households supplied with re-used goods is also often available from individual community re-use schemes.
Again, however, there is little readily available data to draw on to benchmark or compare VFM on these indicators. (e.g. jobs per tonne diverted or jobs per £ of funding).17
2.2.2. Factors for success This, too, is a poorly documented area with most evidence partial or anecdotal. The Enviros review for Defra specifically sought this information but clearly encountered significant hurdles in pinning down particular kinds of data, especially on costs and critical success factors. Gaps in knowledge are especially significant for smart shopping/lifestyle change projects.
The following provides a summary of factors that appear from the case study literature to have had an influence on the outcomes of projects (though in unknown quantities and not all of them in every case). This provides a checklist for consideration in the design of the Hampshire pilots. The list here relates to organisational factors. Success factors to consider in relation to securing behaviour change are considered further in section 2.3.
Ownership & leadership – this scores highly in the few evaluation studies that have been published. The heading includes committed staff time, staff drive and partner delivery18. Staff drive and continuity appear to be especially important. Other aspects include organisational flexibility and good partner relationships19. In relation to this last factor, only one of the case study projects in the evaluation of community waste projects reported a straightforwardly positive relationship with the local authority, though support from local authorities was rated as
17 The LDA, with Brook Lyndhurst, is currently conducting research under the Defra R&D programme to evaluate the role and impact of waste-focused social enterprises. The research involves in-depth case studies and stakeholder interviews to establish this kind of data. 18 AEAT on waste incentive schemes 19 University of Bradford, Sustainable Development in Practice
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 10 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
one of the top 2 success factors by surveyed projects. Importantly, ownership and leadership is different from project and risk management, which may be of lower importance.20 Political and media buy-in – this is flagged particularly in relation to financial incentive schemes but may also be relevant to other novel approaches which challenge existing ways of operating. Cost effectiveness – where known, the range of project types and scales is wide and so therefore are costs. There is currently no easy way to compare between types of project on a £ per tonne avoided, or £ per participant, basis (or any other outcome measure)21. The indicative range runs from small community re-use projects at a few thousand pounds through to city-wide communications-led projects at £200,000+, up to 2 million Euros for the NuSpaarpas22. Examples include: o King County ‘Waste Free Holidays’ – advertising budget $33,500 dollars (leveraging-in $205,000 of donated/reduced rate local media space) o SMATET, California – covers a region which has 400 supermarkets; annual cost $400,000 o Community Re-Paint – average of £3,000 per annum per scheme23 o EAF Sustainable Consumption projects – Choose2 Re-use/Association of Charity Shops, and Sustainable Living Project, Devon & Cornwall (a Housing Association led partnership project) range from c. £30,000 - £40,000 per annum each o Schools prize competition – Devon ‘Get your kit off’ costs (an incentives scheme to collect sports kits via HWRCs) were £1,000 in prize money and £1,250 in administrative costs o Second Chance Weeks – Santa Cruz, California’s 2004 campaign cost $3,500 in promotional costs and leveraged in reduced rate classified advertising from local newspapers Cost savings – some projects report saved disposal costs but they are difficult to interpret because (a) the specific contribution from waste prevention may not be measurable (b) the savings may relate to an integrated waste initiative of which the minimisation activity is one part, or (c) they are international examples so that waste management costs are not comparable. One example comes from London where, extrapolating to the whole country from a pilot project in North London Waste Authority, the Association of Charity Shops estimates that charity shops save £1.9 million per year (at 2005 landfill costs) in diversion. Staff skills - the NRWF toolkit highlights a range of skill sets required, depending on the types of project – notably project management (including budgeting skills), communications, specialist knowledge of re-use markets and market development, health & safety (e.g. for composting, food waste, electrical & household goods projects). Earned income & self-sufficiency – some large-scale re-use projects have reported that they are, or near to being, self-financing (eg SuperShed in New Zealand and Bulky Bob’s in Liverpool) but we have not verified this. This factor may have limited applicability to the resource advisor model.
20 AEAT on waste incentive schemes 21 The prioritisation matrix in Brook Lyndhurst‟s final report to Project Integra adopts instead an estimate of whether a project is “small”, “medium” or “large”. 22 The Rotterdam sustainable reward card. This is reviewed in detail in the Brook Lyndhurst Literature Review for Project Integra 23 Enviros
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 11 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Funding - success factors here might include: o Dependence – most waste minimisation schemes rely for all, or most, of their funding on local, regional or national government, though some have been able to leverage in additional funding or in-kind contributions. This raises questions about the likely longer term waste reduction impact of one-off projects and how big it needs to be to satisfy cost-effectiveness criteria. o Leverage – in the King County example, very significant leveraged funding came from local business and media partners. Re-use projects with an ILM element can draw in economic development streams (eg Bulky Bob’s). o Security – a key success factor for the large-scale SMATET campaign in California is reported to be secure annual funding.24 Similarly, Bulky Bob’s benefited from a 6-year contract part-funded by the Council’s economic development unit. Community sector projects highlight insecure funding as a potential barrier to recruiting and retaining qualified staff to run projects (which would undermine the ‘ownership’ factor cited above). A related issue is that external project funding may not be able to be used for core operations in community organisations. Networking – the Community Waste Projects evaluation rated this as the most important success factor in the development of these organisations. Most CWPs surveyed belonged to networks such as CRN, FRN or CCN, or had links with Waste Watch. Volunteer input – this was rated as moderately important in the CWP evaluation and also features in some of the ‘waste free’ event projects taken from the US – eg King County, Second Chance Weeks etc. Partnerships25 – a majority of publicised projects involve partnerships with, for example: o Community organisations as delivery partners for large ‘waste free’ campaigns or re-use events led by local authorities (e.g. the Oxfordshire CAG-delivered sustainable living initiative; US communications campaigns, European re-use events) o Local authorities, as enablers for community led projects – e.g. by providing free composting space in parks o Business partners (e.g. waste free/pre-cycling campaigns and reward schemes); the King County ‘waste free holiday’ project had 140 business partners; NuSpaarpas involved 100+ shops and leisure outlets. o Schools (sometimes with an incentive element on recycling or home composting) o Charity shops (eg Get Your Kit Off, Devon; Choose2Reuse) o Housing associations (eg Sustainable Living, Devon & Cornwall). Packages – some of the most well publicised waste minimisation ‘success stories’ formed well- integrated parts of wider waste campaigns or management strategies. Communications – the NRWF highlights on-going promotion and support to households (e.g. via help lines) as important to some initiatives (e.g. home composting). The AEAT evaluation of incentives similarly highlights “sound publicity” as a key success factor. The actual content of key messages is, obviously, also important. There are two important aspects to this: o First, shop smart and lifestyle change messages tend to focus on personal benefits in addition to old-style ‘save the planet’ type messages (e.g. money saving messages for low income families – for example, in re-useable nappy initiatives); o Second, some projects are tackling wastefulness more generally in households (i.e. behaviour not outputs). In these projects, preventing physical waste is presented as part of a
24 Enviros 25 Additional details on selected partnership projects are provided in the accompanying Case Study Annex.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 12 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
broader package to save money from saving resource inputs into the home (e.g. on energy, food, clothes etc). Repetition – some projects reinforce messages by designating the same week/month each year for their waste savings campaign. Use of existing resources, outlets or media channels – including branding and communications materials, partner advertising slots etc.
Key barriers or factors that may lead to failure include: Poor planning, including lack of clear goals or over-ambitious time horizons (e.g. the first SMATET campaign took 14 months to plan) Ad hoc initiatives not well integrated into existing, quality, services High and un-anticipated administrative costs (e.g. NuSpaarpas) Poor partner relationships Lack of continuity of staff or funding
2.3 Changing behaviour In addition to all of the practical considerations outlined above, securing public participation is clearly fundamental to the success of waste minimisation projects.
However, to participate in waste prevention and minimisation, the public is effectively being asked either to consume less or consume differently. These are both difficult messages to adopt in a society in which personal value and identity tends to be defined by consumption.
The literature on behaviour change is very clear that general exhortations to “do the right thing” do not work.26 In the context of waste minimisation, this kind of approach is likely to appeal only to the hard core of ethical activists (which may amount to only 5% to 10% of the population at most).27
Recent research (both theoretical and practical) indicates that a “much more active approach to change habits” is required if the public is going to adopt more environmentally sustainable lifestyles.28 The UK Sustainable Development Strategy therefore promotes a four pronged approach to securing behaviour change, based around the ideas that government should Enable, Encourage, Engage and Exemplify.
26 See for example Brook Lyndhurst‟s Bad Habits; Hard Choices report and Andrew Darnton‟s Taking it On literature review for Defra. 27 Brook Lyndhurst 28 Securing the Future, UK Government Sustainable Development Strategy Helping People Make Better Choices
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 13 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Figure 1 – Defra’s 4Es
In practice this means:
Removing barriers to making good choices (including adequate information and access to services); Offer persuasive reasons to change (including rewards and incentives); Listen to the public as well as telling them what to do; use existing networks to deliver information, learning and real-world experiences; Lead by example – ensure that government is doing (and seen to be doing) what it is asking the public to take on.
The Helping People Make Better Choices component of the SD Strategy has drawn extensively on, and simplified, a growing body of theoretical and practice literature on behaviour change29. One of the aims of the Hampshire pilot projects is to operationalise some of the key findings from this literature and to pursue the ‘more active approach’ recommended in the SDS.
29 Notably, Professor Tim Jackson‟s theoretical work on behaviour change undertaken under the ESRC Sustainable Technologies initiative; Andrew Darnton‟s literature reviews for Defra to inform the Sustainable Development Strategy (which includes reviews of Brook Lyndhurst‟s work on behaviour change in the fields of waste, energy and sustainable lifestyles).
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 14 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
To help inform the Action Plan, the following sections summarise (briefly) key insights from the theoretical and practice literature, then outline the main findings from the MORI and Brook Lyndhurst work streams in Hampshire that relate to public perceptions of barriers to waste minimisation.
2.3.1. Theoretical literature on behaviour change Much of the academic work on behaviour change is highly complex and therefore is not repeated in detail here. Its usefulness to the proposed work in Hampshire is to identify frameworks around which waste minimisation interventions can be designed, to ensure that they tackle the key motivators and barriers that drive behaviour.
The following discussion draws on two very important pieces of academic research, both of which have undertaken reviews of ‘human behaviour’ literature from a wide range of academic disciplines:
Professor Tim Jackson’s review and synthesis of existing theories for the ESRC Sustainable Technologies initiative; The ESRC New Opportunities, Environment and Human Behaviour Programme led by Professor Paul Ekins at the Policy Studies Institute.
It also draws on various literature reviews by Brook Lyndhurst (published and unpublished) undertaken to inform their practical work on waste and sustainable lifestyles.30 Another source worth mentioning is Dr Stuart Barr’s work, including Household Waste in Social Perspective: Values, Attitudes, Situation and Behaviour (2002). This work applies a theoretical behaviour change model in a practical waste management setting (Exeter). It informed both the ESRC behaviour change framework (see below) and Brook Lyndhurst’s waste behaviour research in London.
Perhaps the most important implication for practice which flows from the literature is that changing human behaviour with lasting effect requires intervention on a broad range of fronts.
These fronts span personal psychological drivers, through the effects of peer and social norms, to external institutional structures (e.g. access to services). Some drivers may not be immediately, or obviously, related to the action that needs to be changed. For example, levels of trust in local authority service delivery may influence inclination to recycle; feeling a sense of self-worth through owning the latest fashions may create resistance to low-waste messages; needing to save money may tempt a switch from disposable nappies to re-useables.
The literature shows that behind every human action (e.g. throwing too much away) lies a complex web of drivers which can explain why people choose to undertake that action. These drivers can, perhaps, best be represented as complex ‘choice sets’ which feed off, and into, each other - rather than linear drivers which can be tackled simply one by one.
Theory suggests that tackling the specific action without addressing underlying choice drivers (and sets) is likely to fail. Put simply, there is no point in telling people that recycling is good for the environment if the environment doesn’t matter to them; or if it doesn’t matter enough compared to other choices and trade-offs they have to make31; or if other messages (e.g. saving money) could be more persuasive.
30 Examples available at www.brooklyndhurst.co.uk including: work for the RRF (household waste behaviour, especially Phase 1); the ODPM New Horizons research programme (sustainability & liveability); the Countryside Agency (consumer attitudes to sustainable products); and London Renewables (attitudes to renewable energy in London). 31 Brook Lyndhurst Bad Habits Hard Choices, 2005
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 15 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Key drivers that can be drawn out of Tim Jackson’s research include:
The important role that ‘personal cognition’ plays in choice – including moral values and personal capacities, such as self-esteem and confidence; The role of existing peer, social and cultural norms in constraining ‘acceptable’ choices; The role of institutional structures in shaping choice – in particular, by limiting or expanding the range of choices available; The symbolic role of consumer goods – and its important contribution to psychological well- being, kin and social relationships etc; The importance of habit and routine in understanding the dynamic of behavioural ‘lock-in’.
Ekins et al similarly identify the important confluence of personal drivers and external social and institutional factors as drivers of behaviour (as shown in the diagram below). The Ekins/PSI work also highlights the important role of human agency, which can perhaps best be translated in the context of waste behaviour as ‘individuals believing they have the power to change things through their own actions’ (sometimes called ‘the power of one’ in more practical settings)32.
32 For example, in the early work for the National Waste Awareness Inititative
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 16 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Figure 2 – Environment and human behaviour framework
Reproduced from the ESRC New Opportunities; Environment and Human Behaviour programme Report of the workshop 'Theoretical Approaches to Policy Change and Human Behaviour’, October 2003
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 17 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
2.3.2. Translating theory into practice Since most of this literature is fairly recent, few examples exist of how this body of theory can be applied in practice to change behaviour in relation to waste33.
Our reading of the literature suggests that the Action Plan should consider how practical projects will tackle behaviour drivers in three key domains:
Personal attributes – e.g. belief in the ‘power of one’; issues of identity related to consumption and wastefulness; self-interest versus altruism; personal capacities (including confidence, awareness, information and learning); peer pressure, personal and social norms Household factors – particularly habits and routines; kin-related barriers and motivators; family attitudes to wastefulness and/or saving money Institutional factors – focused on expanding opportunities to undertake waste minimisation, such as sign-posting to existing services, new events, incentives etc; creating ‘social learning’ opportunities via existing networks; joining up existing networks/creating new partnerships to deliver more, or targeted, waste-saving opportunities; demonstration effects of the authorities’ own actions.
This is in line with UK Government’s ‘encourage, enable, engage, exemplify’ approach in the SDS. The Resource Advisor model proposed by Hampshire offers the potential to tackle all three domains at the same time, through a mix of household level activities, community partnerships and larger scale communications-led events.
The Action Plan should also take into account the useful work undertaken by the NCC, which translates behavioural theories into a practical check-list.
The NCC developed the checklist (shown overleaf) to assess the success of sustainable consumption schemes but this template could, plausibly, be used to inform the development of waste minimisation projects (with some further adaptation and taking into account the comments above).
33 Although some of the theories reviewed by Jackson and Ekins did, earlier, inform the analysis and recommendations in Brook Lyndhurst‟s Waste Behaviour in London research.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 18 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Table 3 The NCC success check-list (adapted from 16-pain free ways to help save the planet) HURDLES Is the scheme designed to give a positive consumer experience? Does it succeed? Has the policy objective been achieved? Are there any significant negative consequences of the schemes with particular regard to cost and inequity? If so, do these negative consequences outweigh the benefits of achieving the policy objective? SUCCESS FACTORS Addressing consumer priorities Working with the influences on consumer behaviour Close to home (tangible benefit) Maximising personal/household benefit Time pressures Cognitive limitations Household budget Social norms Convenience/routine Habit Tackling specific barriers Moral values Perception of cost Emotional responses Lack of awareness Motivational tools used Lack of facilities Persuasion Lack of trust in providers Social learning Participation
2.3.3. Behaviour change in Hampshire Other insights to build into the Action Plan come from the work undertaken separately by MORI and Brook Lyndhurst in the development phase of Project Integra’s behaviour change strategy.
The survey work undertaken by MORI identified a number of apparent barriers to overcome in persuading the public to participate in waste minimisation activity34:
The term ‘waste minimisation’ is not well understood The concept of re-use and repair is understood in its own right but is not linked to ideas such as reduce or prevent. Households are well-versed in consumer culture and items that were once luxuries are now considered essentials. The public finds it almost impossible to identify how they can reduce their waste (apart from recycling) and need to have ideas suggested to them Few households habitually undertake waste minimisations activities Young people appear less engaged in activities that avoid waste People perceive there are fewer repair shops than there used to be New electrical goods are so cheap that repair is often not worthwhile Some households resent the effort or cost in sending bulky goods for re-use Attitudes differ with respect to ‘pre-owned’ goods – charity shops still carry a stigma for some people; car boot sales are more acceptable; and eBay is seen as having a distinctive (and popular) offer. Respondents claim they can’t avoid packaging
As part of developing a prioritisation matrix for waste minimisation, the Brook Lyndhurst report for PI developed a number of principles for communicating waste messages to the public. This drew on the
34 Comparable findings on waste prevention attitudes are also available in Brook Lyndhurst‟s Waste Behaviour in London, Phase 2 report.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 19 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
behaviour change literature and the experience of the PI communications team. These principles are worth considering in the Action Plan:
Waste minimisation directly challenges the cultural norms that “consumption is good” and that wastefulness is unavoidable. Some people actively value wastefulness as a signifier of their success; Recognise that consumers are ‘addicted’ to novelty; Build on things that people already do, or that require relatively little effort to effect a change (eg urge existing composters to include kitchen waste as well as garden material); Promote the ‘good things in life’ not individuals’ failings in consuming too much – identify the personal benefits of changing behaviour (eg being able to buy cut-price reconditioned electronic goods); Avoid all or nothing exhortations – suggestions that are too far away from current behaviours will be immediately off-putting (eg ‘don’t drive your car’ as opposed to ‘walk once a week’ instead); Build on and praise the positives that people already do (eg donate clothes to charity; trade on e- Bay; or buy goats or chickens in Africa as gifts); Get participants to sell the message to others (eg telling the rest of the family about “experiences not gifts”; getting neighbours to help out on composting); Consider ways of promoting waste prevention outcomes by promoting other facets of particular habits (eg buying healthy produce from farmers markets, saving money from wasted food).
More generally, research on behaviour change suggests that interventions work best where:
They are targeted – to specific groups of people or towards specific actions; They work within the grain of what people are used to; They are easy for the public to achieve and the supporting infrastructure is in place to match expectations raised by the messages.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 20 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
3 Project monitoring & evaluation
The Hampshire projects provide an opportunity to develop robust methodologies for evaluating the impact of waste minimisation projects. In many respects these methodologies will have to be designed specifically for the job owing to the lack of sound examples available from the literature. The Hampshire approach, however, can draw on ad hoc insights from the waste minimisation literature as well as more developed toolkit approaches being used for the evaluation of recycling initiatives and campaigns. This section of the Scoping Paper:
Identifies various issues and constraints identified in the literature that relate to monitoring and evaluation; Provides a summary overview of the key components of existing waste-related toolkits Outlines the proposed methodologies for the Hampshire pilot projects35. 3.1 Constraints and issues Lack of monitoring and evaluation evidence is often blamed on the difficulty of measuring waste minimisation, both from operational and conceptual perspectives – that is issues of “how to measure” and “what to measure”. The Action Plan for the Hampshire projects needs to consider the relevant constraints and issues.
In terms of operational constraints on monitoring and evaluation, key barriers that have been identified previously include:
Measurement costs – this applies particularly where new infrastructure has had to be developed to measure waste tonnages and/or a new waste composition survey has been required. This is beyond the resources of most community sector led projects. Similarly, original consumer research (telephone or face to face) is beyond the reach of many projects since it would represent a very large proportion of overall costs. Integration into the project design – systems for capturing information and data need to be built in at the beginning not added once the project is up and running. Commitment to measurement – projects (especially small ones) may suffer from competing demands on staff time and, unintentionally, monitoring and evaluation activities may then drop down priorities. (Realistic) time for data collation needs to be built into project management. Depending on the types of data required, specialist skills may also be needed.
As the literature review showed, practice so far appears to have focused on the first two, with little evidence available on quantifiable outcome impacts.
35 This scoping report sets out the original proposal for monitoring and evaluation. There were changes in the approach as the project progressed as set out in the final project report and in detail in the final evaluation report, Annex D.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 21 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Conceptual issues that need to be addressed include:
Key Performance Indicators – what should these be and how closely do they reflect the key objectives of the project? (e.g. communications seen versus weight reduction versus attitude/behaviour change). What benchmarks should be used? (e.g. tonnes per capita, actions per household?) Should they include inputs (e.g. budgets), project outputs (e.g. the number of home compost bins distributed), or project outcomes (e.g. waste reductions in tonnes), or all three? As the literature review showed, practice so far appears to have focused on the first two, with little evidence available on quantifiable outcome impacts. Defining waste minimisation – does this include prevention and re-use? Does it include ‘closed loop’ activities such as buying re-used goods? Does the project want to measure different minimisation activities individually? Time frames - the WRAP evaluation pack for recycling communications projects contains useful guidance on what types of activity should be monitored over what time periods, taking into account cost burdens of data collection. In addition, questions need to be addressed about time lags between intervention and having an impact; for example, starting to use a home composter may have a more immediate impact than ‘smart shopping’ advice – how can this be captured in monitoring systems? Divisible impacts – related to this last point is the fact that it may be difficult to separate out specifically the impact of Resource Advisor activities from other waste activities in the local area, including the communications campaign; Attribution – similarly it may be hard to separate waste minimisation impacts from other ‘background noise’ such as the state of the economy, fashion & lifestyle trends, local media coverage etc; Dead weight, diversion or displacement – these three are classic pillars of evaluation methodologies. In this context they could mean: Would this household have done this anyway without any help? Were they doing this previously, but via another channel? Have they stopped doing other waste minimisation activity to focus on the new actions?
These factors will need to be addressed in the design of the evaluation of the Hampshire pilot projects.
3.2 Existing toolkits A number of existing waste-focused toolkits and recommended evaluation approaches were reviewed for the Scoping Study (eg the NRWF toolkit, WRAP Recycle Now evaluation guidelines, Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) guidelines for NOF (New Opportunities Fund) funded projects, the AEA Technology report on Household Waste Incentive Schemes). From this review, a number of core features can be identified that could be said to constitute ‘best practice’ in the monitoring and evaluation of waste projects:
Activities undertaken Costs (service and communications) Impact on tonnages Participation of households Household awareness Household behaviour change Derived indicators (using the above data) of value for money
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 22 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Recommendations are also made as to the timing of different activities. WRAP, for example, suggest that costs and tonnages should be measured continuously whereas attitude and behaviour change (largely because they are so costly to measure) should be measured on a snap-shot basis. Snap-shots should be undertaken before projects start, as well as during and at the end so as to establish a baseline against which change can be measured.
Several authors highlight the fact that resource constraints often mean that not all of the ideal wish list of activities is feasible and that compromises will often have to be made. NRWF, for example, suggest that a mix of measured impact and ‘softer’ impacts is a reasonable approach, as long as both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ indicators are clearly linked to project objectives.
In relation to the Hampshire projects, which deliberately mix ‘hard’ (waste reduction) and ‘soft’ (behaviour change) objectives it is likely that some ‘triangulation’ will be required – that is some aspects will need to be measured from more than one angle and gaps then inferred more confidently.
3.3 Monitoring and evaluation of the Hampshire pilots The original proposal to Defra was, indeed, based upon the idea that impact would be measured in a variety of ways and ‘success’ established from a synthetic analysis of the various measures. The activities proposed were:
Baseline profiles for pilot areas to include socio-demographic profile, access to waste minimisation facilities (eg milk rounds), collection service, tonnages, waste composition analysis Waste tonnage data collected through kerbside collection rounds Regular waste composition analysis via Hampshire’s permanent waste sorting facility (WSF) Participation rate monitoring Quantitative and qualitative surveys to assess participation and change in attitudes and behaviour
These, and other activities suggested by the review conducted for the scoping study, are outlined in turn36.
3.3.1. Activities and costs Frameworks for recording the following will be developed and then refined during the first pilot:
Expected baseline costs, benchmarked Activities delivered – baseline and monitoring Levels of detail – e.g. costs overall, costs per activity type
This will be recorded via spreadsheets which will take into account the evaluation framework being designed by AEA Technology for Hampshire/PI’s incentive pilot projects.
36 NB This scoping report sets out the original proposal for monitoring and evaluation. There were changes in the approach as the project progressed as set out in the final project report and in detail in the final evaluation report, Annex D. This includes changes to the survey method and the distribution of qualitative research across the pilot groups. Achieved sample sizes are given in both the final project report and Annex D.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 23 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
3.3.2. Tonnage monitoring Hampshire County Council manages the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) system which is the software used by the Waste Management section to calculate the payment of waste disposal contracts. This is achieved by processing weighbridge tickets supplied by the Contractor of all waste disposal movements on a monthly basis. Ticket information is validated against criteria written into the system to ensure both accurate payment and supply of waste data for forecasting, investigations and infrastructure needs. This data will provide tonnage baselines and historic trends.
The project team envisages that pilot households will record/weigh their own re-use, recycling, compost and residual weights (for example, along the lines of the Maldon Waste Away Challenge and the GAP eco- teams projects). Avoidance activities will be captured via waste diaries and the team will consider how these can be quantified, if at all. It is most likely that a sample, not all, participating households will undertake self-weighing. Discussions to resolve the precise details are still on-going within the project team and Steering Group.
In addition, by February 2006, Project Integra will have in place a permanent waste sorting facility (WSF) at Alton MRF. This will enable the collection of household waste compositional data over time. In the first three months of its operation the WSF will focus on recyclables composition to provide data on contamination, as part of the wider Hampshire behaviour change strategy. Thereafter, it is hoped that the WSF can be used to provide residual waste compositional data to support the waste minimisation pilots. Again, discussion is on-going to determine operational arrangements.
Finally, HCC is holding a workshop jointly with Wastewatch in February 2006 to bring together a wide range of waste minimisation practitioners. The workshop will include a discussion of measurement and evaluation techniques so that the Hampshire pilots can draw on lessons learned elsewhere.
3.3.3. Awareness and behaviour change Four key components of research are proposed to capture attitudinal and behaviour change:
A quantitative survey of participants; In-depth qualitative interviews and resource diaries with participants; Focus groups with specific groups of participants; Focus groups with the Resource Advisors themselves.
These activities are designed to play a complementary role to tonnage monitoring as follows: The quantitative elements will provide a degree of representation and “hard” data on change across the trial area as a whole; Accompanying this, the qualitative elements will allow a greater level of exploration of behavioural patterns, choice sets, and change, particularly in relation to those actions which are largely driven by routine, habit and sub-conscious decision processes.
The 4 stages of the research will be undertaken twice: first at the pilot stage (Wave 1) and then again during the roll out (Wave 2). This will ensure the research will not be a static process, but will be able to:
feed into the development of the roll out phase; provide an opportunity to pilot the research itself, so that it can be honed and refined as necessary.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 24 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
The distribution of resources across Wave 1 and Wave 2 will not be equal. Wave 1 – as a pilot phase – will be smaller in scope whereas Wave 2 – the roll out – will be larger. The distribution of activities across the two waves of research is outlined in the table below:
Research Component Wave 1 Wave 2 Total
Quantitative survey All households in target All households in target c.3,000 households area area
In-depth interviews 10 participants 40 participants 50 participants
Focus groups – 1 group 2 groups 3 groups participants
Focus groups – advisors 1 group 1 group 2 groups
In summary, each component is as follows:
Quantitative Survey
This will be a self completion postal survey targeted at those taking part in the project (estimated to be around 3,000 households in total across Waves 1 and 2). The purpose is to provide hard evidence on how much attitudes and behaviour change.
While postal surveys have limitations, this route was chosen as the best match between resources and required sample sizes. The survey will aim for in excess of a 25% response, with Resource Advisors to play a key “reminder” role.
Where possible, we will include questions from other surveys (eg WRAP Recycle Now; Hampshire’s MORI surveys) to allow for an element of benchmarking. The project team should also consider some form of “pre questionnaire” to provide a benchmark for the main survey to compare against. This could be short in length (c.1 side) and administered by the resource advisors. Its purpose would be to ask 4 or 5 key questions against which comparisons could be made in the main survey.
In-depth Interviews and Resource Diaries
This will involve in-depth face-to-face research with a selection of 50 participants identified by Resource Advisers – 10 in the pilot Wave and 40 during Wave 2.
The purpose here is to explore why and how behaviour changes, looking at household behaviours and routines in more depth than in the quantitative survey, particularly in relation to routine- and habit- based actions. We would seek to put waste minimisation behaviours within the wider context of “sustainable lifestyles” and “choice sets” (drawing on the behaviour change literature reviewed above).
The diaries would be designed to monitor the scheme and its impacts on behaviour in “real time” (i.e. as the pilot progresses). A final depth interview – lasting around one hour - would review the diary over the
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 25 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
course of the household’s engagement with resource advisers, pick up any variations in attitudes at different stages, and then provide an overview of the scheme from the perspective of the participant.
Some participants may be set “lifestyle challenges” to reduce waste, alongside their waste diary. Their experiences of how easy or difficult these challenges are to adopt and sustain would be recorded in the final in-depth interviews.
The findings from the first pilot in wave 1 can be used to refine the content of rest of the pilot projects.
Focus Groups – Participants
We propose 3 focus groups with participants – one in Wave 1 and two during Wave 2. These would complement the other in-depth qualitative research and provided a deeper context for analysing the postal survey results.
The purpose of these groups is to investigate in detail barriers and motivators to adopting the waste minimisation messages delivered by resource advisors and to identify triggers that could be developed for use beyond the pilot projects. The groups would involve a range of ‘hands-on’ and deliberative techniques and involve around 30 participants overall.
Groups could be selected according to a range of variables or ‘consumer typologies’, for example:
i. socio-economic profile (eg age, gender, tenure); ii. “life stage” (eg mothers with young children), iii. patterns of behaviour (eg environmental enthusiasts, keen recyclers); or iv. attitudes and values (eg believe that the environment is an issue of concern).
Focus Groups – Resource Advisors
We propose two focus groups with the resource advisors – one in the Wave 1 Pilot and another during the Wave 2 roll out. Each group would involve up to 10 Resource Advisors or representatives from delivery partners, and last around 2 hours.
The timing of these groups would follow the consumer research and are intended to provide feedback on the experience of Resource Advisors – for example, what they found worked best, what didn’t work, and so on. It is also intended to provide a networking opportunity for them to share practice and resolve any issues.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 26 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
4 Draft action plan
The Draft Action Plan covers the following:
Background and principles Framework for pilot projects Delivery arrangements Next steps
As the project plan shown under ‘next steps’ indicates, some elements of the Action Plan have been reviewed and agreed by the Steering Group while others require further development before the first pilot goes live in March 200637. Feedback from the Steering Group and Advisory Group has been invited and this will feed into further development of the Action Plan in the January-March period38.
4.1 Background and principles
4.1.1. Background In broad outline, the programme will: Run five pilot waste minimisation projects (one initially in March-September 2006, the other four to follow from October 2006). Engage around 3,000 households (i.e. around 600 households per pilot) Be delivered by a mix of Resource Advisors and Delivery Partners facilitated by Hampshire County Council/PI.
The draft Action Plan draws on: Project papers prepared by HCC during September-December 2005, including an evolving project plan; Research papers by Brook Lyndhurst, including the earlier PI literature review on waste minimisation best practice, the literature review prepared for this Scoping Paper, and a Case Study Annex; A brainstorming workshop held at HCC offices involving the project team and wider representation from the waste management team, facilitated by Brook Lyndhurst; Comments from the Steering Group on an initial Action Plan paper prepared following the workshop.
4.1.2. Key principles for the Action Plan Propositions for the Action Plan are based on the following core principles:
i. The central focus of the projects is “behaviour change”. This is preferred to a focus on any one material stream, or specific targets for tonnes prevented/avoided. ii. For the purpose of the projects “behaviour change” means: o encouraging, enabling and engaging households in behaviour change activities;
37 Interim evaluation of the first pilot can be found in Annex B. 38 The further work to develop the action plan, including further discussion with the steering group and feedback from experts on this scoping report, is outlined in the final project report.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 27 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
o embedding these new activities within households so that they become mainstream habits. iii. So as to embed behaviour change, the project needs to build in key findings from the theoretical behaviour change literature39 . iv. Behaviour change must be monitored and measured systematically so as to assess what works and what doesn’t. Developing measurement methodologies is a key part of the programme.40 v. The work should adopt a consumer perspective approach throughout to ensure that the proposed activities have resonance with households. vi. Activities undertaken in the pilot projects should build on and refine what has been tried elsewhere (noting the important caveat that much of what has been tried elsewhere has not been evaluated thoroughly).
4.2 Action Plan Framework This part of the draft Action Plan sets out the proposed model for the pilot projects, in terms of:
The Resource Advisor model; How households will be recruited and engaged; What kinds of activities they will be asked to engage in.
Ideas on each of these aspects have evolved from the original proposal to Defra and this evolution is explained below.
4.2.1. Resource Advisor model The original proposal to Defra envisaged that a model similar to the “Recycle for Hampshire” doorstepping campaign could be adapted to deliver waste minimisation pilot projects.
In this model, Resource Advisors would work with households to encourage and enable them to undertake new waste prevention activities. As well as the doorstepping recycling campaign, this approach might draw on the eco-teams model developed by Global Action Plan for sustainable living.
The range and depth of activities to be undertaken (e.g. information delivery versus hands-on help; household versus community-wide events) was not specified in the original proposal to Defra and was to be worked up as part of the draft Action Plan. Propositions for activities have been worked up during this scoping phase and these are outlined in section 4.2.3 below.
The original research proposal also envisaged that the Resource Advisors (RAs) would work with Delivery Partners (DPs) and, again, this was to be worked up as the Action Plan was developed. It was envisaged that Delivery Partners could include: a local authority; community group(s); a housing/residents’ association; business; a school/schools. New ideas on DPs have been developed by the project team and Steering Group; propositions are outlined in sections 4.2.2 and further in section 4.3 on Delivery Arrangements.
39 A review and initial suggestions for operationalising these ideas are presented in the Scoping Paper. This will be refined in the light of input from the Advisory Group. 40 A proposed approach for monitoring and measurement has been outlined in the Scoping paper. This may need to be refined in the light of this Action Plan paper and further discussions with the Steering Group and Advisory Group.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 28 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
4.2.2. How to engage households – what are the options? At the brainstorming workshop, a number of options for engaging (or recruiting) households to the pilot projects were considered as follows: Area based – RAs recruit households in targeted areas through door knocking; Via communities of interest – individual households are recruited by community organisations, public institutions, or businesses (e.g. schools, health visitors, residents’ associations, estate agents) who act as intermediaries between the households and the RAs/authority At “moments of change” in the life of households – these are significant times of change when people may be more receptive to lifestyle change messages – e.g. having a baby, retiring.
A number of pros and cons is associated with each approach, as follows.
Pros Cons Area based o Easy to identify households o No obvious ‘hook’ for households to o Can match 2 or more areas to assess participate different kinds of activity/method or o How big an area is required to recruit frequency of intervention/ differences 600 households – would it be between socio-economic groups sufficiently homogenous for ‘pros’ to o Can ensure spread of socio- apply? demographic groups (equalities) & allow for comparisons (eg high/low income) o Direct link between HH & RA makes waste monitoring and evaluation straightforward Community of interest o Involvement of partners/partnership o How many groups required to deliver development 600 households? – resource o Potentially wider reach - less resource implications of building/facilitating intensive recruitment? partnerships o Could still be geographically o Exclusion of ‘non-activists’ and concentrated (e.g. school pupils & households not ‘civically engaged’41 parents) o Impact of intermediaries on ability to o Opportunity for ideas to be ‘bottom up’ monitor /evaluate households as well as ‘top down’ directly? o Precise role of intermediaries – recruitment agents or full participants? o If full participants, how can HCC ensure projects/activities are sufficiently comparable for evaluation purposes? Moments of change o Receptive audience o Potential exclusion of ‘settled’ o Themed activities – creates focus for households messages & activities o Too much focus on ‘one off’ events at o Potentially large target groups (e.g. expense of ‘everyday’ opportunities school age families; house movers) to prevent waste? o Tap into existing networks for social o Wide spread of themes may diffuse learning focus, undermine comparability across projects, & ability to assess ‘normalisation’
41 Research on civic participation and other Brook Lyndhurst research shows that certain groups tend to be under-represented (or exclude themselves) from community groups and community action – including young people, less well educated people, minority ethnic households and disabled people. More generally, there is likely to be a spread of „non-engaged‟ households across the age and social class spectrum.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 29 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
The workshop discussions produced a fusion of all three approaches to identify five possible outline projects. These are set out in the table below.
5 pilots - outline suggestions from the workshop42 Target (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) audience & New parents School/ youth Setting up Retirement ‘Everyday’ recruitment (& families) home/ moving criteria home Type of Community group Schools Business Community Business delivery Healthcare Youth groups groups Local authority partner Housing/ Housing/ resident resident association association
A number of observations need to be made about the propositions: Four of the proposed skeleton pilots are organised around ‘moments of change’/life stages One is based around the ‘everyday’ life of households – in effect, this is a ‘settled’ household model, focusing on normal routines & habits; it could include households at different life stages and would most likely be area based Each one implicates different Delivery Partners (DPs) The four life-stage based propositions would involve intermediary DPs in recruitment and delivery – some could be area based (e.g. schools, parents, retired) though may not necessarily be so. The ‘everyday’ proposition is most closely fitted to an area based, RA-led model where DPs are engaged in delivery but not necessarily recruitment.
The Steering Group subsequently endorsed these outline propositions, agreeing that ‘moments of change’ could provide an anchor for individuals to participate, and that working with established groups would help to address the issue of norms.
While supporting the DP idea, the Steering Group also flagged the need to test this approach in the first pilot to see (a) whether it delivers enough household recruits and (b) whether it is a cost effective recruitment mechanism.
4.2.3. What activities should the pilots undertake? Scope of activities Various considerations emerged from the brainstorm workshop as follows:
Activities should not be devised around single waste streams but rather around lifestyle themes that households would be able to identify with. Further, the ‘hook’ for engaging households may, in the first instance, be something other than waste prevention (e.g. health, saving money, gardening) even though reducing waste is the outcome of the lifestyle change. Intervention on a broad front might be better than on narrowly focused activities – subject to further discussion and reflection this might include broader ‘sustainable’ lifestyle themes (e.g. green audits).
42 The original intention was to run five pilots but an interim review of progress and resources led to the decision, with agreement from Defra, to focus resources on four pilots. The „everyday‟ pilot was re-titled „workplace‟ as a more informative representation of its target audience.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 30 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
If possible there should be an element of choice for households/groups about what they do. Enabling ‘bottom up’ activity may enhance the chances of activities becoming embedded. However, some control/guidance needs to be exercised so that there is an element of comparability between projects.
It was felt that a menu/toolkit approach might therefore be the most appropriate, whereby groups/ households are both presented with ideas about what they might do as well as being offered the chance to add their own.
So as to provide comparability between projects, it may be advisable to devise a ‘core’ menu which relates to ‘everyday’ habits and routines with ‘add-on’ to target specific life stages. For example, ‘everyday’ themes cut across all of the proposed projects, except for the ‘moving home’ idea. This core/add-on toolkit approach was endorsed by the Steering Group with the provisos that:
activities should focus principally on waste (since this is the source of the funding) but that other sustainable living issues such as energy and water could be included; in developing proposed activities, the team should be alert to negative consequences – e.g. if buying an experience as a gift involves flying.
The following table shows the broad outline of activities that emerged from the workshop and which were then developed further into a draft activities menu.
Indicative lifestyle & consumption areas to target Lifestyle & (a)Parents (b)Families @ (c)Moving home (d) Retirement (e) Everyday consumption school area
Food (incl. packaging) Washing/cleaning Garden Gadgets Major appliances Re. down-sizing Furniture, decorative & Re. down-sizing household durables Soft furnishings Refurbishment/ maintenance Gifting Toys & books Clothing maybe stored junk? Nappies (secondary target only, where req’d by delivery partner) Paper – reading & mail
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 31 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Activities menu
These ideas have subsequently been developed into a draft activities menu of ‘everyday’ and ‘moments of change’ activities43. The menu draws on the NRWF toolkit as well as waste prevention web sites and sustainable lifestyles handbooks.
The menu is contained in an MS Excel workbook which has been designed in such a way as also to be used as a searchable database in MS Access. Within the workbook a separate worksheet has been devised for each of:
Everyday New parents School/youth Setting up/moving home Retirement
The ‘everyday’ sheet is conceived as the core element of the toolkit, with each of the other sheets containing activities specifically targetable at a particular moment of change or life stage. Each of these latter sheets contains a selection of everyday activities that are particularly relevant to that lifestage, as well as dedicated activities appropriate only for that group (e.g. nappies).
Information for each activity is organised around a number of themes as follows:
Waste stream; lifestyle theme; type of waste minimisation Activity overview behaviour (see below) e.g. signposting/green guides; ‘how to’ information, hands on Pathways (for engagement) help; facilitation; new services/events Consumer activity - pros & cons Benefits & barriers for households Moment of change relevance Which MoC targeted & why Behaviour change 'fit' - a series of scored e.g. norms, hassle, yuk, routine, habit breaking, cost, feel good, indicators external support, social learning opportunities, tonnage impact Measurement - initial thoughts on how the impact Indication of research route – weight measurement, survey, of each activity could be measured against the diaries, focus groups or depth interviews proposed research outline
The toolkit is novel in that it groups together activities into lifestyle themes and waste behaviours rather than starting with waste streams. It is our hope that this approach will have more purchase with participating households. The lifestyle themes are:
Cooking & eating Cleaning Home making Gardening Leisure & hobbies Clothing Personal care
43 The menu was the starting point for the development of activity suggestion sheets for participants which the HCC team then continued to build on and extend throughout the project. Examples of activity suggestions can be found in the appendices to Annex D.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 32 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Gifts Energy Water And a catch all category for cross-cutting themes “All”
Waste behaviours are as follows:
Avoid purchase Use less Shop smart Re-use @ home Re-use outside home Recycle (only things that aren’t commonly included in recycling where households could be pushed) Buy recycled
It is worth noting that the behaviour change ‘fit’ is at present largely a qualitative judgement loosely informed by survey research. Its purpose at this stage is to provide a broad relative ranking of how easy or difficult each activity might be for households to take on. This can be validated during the project by research with households.
The draft toolkit will be circulated to Advisory and Steering Group members and will be developed further in the light of their feedback and input from the HCC communications team.
4.3 Delivery arrangements HCC has established three project groups to advise, administer and monitor the project. Work has also begun to secure delivery organisation partners.
4.3.1. Project team The project team are responsible for the overall management and delivery of the project, including organising project groups, producing key documents to support the project, and reporting back to DEFRA. This team liaise on a regular basis to ensure the project is being delivered within the confines of the budget/timescale. This team consists of:
Adrian Lee – Project Coordinator (HCC) Zoe Kimber – Project Leader (HCC) Jayne Cox – Project Research Director (BL)
4.3.2. The Steering Group It was envisaged that two consultative groups rather than one would be established for developing and managing the project. The steering group consists of only partners directly involved in the project and are responsible for overseeing the management of the project, supporting the roll-out of the action plan and monitoring framework, and participating in decision-making processes. The group consists of44:
44 This and the following table have been updated from the original 2005 report to reflect changes that took place in the membership of these two groups during the project.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 33 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Table 4 Small Changes Big Difference Steering Group Name Organisation Role Adrian Lee Hampshire County Council Project Coordinator Zoe Kimber Hampshire County Council Project Leader Sonia Emslie Hampshire County Council Project secretariat - October 2005 to April 2007 Erica Phillips Hampshire County Council Project secretariat - August 2007 to December 2007 Kerri Attwood Hampshire County Council Resource Outreach Advisor - February 2007 to July 2007 Sabrina Garside Hampshire County Council Resource Outreach Advisor - August 2007 to September -secondment from Test Valley 2007 Borough Council Steve Read Project Integra PI partners representative - until July 2007 Sue Hand Fareham Borough Council District Council representative Dr. Christine Thomas Open University Independent strategic advisor Veronica Sharp The Social Marketing Practice DEFRA WREP Research Managing Agent
The steering group will meet face-to-face on a monthly basis to start with and will determine what information is passed on to the advisory group for comments.
4.3.3. The Advisory Group The advisory group have a more strategic role compared to the steering group and would be involved in advising the content of the action plan and setting up an effective monitoring and evaluation framework to support the roll-out of the action plan. The group consists of a number of experts from related backgrounds who will provide external peer review of the project as it progresses. Current/proposed members include:
Table 5 Small Changes Big Difference Advisory Group Name Organisation Role Steve Read* Project Integra PI Material Resources Strategy representative Sue Hand* Fareham Borough Council District Council Jamai Schile Hampshire County Communications & outreach Council Claire Thacker Hampshire County Waste Research, Defra WRRAG member Council Dr. Christine Thomas* Open University Monitoring and evaluation Veronica Sharp* Social Marketing Practice Behavioural change Jayne Cox* Brook Lyndhurst Strategic, behaviour change, monitoring and evaluation Professor Tim Jackson University of Surrey Strategic/behavioural change Jim Fielder Waste Watch Communications Andrew Darnton AD Research and Analysis Behavioural change, sustainable development Marten Gregory Dorset County Council Strategic, monitoring and evaluation. Links with Defra WREP project WR0116 Libby Masterton Hampshire Natural Links with delivery organisations & PI Material Resources Resources Initiative Strategy (HNRI) Angela Maycox University of Strategic/ Southampton Community led waste minimisation projects * Steering Group members
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 34 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Due to the time constraints of each representative, this group will operate using a ‘virtual forum’ whereby material for the group to comment on will be sent via email. This may be supported by the occasional meeting/workshop.
4.3.4. The Delivery Organisations45 There will be five delivery organisations who will each be responsible to act as the interface between the advisory/steering group and the public in engaging the pilot areas and facilitating the activities arising from the action plan. It is anticipated that there will be a delivery organisation to represent a local authority, a local school, a business, a community group, and a housing/residents association. Each organisation will be responsible for communicating waste minimisation messages to the householder via Resource Advisors to enable the project to test whether messages are more acceptable when delivered by different local groups.
The following table expands the one shown earlier for DPs to identify possible project partners. The project team is also drawing on experience of the DP model and contacts being developed in HCC’s parallel Defra incentives pilots.
Target audience & (a)New parents (b) School/ youth (c) Setting up (d) Retirement (e) ‘Everyday’ recruitment criteria (& families) home/ moving home Type of delivery partner Community group Schools Business Community Business Healthcare Youth groups groups Local authority Housing/ Housing/ resident resident association association (?) Example delivery partners Hospitals Primary schools Estate Agents University of the Super-markets Bounty (new parent Secondary Housing Third Age DIY stores marketing) schools Associations/socia Womens’ Local shops Midwives Education l landlords Institutes Dept stores GPs Authority - Council Tax CVS (Evolve) Employers Health visitors extended schools offices Rotary Markets NCT plans; curriculum DIY stores Club/Inner Retail delivery Parent & toddler develop’t Web sites Wheel schemes (e.g. groups Teacher training Removals Bowling clubs organic box Nurseries programme/ companies Golf clubs schemes; Council Children’s Info INSET Trading Standards Retirement dairies) Service PTAs (approved villages/ Parenting web sites/ NCPTA contractors lists) schemes (not magazines Youth clubs Dept stores sheltered Retailers (e.g. Boots Sport/swim clubs Wedding list housing) Mothercare) After school clubs stores /wedding Gardening Advertisers of 2nd hand Learning through organizers groups nursery goods Landscapes Life laundry Eco-schools companies Wildlife Trust Cleaning Educational companies venues – e.g. museums, INTEC Cross-cutting partners Faith groups Procurement/retail
45 A final list of the Delivery Organisations recruited as partners to the project can be found in Appendix 5.3 to this scoping report.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 35 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
4.4 Next steps
The project plan as at December 2005 is shown below, indicating key milestones as defined in the contract with DEFRA46. Subject to agreement with Defra, the team and Steering Group have agreed to proceed with the Retirement group as the first pilot project.
Contract deadline Key Activity Activities involved People involved date Literature Review o Gathering literature October ‘05 Project team o Going over initial draft Brook Lyndhurst o Finalising report o Submit interim report to Defra Establish Advisory o Contacting potential stakeholders December ‘05 Project team /Steering Group o Contacting those who express an interest in Steering Group the project Advisory Group o Set up virtual forum facility Brook Lyndhurst o Submit interim report to Defra Project Integra Establish delivery o Approach organisations explaining purpose of December ‘05 Project team organisations project, what is involved and potential Delivery benefits to them Organisations o Organise a workshop for delivery Steering Group organisations o Put together an information pack for the organisations who express an interest o Engage with willing organisations Write Defra Scoping o Write summary of literature review, December ‘05 Project team Report discussion paper on monitoring and Brook Lyndhurst evaluation, description of advisory group and delivery organisations, and draft action plan o Submit report to Defra Devise action plan o Collate ideas from the literature review and February ‘06 Project team the Advisory Group Steering Group o Allocate activities in order of roll-out Advisory Group o Devise communications plan to support roll- Project Integra out of the action plan o Decide which pilot area to target initially o Devise monitoring programme to support the action plan o Establish baseline data Initial Pilot Scheme o Implement action plan March ’06 to Project team o Provide communications material to support September ‘06 Steering Group roll-out Delivery o Provide equipment to support roll-out Organisations o Doorstep target area Procurement o Monitor and collect feedback to write interim Resource Advisors report on results Project Integra o Recommendations for improving the final Brook Lyndhurst action plan o Submit interim report to Defra in June ‘06
46 Several changes were made to the project plan as learning about participants and the engagement approach developed. These changes are outlined in the final project report and further detail can be found in Annex C.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 36 WR0117 Waste prevention in Hampshire: Small Changes Big Difference | Annex A Scoping paper
Roll out of action plan o Progressive introduction of activities October ‘06 Project team to all pilot areas throughout year Steering Group o Provide communications material to support Delivery roll-out Organisations o Provide equipment to support roll-out Procurement o Doorstep all pilot areas Resource Advisors o Implement monitoring programme Project Integra o Progress reports and regular team meetings Brook Lyndhurst o Submit interim reports to Defra in December ’06, March ’07, and June ‘07 Evaluation and o Monitor and evaluate data collected July ’07 Project team dissemination of results o Final report & recommendations (evaluation) Steering Group o Presentations/seminars October ’07 Delivery o Maintain working partnerships with delivery (completion) Organisations organisations for future projects Procurement o Produce some challenging but realistic waste Resource Advisors minimisation targets Project Integra o Business plan Brook Lyndhurst
In the remaining development period (period January-March 2006) final outstanding issues relating to the Action Plan will be resolved, including:
Recruitment - initial approaches have been made to older people’s interest groups to act as delivery partners. Activities – response to the draft toolkit is being invited by the Steering and Advisory Groups and will be discussed at the next meeting in January. The proposed activities will then be developed into materials/events with the support of the communications team. Measurement – a workshop with waste prevention experts/practitioners will be held jointly with Wastewatch on February 7th in London. Measurement techniques will be a discussion topic. Research – the project team will start working on research materials (diaries, surveys etc) during February.
The first pilot project is then scheduled to go live in March 2006.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 37 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents 5 Appendices
5.1 Waste minimisation case study examples The following table is taken from Brook Lyndhurst’s earlier review (2004) for Project Integra of waste minimisation best practice examples in the UK and internationally. It identifies examples of different options and summarises the opportunities and possible drawbacks of each as reported by practitioners or in the literature. Inclusion of a policy measure in this research should not be taken to imply that it has been or will be endorsed by Defra as an option for England. A more recent and detailed review of the evidence on measures for waste prevention can be found in Brook Lyndhurst, Social Marketing Practice and the Resource Recovery Forum (2009) Household Waste Prevention Evidence Review, Defra WREP report WR1204.
Category Sub-category Example(s) + - Collection Increased Barcelona (Spain) - increased collection service for organic waste (3/week) which Acceptable to public; Costs high; Arrangements frequency for – along with food waste collections from 40 local markets – is taken to a central Links to commercial collection cycles; specific composting facility; Cupello (Italy) – 3/week organic waste collection alongside waste; Infrastructure wastes monthly collection of dry recyclables and 2/week collection of dry non- required. recyclables.
Restrictions Eastleigh District Council – fortnightly collection of residual waste alongside an Simple collection Public resistance by frequency increased weekly collection of recyclables Cheap Potential for fly- High impact tipping?
Restrictions Blaby District Council – retained a weekly residual waste collection but reduced Public acceptability No incentive for by volume waste bin volume to 140l, with additional charge for those who want a larger Cheap further reductions bin; Markham (Canada) – voluntary limit on the number of refuse sacks people High impact can place on the kerb (3 sacks) with additional sacks marked with free ‘bag tags’.
Restrictions Barnet – compulsory recycling in four pilot wards (which already have a higher High impact Enforcement costs by materials recycling rate) with instructions on which materials can be put out for which Public resistance collection – glass, paper & cans are only allowed in the recycling box. limited materials
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 38 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Variable They can broadly be divided into four main categories: Bag and tag/sticker Potential for revenue Legislation needed charging schemes (e.g. Peel, Canada); Volume-based schemes (e.g. Gainsville, US); Polluter pays/ Complexity Frequency-based schemes (Ghent, Belgium); and weight-based schemes (Bjuv, fairness Public opinion Sweden). However, many schemes adopt aspects of two or more of these as Potentially high Fly tipping part of a ‘hybrid’ approach - for example, Kansas City (US) - the collection service impact concerns is included as part of general taxation up until a limit of two bags per week, over Leadership Costs of set up and above which variable charging applies for each additional bag. Ireland now also provides a nearby example..
Reuse, repair Exchange CLAREN project (Southwark) collects and redistributes unwanted items left Low cost Small scale/impact and behind in students’ halls of residence; “Green Exchange” (Poole & Bristol) - Appropriate for Low or niche public exchange involves an internet advertising board; “Swap Shop” (WyeCycle project) - a certain groups demand monthly collection and exchange of old furniture and household appliances; Links to markets/car Cycle Workshop (Oxfordshire) - not-for-profit organisation specialising in boot sales salvaging bikes, reconditioning them and re-selling them. Deposit Nova Scotia (Canada) - deposit schemes on bottles and tyres; Denmark - Acceptable to public Admin costs refillable beer and soft drink containers; Sweden - a deposit-refund system for Medium/high impact Retailer buy glass and PET bottles; UK - milkman deliveries (although declining usage); Ten US Legislation needed States - enacted laws which subject lead-acid vehicle batteries to a $5-10 deposit; Austria – introduced a producer responsibility system for batteries, lights, refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, which includes a deposit- refund scheme; The Beer Store (Canada) – deposit-return programme (10 cents/unit) has led to a 98% return rate on glass bottles, saving Ontario municipalities $31 million in avoided costs. Retail SuperShed (New Zealand) - collection of goods and re-sale in a supermarket Revenue raising Set up costs/time initiatives environment; “Big Store” (Oxfordshire) – plans to emulate the New Zealand High impact Financial risks approach; Leadership/novel Planning Existing market niche permission Important for WEEE Link to local social enterprises.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 39 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Links to Bulky Bob’s Ltd (Liverpool) – social business carrying out bulky waste collections Medium/high impact Contract employment with reconditioning/re-sale; Furniture Reclaim (Conwy) – furniture (and particularly negotiations & economic collection/redistribution company providing an Intermediate Labour Market Important for WEEE) Start up funding development scheme; “Streetline” service (Tower Hamlets) - collects unwanted household Links to social and Trust in social items, refurbishes them and sells a proportion to low income residents; ENVIE economic objectives enterprises scheme (Strasbourg & Nantes, France) – collects, repairs and sells household Links to social appliances using low qualified and unemployed people; Community Reuse & enterprises Refurbishment (Vienna, Austria) – handling 2,000 tonnes of electrical equipment Wider range of per year; “Re-use and local initiatives for sustainable economies” (Lambeth) - potential funding part-funded through the EU Life Sciences Scheme;
Comms/ Gironde (France) – annual waste management brochure accompanying an Public acceptability Organisation time Promotions “environment day”; Munich (Germany) – ‘Repairwork day’ is an annual event Leadership Cost for specific where residents bring their broken household items for repair by local craftsman Potential local events free of charge; California (US) - “Second Chance Week” is held each October to economy benefits promote reuse, repair, resale and donation opportunities with activities such as (e.g. Munich) garage sales, jumble sales, and kerbside exchanges. Medium/high impact
Product take- Comet – takes back old white and brown goods and all packaging from home Engage mainstream Retailers may back schemes deliveries (although this involves a £15 charge for refrigerators and freezers). retailers favour recycling Both Comet and Currys are also running pilot schemes for in-store take back to High impact over reuse see if such schemes are worth establishing instead of, or in addition to, the Legislation retailer compliance scheme for WEEE proposed by the British Retail Consortium; required mobile phone recycling (e.g. Tesco, Oxfam).
Reusable Subsidised Oxfordshire County Council – offer some new users of washable nappies a £30 Leadership Changing audience Nappies schemes reduction (via the “Nappy Tales” company); West Sussex Real Nappy Initiative – Material specific Cost provide a list of suppliers and a free starter pack worth around £100. Habits entrenched
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 40 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Information The Essex Cloth Nappy Campaign (Essex) – evolved into a continual education Targeted at specific Low impact & Promotions campaign; “Nappuccino” events (Oxfordshire) – parents are invited to a ‘coffee groups morning’ to discuss Real Nappies with people who already use them.
Social “Nappy Ever After” (Camden) – a community-owned social enterprise that offers Support social Costs enterprise- a collection service for reusable nappies. External funding is currently used enterprises led although it is hoped the project will eventually become self-sustaining (through Targeted focusing efforts in Sure Start areas). Aim for self sufficiency? Green waste Home Oxfordshire & Gloucester - “trial period” offers; Lancashire home composter Material specific Composting “Give away” – distributed 90,000 free compost bins; Hounslow “Master On going Composter Programme” – distributed 1,500 free compost bins/mini-kitchen bins engagement and maintains a database of participants who are then periodically invited to (Harrow) training courses, sent newsletters and have access to a ‘hotline’; West Sussex – Use of “champions” market compost bins through schools, which are paid £2 for each sale up to a (Lancashire) total of £200 per school. High impact
Community Wiltshire Wildlife Trust – community composting for the elderly, disabled and Community focus Health & safety composting people without gardens as part of their work towards “Zero Green Waste Awareness raising End use? Community Areas”. Public perceptions Garden waste Rotters Community Composting (Liverpool) - social enterprise collecting green Target material Dense area collections kitchen waste on a weekly basis from 100 households in the Highbank Drive High impact problem Estate as part of a pilot scheme run with the council. Cost Public perceptions Kitchen waste Rotters Community Composting (Liverpool) – (see above) now also undertake Links to social Potential costs collections small scale collection of kitchen waste; East London Community Recycling enterprise Public perceptions Partnership – a food waste composting scheme, funded through the borough’s Target material Facility for Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, providing ‘Bokashi’ buckets for storage ahead of High impact processing? garden composting; and a trial door-to-door food waste collection in the Nightingale Estate (Hackney), which is anticipated to be expanded across 5,000 households.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 41 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Sustainable Sustainable The Rotterdam NU Card (The Netherlands) – aims to increase demand for Popular among Admin costs consumption ‘Reward’ sustainable products, stimulate recycling and promote take up of public public Set up time cards transport via ‘loyalty’ or ‘reward’ points for desirable behaviour; Southwark – Leadership/novel Technology recycling ‘credits’ for housing estates based upon recycling behaviour; Carigovan Links to existing considerations (Northern Ireland) - provides leisure tokens for residents participating in smart chip bins (e.g. Retailer buy in recycling; Belfast (Northern Ireland) – plans to follow the NU card example using Belfast) existing electronic weighing of recyclables via ‘smart chip’ recycling bins. Piggy back existing reward schemes?
‘Observatory’ Observatory for Sustainable Consumption (Brussels, Belgium) – established to Information Cost of research/ / watchdog gather information about resource consumption and promote environment- provision authentication friendly products. Its research leads to ‘naming brands’ – a system of eco- Voluntary behaviour Retailer resistance labelling – and other work includes a call centre, lobbying of public authorities change Set up time and producers, communication campaigns and a website. Independent advice Comms: Charleroi (Belgium) – in-store “pre-cycle” campaign with 170 supermarkets, Attention grabbing Potential cost media & in- consisting of “less waste” labels on low packaged products, information leaflets Link consumption to Set up time/admin store at checkouts and a “minimisation week” promoted by local shops; San Francisco waste directly Retailer buy in campaigns “Save Money and The Environment Too” (SMATET) – combined effort across 110 cities and counties alongside 400 supermarkets; Waste Watch in London Western Riverside – in store work with pilot supermarkets to link consumption and waste; “Buy Nothing Day” (Canada/ International) – advertising campaign aimed at making people think about over consumption, attracting mainstream media coverage (New York Times, The Guardian). Shopping King County (US) “giving experiences instead of stuff” – focus on the holiday ‘Shifting’ Retailer buy in guides season, with partners recruited to offer reduced price tickets to around 100 local consumption easier attractions, while media partners offered airtime and promotional materials; than ‘reducing’ Californian (US) “Green Gift Guide” – an online resource helping customers Comms easier ‘close the loop’ by buying recycled products. The site features more than 60 Benefits to local retailers, including a mix of small specialist and large retail companies. economy Public acceptability
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 42 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Labelling Conflicting evidence on effectiveness: UK research (e.g. Defra, National Voluntary behaviour Impact? Consumer Council) suggests confusion among consumers; Nordic Swan label change Authentication suggests potential for success, from evidence with 13 brands of toilet paper, 9 Information Costs raising brands of paper towels and 3 brands of detergents suggesting shifting consumer provision awareness purchases in favour of the label.
Product Munich (Germany) and Barcelona (Spain) - hire service for dishes and cutlery for Existing market niche Costs raising leasing parties and public events. Social enterprises? awareness
Taxation / Irish Plastic Bag Levy – levy of 10p on plastic shopping bags, with a decrease in Research suggests Legislation needed economic usage of 90% (although several reported but unqualified knock on impacts, such public support Industry resistance price signals as increase in use of bin liners, etc.). This has raised revenue of £7m for the first High impact full year of operation, to be spent on environmental projects. B&Q (Scotland) - voluntary trial reports similar success; Norway – fixed levy on one-way packaging and an environmental tax on all packaging; Denmark – eco-taxes in place on NiCd batteries, light bulbs and disposable tableware. Delivery “Casa Quick” (Italy) – home delivery service for detergents, with vans moving Local economy Perception services from home to home on a regular route. Each family draws down the quantity benefits/power of difficulties and quality of detergent required, using special reusable containers. The service the market Small scale now attracts 25% of the potential clients in the areas it serves (four Cheap municipalities with around 3,000 families); Organic food by subscription (The Netherlands) – once a week the consumer receives a paper bag with assorted vegetables and accompanying recipes, delivered from a store in the neighbourhood. This is similar to UK box delivery schemes. Engaging Via Community Action Groups (Oxfordshire) – currently 12 groups of local residents Demonstration Small scale residents/ community who undertake various recycling/re-use collections and sales (and in some cases Significant change Cost/time Education & initiatives a broader range of sustainable actions); “Eco-Teams” (The Netherlands) – groups per participant Applicability to Communication of 6-8 households who agree to meet together with a facilitator once a month “real world” over a 5 month period to work on ways to change their lifestyles. There are over 10,000 such groups in the Netherlands. In the UK, Global Action Plan is currently supporting Eco Teams in Nottingham. Similarly, Maldon District Council - ran a
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 43 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
“Waste Away Challenge” where nine volunteer families where asked to change household and consumer behaviours; “Eco-check” scheme (Corby) – run by StudentForce with 25 graduates engaging local businesses, community groups, schools, and the local authority; LIPOR (Portugal) – home compost ‘demonstration’ site, with organised visits from schools and groups, and 11 eco- advisers providing proactive engagement with residents; Oxfordshire have launched the “Oxfordshire Waste Challenge”.
General “Slim Your Bin” (East Anglia) - communications campaign; “Wipe Out Waste” Relatively cheap Difficult to Comm (Enfield) – range of leaflets divided across a ‘shoppers guide’ to low waste Tried and tested measure impact campaigns purchasing, ‘local service guide’ to hire, repair, trade in and donation, ‘at home Awareness raising guide’ focusing on durability, DIY and repair, home composting and junk mail, and a ‘waste doctor’ service whereby a volunteer makes a home visit; “Waste Reduction Week” (Canada) – in 2002 there was a focus on 7 waste reduction themes, one for each day, ranging from in the home, travel, school etc;
Via Claremont (California, US) – deployed groups of scouts and local neighbours to Community approach Admin community ‘champion’ recycling through door stopping to educate people about local Local networks ‘champions’ recycling collection services; Lancashire Home Composting programme – Norms volunteers used as composting “gurus” to extend support to residents via shows, Proactive exhibitions and door stopping.
Via schools Gloucester – five schools have recently taken part in a project run jointly with Leadership Time available for Global Action Plan, auditing ‘before’ and ‘after’ situations following Wider behaviour teachers interventions by the students; Wild Waste Show (Oxfordshire) - operated by the change Northmoor Trust via an education officer and a fully equipped bus that visits schools; “Green Fingered Monsters” project (Tower Hamlets) - run by WEN in pilot schools in the borough.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 44 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Via other WyeCycle Project – links to local farms (who provide residents with a reduced Use existing Difficult to engage routes packaging box deliveries) and to local garden stores (who promote sustainable networks Cost of incentives? products); Lancing – a local garden maintenance service proactively promotes Cheap grass cycling; Seattle (US) - Real Nappy promotion in hospitals via midwives.
Local authority Establishment of “Waste avoidance teams/officers” – Helsinki (Finland) has nine Raise profile of waste Cost corporate waste prevention officers; Munich (Germany) has a well established team that organise minimisation Duplication of management the annual “Repairwork” scheme, among other things; Oxfordshire have three More resources roles? issues dedicated waste avoidance officers across commercial and household waste.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 45 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents 5.2 Selected case studies NB These case studies were compiled in 2005 and have not been updated since then. All website addresses shown below were live as at 10/03/10.
Introduction This appendix provides an overview of the key features of selected case study projects on waste minimisation/prevention. The case studies were selected to provide additional background material on:
Partnership projects, especially where they involve some form of ‘direct action’ with households; Schools based projects; Re-use/second chance promotional activities.
Information was collated from internet searches and a number of follow-up telephone calls, as well as base data collected during the Project Integra literature review research.
These case studies do not reflect the whole range of practice in these domains but were selected for their interest in relation to the objectives of the Hampshire pilots. A wider range of practice is outlined in the Appendix above and further details are provided in Brook Lyndhurst’s Literature Review report for Project Integra.
Furthermore, the budget and timetable for this part of the work has placed limitations on the amount of detailed information that could be compiled for each of the projects. It has been our experience that some projects are difficult to make contact with, and others do not have to hand the kind of operational information that would be useful to Hampshire. As is the case more generally, funding and performance data are especially hard to come by. If Hampshire/PI should decide they wish to know more about any of these projects, we strongly recommend limiting this to only one, or a few, which can be targeted for intensive follow-up.
Projects covered in this appendix are:
1 Wallingford Community Action Group 2 Sustainable Living Project - Devon & Cornwall Housing Association 3 Maldon – Waste Away Challenge 4 Choose 2 Reuse & Association of Charity Shops 5 SPAN Federation of City Farms & Gardens (Sustainable & Productive Use of Environments) 6 Projects with business partners 7 Green Fingered Monsters 8 Gloucestershire Schools Reduce Waste 9 Wastelink Neath Port Talbot Schools 10 Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg Schools, Germany 11 Nada (Oxfordshire County Council) 12 Second Chance Week 13 Bring and Take Days 14 Waste Free Holidays Programme - King County 15 Other potentially interesting projects
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 46 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
1 Wallingford Community Action Group (Sustainable Wallingford) partnership with community group and three stakeholder groups – residents, schools and business (waste minimisation, recycling & biodiversity)
Established in 2003 by a group of residents, the Wallingford CAG has five key objectives:
to encourage efficient energy use; to encourage reduction, reuse & recycling of produce to minimise waste; to encourage local sourcing of food & other products; to encourage adoption of less carbon intensive transport; and to promote biodiversity.
In terms of waste minimisation projects, they have worked on the following: to date, 2 Swap Shops have been organised (by 2006 they hope to have organised 9) where residents freely exchange goods and the remainder are donated to charity shops – items are weighed to monitor tonnage saved from landfill; they provide ‘nappucino’ mornings and free 7 day trials of washable nappies with support and advice – 12 households have been converted from disposable nappies; and the Community Action Group initiative have provided £2,500 to work on waste reduction, reuse and recycling projects – community art, community composting, community green waste shredding and local communication campaigns (Sustainable Wallingford, 2005). www.sustainablewallingford.org Further information from Wallingford CAG or Oxfordshire County Council
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 47 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
2 Sustainable Living Project - Devon & Cornwall Housing Association partnership with community action groups, social landlords and housing association (communications)
The Sustainable Living Project has two parts:
1. greening the organisation internally 2. greening housing association residents to live more sustainably
This is a Defra Environmental Action Fund three year project that began in April 2005 in North Devon, Torridge & mid Devon with low-income households in two types of housing – eco and non-eco.
Initially a questionnaire was sent to 1,800 homes to determine household behaviour (designed by Stuart Barr at Exeter University) and obtain a baseline assessment. It is intended that evaluation will continue throughout the three years, but they have since realised that:
waste is very complicated to calculate they need a much simpler survey for those people in non-eco housing who were not expecting to be monitored in the same way as those in eco-housing understood they would be South Molton Recycling Ltd are obtaining recycling figures, but so far they do not know what is gong to landfill they need to find low income comparisons to use (as their residents’ recycling rates will be much lower without Sunday papers and empty bottles of wine to recycle)
They are also intending to use newsletters, road shows, children’s workshops and other useful tools such as rent statements etc in order to communicate the message of sustainable behaviour, primarily as a cost benefit with environmental benefits secondary.
This project covers all areas of sustainable behaviour not just waste. A group of residents have set up a Community Action Group and the Housing Association is currently helping them with their newsletter and with plans to create a website.
This CAG is where some of the direct waste minimisation communications may occur whereas the Housing Association is also working on other issues to reduce costs for their residents so they can pay their rent (energy and water use are covered in current leaflets).
They were intending to disseminate information at the end of the three years in a large conference, but things have already moved on. More partners have joined since the project started (GAP and Envision) and other boroughs are already turning up to networking events held locally, e.g. a social landlords event on global warming last month was attended by 12 other boroughs.
Partners range from health (Primary Care Trust) to environmental (Devon Wildlife Trust) & energy (Devon Energy Efficiency Advice Centre).
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 48 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Funding from Environmental Action Fund (Defra): 2005-2006 £28,500 2006-2007 £30,000 2007-2008 £35,000
Source: Devon & Cornwall Housing Association (01392 814471)
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 49 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
3 Maldon – Waste Away Challenge
council led waste prevention campaign working directly with households and schools
This is an educational campaign to change public attitudes and behaviour. Aims are to encourage people to undertake waste minimisation and reuse activity and to boost participation in recycling services (the district has 95%+ kerbside collection coverage).
Scope & Funding The Waste Away project involved several activities. Key audiences were the general public and schools. Officers also participate in local summer events such as school fetes and festivals, running various activities to promote recycling and reuse.
The Waste Away Challenge was run on an eco-teams model and was one part of the overall Waste Away programme. It involved 9 households who already had pro-active attitudes towards waste.
We do not have full details of funding and this would require further investigation. The following information is drawn from public documents:
Initial funding for Waste Away was via LTCS. Essex Environment Trust (a pool of LTCS from various landfill operators) provided £38,800 in 2002/3. The District’s WM strategy states that on-going education activity will be supported through existing budgets. The Strategy contains a clear commitment to on-going high profile education campaigns.
Activities The following is an extract from the NRWF Waste Prevention Toolkit which outlines the eco-teams element (overleaf).
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 50 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Waste Prevention for Real - Maldon District Council Maldon District Council in Essex ran a project in 2001 called The Waste Away Challenge whereby nine volunteer families (five with 2+ children and all with a proactive attitude to waste issues) were asked to complete tasks (Big Brother Style) month by month, moving from designing their own ideal recycling arrangements - through home composting (using bins, cones or wormeries) and reusing goods around the home - to ‘waste aware’ shopping.
During the 5 month ‘Challenge’ various rules were followed: Recyclables, bulky items and residues were collected and weighed by the authority Waste Away team. No visits to the local CA site were allowed. The families weighed and recorded all waste being re-used or put into home composter units and kept waste diaries, shopping lists and till receipts.
Waste prevention actions in particular included:
Shopping at local shops (e.g. grocers) that use less packaging. Planning a weekly menu to reduce impulse buying. Buying and using reusable nappies for home use (two families). Buying in bulk/larger sizes to reduce the weight to packaging ratio and cost. Buying loose goods and re-using durable and carrier bags when shopping. Buying milk from the milkman. Home Composting. Reusing containers for plants, newspapers for pet bedding. Source: NRWF
Various other ‘Waste Away’ activities have been undertaken since, many focusing on schools and youth groups. These have included school based competitions (with prizes), curriculum linked activities and support for teachers, as well as hands-on activities with cub scout groups.
Specific activities were47:
A schools competition to design a Waste Away logo, which was then used on all promotional material A waste art exhibition trun by one school to raise awareness – included pupils making their own fashion items from old clothes etc. Development of curriculum materials plus advice & practical support on implementing and running these projects and ideas in participating schools. Workshops for cub scouts, including making recycled paper Delivery of the ‘Yellow Woods Challenge’ to local schools, working with National Trust, Yellow Pages, the Woodland Trust: Students compete to achieve the highest Yellow Pages per pupil ratio by collecting as many copies as possible.
47 From the Maldon DC Municipal Waste Management Strategy 2004-2010 (this document is no longer available on the internet. Please direct enquiries to Maldon District Council).
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 51 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Schools given a “Yellow wood teachers toolkit” with curriculum linked material to teach children about the environment and the UK native woodland. Winning schools invited to an assembly presentation delivered by Waste Management Officer and a representative of the Woodland Trust 14 schools participated; 5 tonnes of Yellow Pages diverted from landfill
Timeframe The eco-teams challenge ran for 5 months (July – November). ‘Waste Away’ has continued since then and is a core part of the Council’s waste management strategy.
Evaluation and waste diversion The Yellow Pages project was able to count the number of directories collected, and therefore tonnes. The schools based Yellow Pages competition diverted 5 tonnes for recycling.
Data on the eco-teams challenge were presented in the NRWF toolkit. Data were derived from self- weighing by participating households. The following has been reported for the eco-teams project: The NRWF report shows that overall arisings fell sharply in month 1, stablised in months 2-4, then fell again sharply in month 5. The month 5 arisings per household were 30% lower than month 1 arisings. Inferring from the NRWF data, over the project as a whole, monthly arisings averaged 109 kg/HH, compared to 127 kg/HH at the start of the project. Significantly, over the five months of the project, only 18% by weight went to landfill.
The figures quoted by NRWF can be illustrated as follows:
Figure 3 – Maldon Waste Away Challenge
Maldon Waste Away Challenge Project waste arisings over 5 months - 9 households Total arisings = 4900 kg
Collected - landfilled 860kg 17%
Re-used composted @ home 2050 kg 42%
Collected - recycled/composted 2012 kg 41% Source: NRWF Waste
It is important to bear in mind that this project included only 9 households, and recruited those who already had a pro-active approach to waste. We cannot infer from these results what the impact would be either on a wider scale, or with less environmentally engaged households.
Sources: NRWF Waste Prevention Toolkit www.maldon.gov.uk 01621 875896
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 52 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
4 Choose 2 Reuse & Association of Charity Shops
partnership with local authorities and charities (communications)
The Association of Charity Shops is working with Cambridgeshire & Essex Community Reuse & Recycling networks on a communications project called Choose 2 Reuse.
Working with local authorities in seven counties in East Anglia (Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Suffolk) it has three main aims:
to increase the awareness of reuse; to increase volunteering; and to increase the use of charity shops.
The campaign is funded by the DEFRA Environmental Action Fund and will run for three years from 2005 to 2008. It is intended that the project will expand to include other Community Action Groups and move beyond the East Anglia region in years two and three. It is hoped that partnerships will be forged with charity shops, local authorities, regional bodies and Community Waste Network East (the new regionally funded network).
All charity shops are being asked to participate (there are 700 in the region operated by 45 different charities) where they can attend workshops to learn how to increase the quality and quantity of pre- owned goods, encourage people to buy more of them and to increase voluntary work in ‘reuse’ activities. This is also intended as a networking opportunity.
Choose 2 Reuse will be evaluated throughout its life history:
qualitative research has been written in at key points throughout the project management schedule (as they cannot measure tonnage); and the communications material has been piloted already in a few charity shops and material evaluation was also conducted at the design stages
Funding from Environmental Action Fund (Defra): 2005-2006 £42,800 2006-2007 £34,100 2007-2008 £34,600
Source: Choose 2 Reuse, www.choose2reuse.com
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 53 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
5 SPAN Federation of City Farms & Gardens (Sustainable & Productive Use of Environments)
partnership with NGO and community groups (community waste minimisation projects)
This is a three year project between the Federation of City Farms & Gardens and four other partners:
Community Composting Network A Research Association Thermoculture Association WEN
SPAN has two main aims:
1. to enable effective partnership between partner organisations through a resource sharing network; and 2. to conduct research in ten pilot communities (nationwide) to develop a toolkit on sustainable food production & consumption and other related environmental issues (i.e. to reduce packaging, increase composting etc but also energy/water issues).
The communities are currently being picked based upon diversity of projects (only three are confirmed in Bristol, London and Kent at present) and they are being evaluated at the beginning, middle and end of pilots by the research partner organisation.
Funding from Environmental Action Fund (Defra):
2005-2006 £84,000 2006-2007 £116,500 2007-2008 £114,500
Source:, Federation of City Farms (0117 923 1800), http://www.farmgarden.org.uk/
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 54 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
6 Projects with business partners
NGO/local authority led partnerships with retailers on smart shopping
We found very few UK examples where businesses have been involved directly in delivering waste prevention messages to the public (within the limits of the time available for this work). The most significant UK initiative here is the major retailers’ ‘Courtauld commitment’ initiated by WRAP, and the work now being done to follow up the commitment.
There are a number of useful overseas examples where retailers have been involved in waste prevention/minimisation initiatives on a city-wide level. Examples cited in the PI Literature Review included:
The Brussels Observatory for Sustainable Consumption (OBCD) This was established in 1999 to gather more information about responsible consumption and promote environmentally-friendly products in shops. It is based on a partnership between the Brussels Institute for the Management of the Environment and a consumer organisation, the Consumer Organisations Research and Information Centre.
OBCD carries out in depth research and product analysis, leading to ‘naming brands’ – a system of eco- labelling - according to their environmental performance. In 1999 and 2000, they studied the following product groups: washing powders, personal care products, batteries and chargers, cleaning products, pesticides, snacks, light bulbs, toilet cleaning products, wipes, gadgets, and over-packaging. The OBCD’s work also includes dissemination of its work, a call centre (receiving on average 2,300 calls per year) and website, and lobbying of public authorities and producers. Specific campaigns include:
washing powder - this included a brochure disseminated in retail outlets and via consumer publications, awarding products a gold, silver or bronze medal. A telephone survey (although only of 100 recipients) suggests 1 in 3 consumers changed their behaviour. Furthermore, one of the main retailing chains modified the composition of its brand, while another doubled sales of its ecological washing powder when it was awarded a gold medal;
anti-advertising measures - in April 1999 all households were provided with anti-advertising stickers accompanied by explanatory leaflets and a media campaign. Following this, 11% of householders chose to refuse door-to-door advertising, amounting to 1,800 tonnes pa avoided waste (compared to an advertising total of 12,400 tonnes);
a communication campaign to promote alternatives to disposable bags – “Say no to disposable bags”. This was supported by supermarkets themselves in the form of advantage points and the offer of reusable bags. Over the two year period, one supermarket saw a 63% increase in the number of reusable bags, a change in use from 3.5% to 5.7% of customers.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 55 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
Low waste and pre-cycling campaigns from North America One example is “Buy Nothing Day” (International) which is run by the Adbusters organisation and is set in November to coincide with Thanksgiving in North America. From 2002, the campaign was also run in several counties, while the initiative has received mainstream media coverage with articles in The New York Times and The Guardian.
The towns of Newark and Boulder have implemented forms of “Precycle” campaigns involving promotions around bulk buying, avoidance of packaging/disposable items and repair & re-use schemes.
Evaluation of such an initiative in Boulder, involving 2,000 consumers, found that 74% of those surveyed said that it helped them to reduce waste, while 54% could identify specific precycle activities. The campaign had asked consumers to purchase items packaged in glass, aluminium and paper, buy durables, and repair items. Local stores were asked to use paper rather than plastic bags.
San Francisco (US) runs the ‘Save Money and The Environment Too’ (SMATET) campaign. The campaign is a partnership that combines the effort of 110 cities and counties in the California Bay area with more than 400 supermarkets. The total budget is US $400,000 per year. The campaign focuses on television and radio commercials to get its message across, enhanced by other media including:
Banners and publicity in public areas; Advertisements in newspapers, coupon books mailed to customers; Grocery bags and milk cartons advertisements; In store advertising (display, brochures, posters).
The campaign has been successful at both educating shoppers and changing consumption habits. By 1997, 84% of shoppers had been exposed to the messages of the campaign while 54% said that the campaign had influenced their shopping. A sales analysis from 1996 showed that the sales of “well packaged” products (minimal packaging, recycled content) increased by about 20%, while sales of “over packaged” products declined by 36%.
The scheme’s evaluation highlights several important issues, namely not relying only on grant funding for an ongoing campaign – part of the stability of the SMATET campaign is that base funding comes from cities and counties each year. Furthermore, there are significant time/resource implications in planning such as scheme (in this case 14 months for the initial set up) and then maintaining it.
In terms of similar schemes in Europe, a large campaign was undertaken in 170 supermarkets in the region of Charleroi (Belgium). This was organised by the District Waste Management Authority (ICDI) and the NGO Espace Environnement. The campaign consisted of “less waste” labels placed below each product generating less direct packaging waste; information leaflets available at the checkouts; and a “minimisation week” involving shop displays and promotions.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 56 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
7 Green Fingered Monsters
Women’s Environmental Network (WEN) in partnership with 12 schools in Tower Hamlets, London, part funded by LB Tower Hamlets
This was a project to promote waste prevention through composting and food growing in school. Target participants were 12 inner London schools which have a high proportion of pupils from black and minority ethnic communities. Health promotion, via food growing, was also a consideration for the project.
Activities included learning workshops, assemblies, waste sorting, and activities with the school council in one school. Gardening sessions were held both with pupils and a parents’ gardening group. An important consideration was the National Fruit Scheme, whereby all children at Key Stage 1 are provided with a piece of fruit each day. This generates considerable quantities of peelings.
An evaluation report of two schools in the project (“Green Fingered Monsters” (2003)) highlights a number of important factors that would need to be taken into account in any similar scheme:
Progress was hampered by time restrictions and teachers busy with higher priority curriculum priorities (eg SATs) WEN needed to provide more support time than they had originally anticipated. Pupils, teachers and support staff did not fully understand what composting is, or how to compost. Staff were as interested and engaged in the gardening and food messages as much as waste prevention messages. (Some) staff need to know how this activity will fit the ‘normal’ curriculum – e.g. English as Second Language (ESOL) and Personal Social and Health Education (PHSE). Serious concerns were expressed about the sustainability of the project once WEN was no longer involved.
Despite the drawbacks, the report cites a positive change in attitudes (among both pupils and staff), although do not offer any quantification of their impact.
Evaluation was undertaken by means of interviews with key staff. The author decided not to interview pupils.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 57 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
8 Gloucestershire Schools Reduce Waste
County and local authorities working with Global Action Plan to reduce waste at school and increase pupil awareness
Five Gloucestershire schools have recently taken part in a project run jointly by Global Action Plan and the County and District Councils.
To start the project, each school took part in an initial waste sort to determine the type and amount of waste they produced, and then produced an Action Plan. During the summer term of 2004 a second waste audit was carried out to determine any decrease in waste production.
The results demonstrate an average reduction in residual waste of 49%, with a range from 33%-89%;
The following table, which shows activities and impacts, is taken from the County’s project web site.
School Pupils contacted Result/Evaluation
Stroud High School 897 33% Reduction. Very successful paper collection. Hand driers eliminated paper towels. Can bin. Rather unsuccessful composting! St. Matthews C of E School 210 84% reduction. The star school. Excellent paper collection. Will move on to composting next. Berry Hill Primary School 110 40% reduction. Collection of waste paper mainly. Drybrook School 120 72% reduction. Good paper collection activities, excellent publicity in school and bird food bins. Hope to get a green waste collection bin next term. Hatherop primary 68 57% reduction. Good publicity and paper collection. Lots of excellent ideas. Composting of grounds waste. St Peter's Roman Catholic 800 Awaiting second audit,but two 110 litre paper bins are being recycled every week. High School Theoretically = 40% reduction.
Further information (schools challenge in 2010) http://www.rfgschools.com/schools_challenge/index.html
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 58 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
9 Wastelink Neath Port Talbot
partnership between schools and local businesses facilitated by the local authority
This project, launched in 2004, aims to promote waste minimisation activity and awareness in schools by linking local schools to local businesses who are either waste producers or waste treatment/processing companies. It is funded by the Welsh Assembly Government Sustainable Waste Grant.
A key part of the approach is that schools develop their own ideas, helped by their business partners and supported by the local authority. Notably, the local authority does not tell schools what they must do, beyond requiring them to communicate with their business partner and present their work to other participants at the end of the year.
All schools in the Neath Port Talbot area are eligible to take part and 14 did so in the first year (2004), including two secondary schools. Seven more are taking part in 2005.
Schools are linked with a local company with whom they share information and ideas about different waste streams. Schools are expected to visit their link companies to see how they deal with waste; companies are invited into schools to offer advice or ideas. Companies involved include supermarkets (eg Somerfield, Tesco, Morrisons) and other significant local companies (eg Corus, Port Talbot).
The authority suggests that schools will benefit from: inset training for teachers; availability of a council waste officer to visit schools; developing knowledge that could help towards an eco-award; more favourable rating with the schools inspectorate who note links with business and whether schools are acting in a sustainable way.
The project culminates in an event at which schools present to each other their ideas for preventing waste in school and sharing their experiences of undertaking waste prevention activities.
Details of diversion are not published on the web site.
Contact: Waste Minimisation Officer 01639 764555
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 59 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
10 Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg Schools, Germany
Schools led waste reduction
This example is reproduced directly from the Enviros report to Defra International Waste Prevention and Reduction Practice:
The 80 schools in the Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg area have undertaken a number of voluntary measures in order to reduce waste arisings. This was driven by the high cost of waste disposal in their administrative region. In 1992 schools began to hold regular events on waste management to motivate students and teachers to reduce waste.
A schools competition was initiated to generate ideas and information about waste prevention in schools. Those schools that had not begun to implement the waste prevention ideas were individually visited by a waste consultant to find out why they had not taken steps towards reducing their waste.
Successful measures used by the schools include: a “no waste breakfast” breakfast” which involves pupils bringing breakfast in reusable lunch boxes and using their own glasses and plates which are washed and kept in the classroom; drinks ordered by the district assembly to be sold in returnable bottles only to reduce the use of one-trip packaging in schools; and a mobile dish cart which is a trailer containing tableware and a dishwasher used for large events.
These measures have led to a 25% reduction in cost per pupil for waste disposal, from €16 per year in the early 1990s to €12 per year in 1998.
Source: Enviros
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 60 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
11 Nada Oxfordshire County Council
partnership with local authorities and business (communications)
Cited as ‘the first waste prevention and recycling, lifestyle magazine’ (Resource Publishing, 2005), NADA began its first year as a pilot waste minimisation project funded by WRAP and commercial advertising revenue.
Its aim is to raise public awareness of sustainable consumption and to ask people to seek alternatives to their current lifestyle. 60,000 copies were distributed free last year, predominantly in branches of Sainsbury’s but also in libraries, health clubs, doctors’ surgeries and hairdressers.
This year (2005) Nada 2 has been launched which has been funded in-house with a similar product but with more reflection on local authority and cost saving needs providing theory and practical help at a local level but still with a lifestyle focus. 30,000 magazines have so far been printed – 5,000 of these will be used in-house by the council to use and 25,000 will be distributed freely in Asda, Sainsbury’s, Cartridge World and Tesco stores.
Source: Oxfordshire County Council (01865 815 499)
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 61 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
12 Second Chance Week (Repair, Resale & Reuse Council)
partnership between local authorities, businesses, schools & residents (reuse)
California RRaRC RRaRC, Repair, Resale and Reuse Council, is a technical council of the California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA), formed in 1994 to bring attention to the reuse and repair industries and businesses in California and the important contributions that these companies make to source reduction through refurbishing and selling goods that might otherwise be landfilled.
Founded in 1997 by the RRaRC, Second Chance Week was a partnership between local government, reuse business, not for profit organisations and schools to organise events that gave items that may have been thrown away a “second chance” (Source: Local Government Commission + 1 916 448 1198).
Events have taken the form of public education campaigns, creating reuse directories, business workshops on profitability of reuse practices, local materials exchange programmes, coat drives, kerbside reuse pickup, student-run recycling programmes, bike repair workshops, college swap-meet and art donations to schools (Local Government Commission, 2001).
The initiative was well publicised before 2001 but less information is available beyond that time.
Modesto California A more recent example comes from Modesto, California which is running a Second Chance Week in October 2005. In particular, the authority is publicising antique shops and second-hand outlets backed up by a store listing, and is encouraging the public to use the Freecycle internet service. Details at: http://www.modestogov.com/prnd/recycling/Second%20Chance%20Week%2005.pdf
Santa Cruz, California As part of Second Chance Week in Santa Cruz, California in 2004, the local authority sponsored community-wide garage sales on the first weekend. This is the fifth year they have run this event.
The council provides direct help to households through a garage sale kit which is free to all residents who want to hold a sale. The kit contains bright-yellow, garage-sale signs, labels for pricing items, and a brochure containing tips on how to hold a successful sale. Included in the brochure is a list of charitable organizations that will pick up leftover, usable household items from residents. “Price stickers” included in the kits are label end-cuts from mailing jobs.
Households holding a sale are required to register with the authority which then advertises the sales in local newspapers during the garage-sale weekend. Local newspapers have supported the event by offering discounted classified ads for residents wanting to publicise their sale separately. The total cost of the event to the authority was reported at $3,500.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 62 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
13 Bring and Take Days
local authority/community partner led events for local residents
In Hounslow, the local authority recycling team organises, runs and publicises (through its residents’ magazine) a bring and take day. Residents are encouraged to bring good quality re-useable items to a local church hall where they can browse items brought by others and take away what they want for free. Residents do not need to bring items to be able to take from the event.
Items are deposited between 10am and noon; items can be taken between noon and 3pm.
Newham have run similar events in partnership with Newham Community Recycling.
In Oxfordshire, Witney Waste Action Group (one of the county’s CAGs) runs a monthly green waste bring day, whereby residents can bring green waste to be shredded, either to take home again for mulch or to send for composting at a local farm. The shredder (and operative) is provided by the CAG with other support from West Oxford District Council.
Source: http://www.witneywag.org.uk/
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 63 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
14 Waste Free Holidays Programme King County
partnership with local authorities and business (waste minimisation)
King County in Seattle has established a festive waste minimisation programme to ‘give experiences instead of stuff’ to reduce impact on the environment and encourages residents to assess their waste habits.
The programme functions as a reward scheme for waste minimisation and encourages local businesses. In partnership with over 140 businesses, residents are offered discounts on experiences of between 15 and 50% if purchased between mid November and the end of December. Participating organisations range from ballet companies, museums, massage and sports shops, restaurants, cinemas and theatres.
The programme has expanded from an original 100 participating businesses and now incorporates the City of Tacoma and more Seattle-wide organisations. In 2004 it was advertised for the first time in the Seattle holiday parade on November 26 (the day after Thanksgiving) and traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year.
Source: King County Solid Waste Division, 2005 + 1 206 296 4481 www.wastefreeholidays.com
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 64 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
15 Other potentially interesting projects
Further projects which could be followed up if required:
(i) London Recycling Fund
Waste minimisation/re-use was a key focus for the final round of the London Recycling Fund, and included several projects where the Local Authorities are working in partnership either with community organisations, residents associations or local business (source: London Waste Action (020 7665 1441):
Bexley partnership with WEN and Real Nappies Project £151,576
Croydon Appliance Reuse Project £639,000
Hackney Reuse Bulky Household Waste Project £356,000
£236,000 Newham Bulky Household Waste Project Sally Crackler at LB Newham
North London Waste Authority Reuse & Recycling Project (with the Association of Charity £21,000 Shops) The project supported charity shops and estimated the contribution of charity shops to diversion at 15 tonnes per store. As a result, promotion of charity shops is being included in the joint NLWA strategy. The study also involved consideration of how recycling credits could be paid to charity shops.
(ii) WWF Community Learning and Action for Sustainable Living
This is a Defra EAF48 project 2005-8, funded by £177,000 over the three years. WWF will be working with three community groups in Surrey to help them think more about sustainable living, adopt new behaviours and self-evaluate behaviour change.
The first year of the project involved research into sustainable living and behaviour change as well as development of a method of working towards sustainable living at neighbourhood level. The projects will go live in 2005/6.
(iii) Global Action Plan
GAP secured EAF funding to further develop its eco-teams model to 15 communities. The work programme includes full evaluation of costs and benefits.
48 The final evaluation review of EAF projects can be found at http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=EV02004_7823_FRP.pdf (accessed 10/03/10).
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 65 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
(iv) Peterborough Environment City Trust’s Seeding Sustainable Communities
Another EAF project, “this programme seeks to embed environmentally sustainable behaviour in householders moving into new housing developments in Peterborough. Households will receive options for a more sustainable quality of life, reducing the impacts that negative practices have on the environment. This will be achieved by visiting new households, offering ‘Sustainable Living’ Welcome Packs, personalised travel plans, a community needs survey and community website.” (Source: Defra Activate October 2005).
(v) National Federation of Womens Institutes 90@90
Again, funded through EAF, this project is a celebration of the 90 years the NFWI has been in existence. The first phase involved the production of a report which looks back at consumption trends over the last 90 years and identifies the consequences of this for sustainable development in local communities.
The next phase is to use the report as a basis for identifying sustainable consumption/development projects that local federations will take forward. Some local groups have already been active in developing low waste/reuse solutions (eg crocheting plastic swim bags for local school children from shredded plastic carrier bags). See the web site for more details – www.nwfi.org.uk .
(vi) Cumbria DEVICE Programme
Also an EAF project, this has three main components:
encouraging community & domestic energy efficiency through the creation of sustainable community buildings; creating environment business networks to develop economies of scale for recycling commercial waste; supporting households in four pilot communities to adopt more sustainable lifestyles.
The publicity material does not say whether there are links between the household interventions and the environment business networks.
(vii) Scrapstores
These are typically led by community organisations funded or sponsored by external organisations, and sometimes in partnership with local authorities.
Their purpose is to collect clean and safe scrap materials from local businesses which can be used by schools and other youth groups for art and craft activities.
Two Hampshire Scrapstores (in Southampton) are listed on the www.scrapstore.org.uk web site, which also presents case studies from other regions.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 66 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
(viii) Devon ‘Get Your kit Off’
This initiative was reviewed by Eunomia in their report on incentives schemes for Defra (Household Waste Incentive Schemes: Case Study Overviews, May 2005).
The project ran for five months in 2004/5. It involved parents and children being asked to take outgrown or unwanted sports kit to their local household waste recycling centre where it was exchanged for a coupon. Sports kit was then donated by the council to Oxfam.
Participation was incentivised by a prize of £1,000 awarded to the school which collected the most coupons. Additional operational costs of £1,250 were incurred. Over the whole county, 31 of a possible 260 schools chose to take part.
At the time of Eunomia’s report, no formal evaluation had been undertaken but returns from Oxfam were expected to show how much waste had been diverted. Eunomia further notes that this type of scheme has limited potential to make a significant impact on diversion given the small percentage of the waste stream accounted for by sports kit.
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 67 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
5.3 The Delivery Organisations
Table 6 The Delivery Organisations - rationale and participation
‘Moment of Targeted Delivery Purpose for targeting Location Total number of Total number of More information Change’ Organisation(s) this Delivery (District area) members members signed target group Organisation up to the project
Retirement University of the Third All groups had All within the Approximately 150 at start of http://tottonu3a.blogspot.com/ Age (Totton) expressed an interest in New Forest 65 project University of the Third waste management (by Approximately http://www.newforestu3a.hampshire.org.uk/ Age (Waterside) having a speaker along 220 19 dropped out University of the Third to one of their Over 300 officially in the n/a Age (Lymington) meetings) and had first 6 months attended trips to waste infrastructure Becoming a National Childbirth Organise ‘Nearly New’ Winchester Approximately 109 http://www.winchester-nct.org.uk/ parent Trust (Winchester) sales (based on reusing 230 National Childbirth items), collect items for South- Around 200 http://www.nctpregnancyandbabycare.com/in-your- Trust (Southampton) recycling ampton area/southampton/nearlynewsale Andover Family Initiatives on health Test Valley Total number 15 http://www.andoveraflcentre.co.uk/ Learning Centre living which relate to enrolled is sustainable lifestyles. approximately Have been involved in 1,300 various recycling initiatives Sending Hamble Primary School All had taken part in the Eastleigh 275 children 17 http://www.hamble-pri.hants.sch.uk/ children to ‘Recycle for Hampshire’ school North Baddesley Outreach Education Test Valley 245 children 28 http://www.northbaddesley-jun.hants.sch.uk/ Primary and Junior programme, and had Schools expressed a wish to Rownhams Primary move 300 children 11 http://www.rownhams.hants.sch.uk/ School Nursling Primary School 209 children 20 http://www.nursling.hants.sch.uk/
Kimpton Primary School 155 children 11 http://kimpton.ignorminious.co.uk/index.php?p=welcome.php
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 68 Hampshire Waste Minimisation Projects – Scoping paper | A report for Defra Contents
‘Workplace’ Hampshire County Delivers the ‘exemplify’ Various More 1,500 45 http://www.hants.gov.uk/ Council element of the 4E’s employees model, supports the internal recycling scheme, and compliments the internal ‘9 Lives’ sustainability project Moving house East Hampshire District A recent housing East 148 new Housing http://www.easthants.gov.uk/ (NB this pilot Council, various Estate development in Hampshire Association http://www.drumhsg.co.uk/interestingfact.html did not Agents in Petersfield, Petersfield by DRUM homes, plus proceed – see and DRUM Housing Housing had been people moving final project5 Association recognised for its home captured report for efforts in sustainable through the Estate details) construction Agents
December 2005 (revised March 2010) 69