Closing the Loop on Waste Community Engagement, Cultural Diversity, and Shared Responsibilities in Waste Management in Canterbury-Bankstown CLOSING the LOOP on WASTE

Institute for Culture and Society Closing the Loop on Waste Community Engagement, Cultural Diversity, and Shared Responsibilities in Waste Management in Canterbury-Bankstown CLOSING THE LOOP ON WASTE First published, 2019 Creative Licence copyright © Authors: Paul James, Abby Mellick Lopes, Sebastián Martín-Valdéz, Shuman Partoredjo, Juan Francisco Salazar, Flora Zhong Published by the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia A report commissioned by the City of Canterbury Bankstown Image: A shopping trolley dumped near new high-rise apartments, Canterbury, 2019 Image: Abby Mellick Lopes Cover image: Public compost bins, Cooks River, Canterbury, 2019 Image: Abby Mellick Lopes 2 Western Sydney University CLOSING THE LOOP ON WASTE Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 ≥ Overview ≥ Insights RECOMMENDATIONS 6 INTRODUCTION 8 CHAPTER 1 PRACTICES OF WASTE 12 ≥ Recycling ≥ Dumping ≥ Littering ≥ Composting ≥ Re-use CHAPTER 2 MAKING WASTE PUBLIC: 20 SHARED RESPONSIBILITY THROUGH ONGOING ENGAGEMENT ≥ Working Together ≥ Communications CHAPTER 3 CULTURAL QUESTIONS IN SOCIAL CONTEXT 25 APPENDICES 32 ≥ Anticipating Policy Shifts and the Circular Economy Challenge ≥ Social Change in Canterbury-Bankstown ≥ Engagement Strategies in Culturally Diverse Communities ≥ Online Survey Questionnaire REFERENCES 70 westernsydney.edu.au/ics 3 CLOSING THE LOOP ON WASTE Executive Summary OVERVIEW One of the key challenges facing all councils INSIGHTS is that waste management is considered Canterbury-Bankstown is a complex and primarily to be an individual’s responsibility, The key findings from the literature review, rapidly changing municipal area, facing all the with a bias toward residents of houses, which focus groups, critical issue workshop, and challenges of a suburban region in a world of is still the main dwelling type in Canterbury- online survey are listed below: increasing economic, ecological, political and Bankstown—though as noted this is rapidly cultural fracturing.1 Demographic change, changing. Residents tend to be treated and 1. Accessibility to a diverse range of rapid densification, and increased pressure on communicated with, mainly as individuals, co-research participants is critical for basic infrastructure, are all characteristic of with neighbourliness seen as an accident ongoing engagement in Canterbury- this and similar municipalities. of circumstance and, when things go right, Bankstown over waste issues. an added benefit. The City of Canterbury Cultural diversity and demographic change Bankstown does a lot in the broad area of The demography of the survey, focus groups are defining features of Canterbury- community engagement, seeking to go and critical issues workshop reveal that Bankstown: both are significant challenges beyond a delivery-of-information approach Council were not able to reach and recruit and two of its greatest assets. The Local with great success. This community- culturally and linguistically diverse residents Government Area (LGA) is home to one of engagement approach could be further for this research via their usual channels, the most diverse populations in Australia and leveraged in the waste-management area, including traffic to the website. This difficulty the world. More than 44 per cent of residents and integrated fully into its approach. is not unusual and was exacerbated by a are born overseas and almost two-thirds demanding time-frame. speak languages other than English at home. Considering the rapid densification taking There is, in addition, an extraordinarily diverse place in Canterbury-Bankstown, neighbourly 2. Information and communication range of NGOs in Canterbury-Bankstown (see relationships should be considered as tend to be treated by councils Appendix 2). This creates both opportunities structurally significant in terms of the effective as the same thing. and challenges for developing programs that management of waste. In collaboration with successfully engage with members of the community leaders and strata managers. Councils tend to rely substantially on community and meet their needs. This is perhaps the key overall finding of this a diffusionist model of communication Closing the Loop on Waste report: promoting the transfer of information from The city is comparatively dense. The city’s those who have knowledge to those who population density stands at a relatively Council should ideally focus on engaging with don’t. The City of Canterbury Bankstown is no high 31.4 persons per hectare, compared to communities as groups of people cohabiting exception. However, the evidence suggests the South Sydney Region of Councils’ 24.3 in a location—particularly as residents of that good communication only happens under persons per hectare and Greater Sydney’s a new multi-unit dwellings—to facilitate certain structured conditions where person- overall 3.9 persons per hectare (see Appendix a perception of waste management as a to-person relationships are developed with 2). In addition, there is a trend to multi-unit community responsibility. individuals and communities. dwellings and multi-storey apartment living. This means that the pressure on infrastructure Individuals both within Council and in the is increasing. community, are currently working very hard to 3. In responding to behavioural monitor and educate people to improve their change, Councils tend to work In this context, waste-management is critical waste-management practices. Nevertheless, with a behaviourist model. and becoming increasingly complicated. the feeling of ‘barely scratching the surface’ There is a tendency in the waste-management Waste and recycling are essential services is being conveyed in Council and community literature and the strategies adopted provided by the City of Canterbury Bankstown forums. An enhanced community-level by councils and municipalities to rely with major implications for impact on the approach might help to alleviate some of this substantially on an attitude-behaviour-context safety, health, amenity and wellbeing of the burden on individuals including the wellspring model of behaviour change. The City of residents of the LGA. Waste management is of community advocates, creating a norm of Canterbury Bankstown is no exception. Such a one of the most significant and most intensive civility and a shift in the cultural disposition method may successfully foster an identity of services provided by the City of Canterbury toward waste management in environmental citizenship for a limited number Bankstown (21 per cent of its budget). Canterbury-Bankstown. of residents in the LGA, particularly based on 1 1 NB. The Council name is ‘City of Canterbury Bankstown’ and abbreviated to CBCity; the urban area is referenced as Canterbury-Bankstown; and ‘Canterbury-Bankstown Council’ is the legal name of the city. 4 Western Sydney University CLOSING THE LOOP ON WASTE waste recycling in certain community groups. practically encouraging local precinct- goods as desirable, resilient and often of a However, this kind of governmentality, upon based composting), is possibly higher design quality than the ‘fast’ options which the attitude-behaviour-choice model is leading to a lack of engagement. available on the market. predicated, tends to ignore the need for, and could potentially be inhibiting consideration Because many migrants have a deep 10. Participatory communication relationship with growing, sharing, or of, broader societal change concerning urgent and education is important, environmental issues involving consumption harvesting food, this might be an opportunity particularly where it promotes and waste. to introduce on site options including technologies for organics recycling (discussed local leadership and diversity. 4. Learning about waste is clearly in Chapter 1, Insight 6), which might be more Shared responsibility on waste management conducive to the limited space available in culturally specific, however, is not best accomplished through public multi-unit dwellings. this not necessarily in itself an information sessions and presentations organised by industry, often in partnership explanatory basis for attributing 7. There is evidence that developing with government. These tend to support problems of ‘bad behaviour’. a positive approach to reuse and individual-level responsibility in a largely The few participants in our focus groups who systematically working with local top-down fashion. Such events need to be had come to Australia from countries other communities to manage and formalise brought into a larger program of community than Europe reported that in their country informal kerbside exchange can engagement. of origin, waste had little meaning. However, mitigate waste production. more importantly, our recycling system is 11. The first civic encounter that a complex and is by necessity becoming more Dumping is undoubtedly a serious problem in newly arrived citizen in Canterbury- complex, which demands ongoing attention to Canterbury-Bankstown, with a range of risks. Bankstown experiences is critical. educational needs. Even committed recyclers Following the recommendations of community were unsure about what could and couldn’t be participants, however, we suggest exploring There are significant problems with waste recycled, what the various symbols imprinted the possibility that dumping is possibly a result minimisation and recycling across new on products mean and what was still relevant of structural issues, which might

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