Public Attitudes to Waste in South Lanarkshire
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PUBLIC ATTITUDES TO WASTE IN SOUTH LANAKSHIRE FINAL REPORT October 2002 Dr N Souter & B Williams CONTENTS Contents I List of Tables III List of Figures IV 1.0 Introduction 1 1.1 SWAG Description 1 1.2 National Waste Strategy 2 1.3 Glasgow and Clyde Valley Waste Strategy Area 3 2.0 Methodology Stage 1 4 2.1 Sampling 4 3.0 Summary of the Scottish Waste Awareness Group Door to Door Survey 6 3.1 Public Awarness of the Different Types of Household Waste 6 3.2 Hazardous Household Waste 6 3.3 Awareness of the Waste Hierarchy 6 3.4 Current Household Reduction Behaviour 6 3.5 Current Household Reuse Behaviour 7 3.6 Current Household Recycling Behaviour 8 3.61 Bring Systems and Civic Amenity 8 3.62 Kerbside Collection System 9 3.63 Civic amenity Sites 10 3.7 Non-Recyclers Attitudes 13 3.8 Encouragement to Recycle 14 I 3.9 Willingness to Participate in Kerbside Collection 14 3.10 Current Household Composting Behaviour 16 3.11 Non-Home Composting Attitudes 17 3.12 Encouragement to Home Compost 18 3.13 Willingness to Participate in Home Composting 18 3.14 Willingness to Participate in a Community Composting Scheme 19 3.15 Willingness to Participate in Separate Green Waste Collection Scheme 20 3.16 Awareness of Local Waste Disposal Options 20 3.17 Awareness of Cost of Domestic Waste Collection and Disposal 21 3.18 Attitudes to Charging for Waste production 22 3.19 Responsibility for Waste Minimisation 23 Appendices Appendix 1 Location of and Distance to Respondents’ nearest Bring Site 24 Appendix 2 Location of and Distance to Respondents’ nearest Civic Amenity Site 27 II List of Tables Table 1.0 South Lanarkshire Sample Area 4 Table 2.0 Housing Types and Survey Numbers 5 Table 3.0 Recycling in South Lanarkshire 8 Table 4.0 Recycling via Bring Sites 9 Table 5.0 Location of nearest Bring Sites 9 Table 6.0 Distance to Bring Sites 10 Table 7.0 Frequency of use of Bring Site 10 Table 8.0 Recycling via Civic Amenity Sites 11 Table 9.0 Location of nearest Civic Amenity Site 11 Table 10.0 Distance to nearest Civic Amenity Site 12 Table 11.0 Frequency of use of Civic Amenity Site 12 Table 12.0 Reasons for not recycling 13 Table 13.0 What would encourage recycling behaviour 14 Table 14.0 Kerbside Container preference 15 Table 15.0 Composting method in South Lanarkshire 17 Table 16.0 Reasons for not composting in South Lanarkshire 17 Table 17.0 Ways identified for the public to encourage home composting 18 Table 18.0 Residents currently participating in community composting 19 Table 19.0 Residents participating in separate garden waste collection 20 Table 20.0 Perceived location of landfill site. 21 Table 21.0 Awareness of cost of waste collection and disposal 22 III List of Figures Figure 1.0 Household Waste Reduce Behaviour 7 Figure 2.0 Household Waste Reuse Behaviour 7 Figure 3.0 Preferred Container for Kerbside Collection 15 Figure 4.0 Willingness to pay for Kerbside Scheme 16 Figure 5.0 Garden Waste Disposal Methods 16 Figure 6.0 Home Composting Container Types 18 Figure 7.0 Willingness to Pay for Home Composter 19 Figure 8.0 Responsibility for Waste Minimisation 23 IV 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Scottish Waste Awareness Group The Scottish Waste Awareness Group (SWAG) is a Scotland-wide group whose aim is to deliver a National Campaign called “WASTE AWARE SCOTLAND” to raise public awareness of waste issues with emphasis on the domestic environment. It is closely linked to the National Waste Strategy for Scotland prepared by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and adopted by the Scottish Executive. The initiative has cross sector support with representatives from Local Authority Bodies, SEPA, NGO’s, Recycling Groups, Consumer Interests, Private Waste Industry, Media Interests and the Scottish Executive on its Steering Group. The Group is chaired by John Summers, Director of Keep Scotland Beautiful. The Objectives of SWAG are: • to influence the actions individuals can take to deal with waste and the reduction of waste in the domestic environment; • to increase the level of public awareness and encourage positive actions in respect of waste generation and management; • to raise the profile of waste as an environmental priority; • to increase the level of personal ownership and responsibility for waste; • to overcome inertia and promote the 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) with reduction of waste featuring prominently as a strategy to tackle increasing waste arisings; • to create more understanding and recognition of the need for waste management facilities of all kinds. Initially a baseline assessment of public attitudes and behaviour towards waste reduction, re-use and recycling across Scotland is being carried out, approximately 5,000 face to face interviews are taking place across the 11 Waste Strategy Areas. The information generated from this exercise will be used to develop promotional materials and help direct the development and implementation of pilot campaigns to change public attitudes to waste. 1 Each pilot campaign will focus on a specific waste issue and will be run concurrently with the implementation of the Area Waste Plans within selected areas. One of the essential components will be to match campaigns with ‘real’ infrastructure so that there is encouragement to make changes that can be supported and enhanced. Each campaign will comprise of three basic stages: • Before survey – to assess attitudes and behaviour towards the identified waste issue before the intervention strategy. • Campaign – Intensive localised intervention strategy run initially for a six-month period working in partnership with the key-stakeholders within the area including the Waste Strategy Area Group co-ordinator, the local authority, the local community and voluntary groups, retailers’ etc. • After Survey – to assess attitudes and behaviour towards the identified waste minimisation issue after the intervention strategy, and to appraise the effectiveness of the different campaigning methods employed. This format will allow the monitoring of progress towards more sustainable public waste management behaviour, and to develop models of good practice for changing public attitudes to reduction, re-use and recycling. Following on from this pilot phase a rolling programme of Waste Aware Campaigns in conjunction with Area Waste strategy time-scales will be implemented across Scotland. These campaigns will provide stakeholders with an understanding of the problem, suggest optimal solutions and provide a means for taking action. Concurrently audience perception value and needs will be considered to ensure stakeholder participation and involvement and to guide stakeholders towards making their own decisions within their local area. 1.2 National Waste Strategy The purpose of the National Waste Strategy is to provide a framework within which Scotland can reduce the amount of waste which it produces and deal with the waste that is produced in more sustainable ways. This strategy is being developed through 11 local groupings that are known as waste strategy areas. Each waste strategy area comprises of the relevant Local Authorities in each area along with Local Enterprise Companies, Waste Management Industry and other key stakeholders. Each area will produce an Area Waste Plan (SEPA, 1999). 2 1.3 Glasgow and Clyde Valley Waste Strategy Area As part of the National Waste Strategy, the Glasgow and Clyde Valley Waste Strategy Area Group has been set up to develop a waste plan for Clyde Valley. This is a partnership of the 8 neighbouring councils of East and West Dumbartonshire, North and South Lanarkshire, Inverclyde, Glasgow, East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire. A key element in the development of the area waste plan is consultation with key stakeholder groups, seeking views on the issues that have arisen as part of the development of future options for dealing with waste within South Lanarkshire. This process ensures that all essential stakeholders, including the public, are asked for their views on the available options or are asked for their views on how they would like to see their waste managed. Public consultation was accomplished within South Lanarkshire using door-to-door questionnaires (300 face-to-face interviews) to assess attitudes to reduce, re-use and recycle (part of national SWAG survey) This is a technical summary of the stages above. 3 2.0 METHODOLOGY STAGE 1 In total, researchers from SWAG (Scottish Waste Awareness Group) conducted 300 interviews among adults’ aged 18+ (this avoided complication with the Market Research Code of Conduct), on a face to face basis at respondents’ own homes throughout South Lanarkshire. All interviews took place between 10am and 8pm, weekdays. 2.1 Sampling A random sample, proportionally stratified (by area) was used in South Lanarkshire. This was devised using information from the local authority to ensure that the demographic profile of the samples matched the population distribution within the test area, as displayed in table 1.0. Area No. of Area No. of Surveys Surveys Abington 1 Gillespie 2 Biggar 3 Hamilton 48 Blackwood 1 Hyndford Bridge 1 Blantyre 18 Kaimend 1 Bothwell 6 Kirkmuirhill 8 Braehead 1 Lanark 9 Cambuslang 19 Larkhall 15 Carluke 12 Law 4 Carmichael 1 Leadhills 2 Carnwath 2 Lesmahagow 3 Carstairs Junction 1 Libberton 1 Carstairs Village 1 New Lanark 1 Causewayend 1 Newbigging 1 Coalburn 1 Ravenstruther 1 Coulter 1 Rigside 1 Covington 1 Rutherglen 32 Crawford 2 Stonehouse 6 Douglas 3 Strathaven 6 East Kilbride 69 Symington 1 Elsrickle 1 Thankerton 1 Elvanfoot 1 Uddingston 6 Forth 3 Wilsontown 1 Table 1.0 The South Lanarkshire Area Survey Sample. 4 The range of housing types and the number of surveys carried out within each of the housing categories is outlined in Table 2.0.