SUMMARY 2014 Fleurieu Regional Waste Authority Kerbside Waste and Recycling Services Audit 1
Summary of FRWA Kerbside Waste and Recycling Services Audit Report Executive Summary The FRWA bin audits for Yankalilla, Victor Harbor and Alexandrina were conducted at the Goolwa Waste and Recycling Depot in the week beginning October 27 th to October 31 st and Kangaroo Island bin materials were audited at the Kangaroo Island Resource Recovery Centre (KIRRC) on Wednesday October 29 th. In total the audits comprised: 104 each of domestic waste and recycling bins and 102 green organics bins across Alexandrina, Victor Harbor and Yankalilla councils (100 bins were targeted but extra bins were collected) A total of 50 domestic waste and 50 domestic recycling bins from rural and Kingscote kerbside collections 10 commercial waste bins from Victor Harbor 10 commercial recycling bins from Port Elliot 10 each of commercial waste and recycling bins from Kingscote and 10 public litter bins from Port Elliot (Horseshoe Bay) (Bonus service offered by auditor) The following week, November 3 rd to 7 th, a daily audit of a bucketful (approximating 2 cubic metres) from recycling loads was conducted at SKM Recycling s Lonsdale facility and a further audit of recycling bin materials from Monday and Tuesday full truck collections on the 15 th and 16 th of December. 2.1Household Bins A total of 5,549 kilograms and an estimated 58,060 Litres were audited from household bins over the 5 days. The table below gives the breakdown by stream: Waste Recycling Organics Total No. of bins 154 154 102 410 Weight (kg) 1,577 1,732 2,240 5,549 Volume (L) 13,940 23,730 20,390 58,060 Table 1: Breakdown of weight and volume for household kerbside collections. The key recommendations for member councils to improve the diversion rate from landfill are: Revisit recycling information to residents and include new guidelines from SKM to encourage more diversion from landfill with simple instructions to: Keep small lids on plastic bottles and put in recycling Put other larger plastic and metal lids in recycling Recycle all paper and card unless it is contaminated with food Introduce more frequent collections in townships and/or promote extra bins to capture a greater volume of recycling and garden materials Encourage residents to reduce food waste, home compost food scraps and to dispose of food scraps to the organics bin Remind residents of landfill bans on electronic materials and light globes. 2
Recommendations for Households To maximise the diversion of materials from landfill and reduce contamination (particularly in recycling collections), it is recommended that FRWA: Expand green organics collections to include townships (Normanville/ Yankalilla Council) and encourage residents to home compost or put food scraps in a green organics bin for composting Promote recycling messages to increase recovery and reduce contamination, including updating website messages: No bagged or tied materials loose clean and dry Recycle all paper and cardboard except food contaminated paper/card and tissues (green bin) Recycle all lids plastic and metal (ring pull, jar lids); keep smaller lids on the bottle when recycling through your kerbside recycling bin Recycle all glass jars, bottles and steel food cans; ensure they are free of food residue (wipe or rinse) and highlight to residents the % of these materials still in waste bins Encourage residents to have separate collection bins inside the home for recyclables and waste so they can be disposed correctly at source Encourage residents to collect foil containers and alfoil wrap for recycling (particularly small foil pet food containers which have increased in popularity) Promote recycling of empty aerosol cans Promote increased recycling opportunities for plastic toys, rigid household plastic items, such as laundry baskets, buckets, kitchenware, plastic toys, plastic cups, pot plant pots and metal pots and pans Encourage residents to divert clean film plastics from packaging to council waste and recycling depots or via the Coles REDcycle plastic recycling programs and other collections at shopping centres. 2. 2 Commercial Bins Waste and recycling bins were collected from a range of commercial premises on Tuesday 28.10.14 and Wednesday 29.10.14; Victor Harbor waste, Port Elliot recycling, and both waste and recycling bins from Kingscote. Businesses included a tattoo parlour, bank, real estate, service station, veterinary clinic, tyre dealer, movie hire and café/food. Three each of waste and recycling bins were collected from the Veterinary Clinic in Kingscote; the remaining Kingscote collections were single bins. 3
The table below gives the breakdown of bins by weight, % full and materials: Bin capacity kg/bin % full % waste % recycling % organics % special Victor Harbor Waste (mix) 8.98kg 94% 35.29% 27.45% 30.17% 7.08% Kingscote Waste (140L) 6.72kg 73% 58.54% 8.89% 24.41% 8.16% Port Elliot Recycling (240L) 12.86kg 83% 20.49% 79.33% 0% 0.17% Kingscote Recycling (140L) 4.37kg 80% 1.79% 80.49% 6.64% 11.08% Table 3: Kg s per bin and percentage breakdown of materials from commercial collections. Recommendations for Business The materials in bins from commercial premises contain some items specific to the nature of the business and others that are typically generated from an under desk bin or kitchen area. With education and bin systems to collect all paper/ card/ CDL and comingled recycling these figures can be improved. A bin assessment and conversations with employees can achieve significant results. Clean and dry recycling is a commodity for council and the commercial waste collection particularly in Victor Harbor comprises nearly 27% materials that can be recycled. Food scraps which are approximately 20% of waste bin materials by weight, could also be collected for commercial composting 2.3 Litter Bins 10 litter bins were collected from Horseshoe Bay on Monday October 27 th and audited at the Goolwa depot. A total of 91.54kg and an estimated 1180L of materials were audited. Broadly, 5 types of materials were identified: Picnic waste food packaging, cutlery, food scraps and CDL drink containers Bagged materials from businesses with food waste and recycling Bagged dumped household waste nappies, clean recycling, uneaten food Bagged dog poo Bagged hand towel presumably from the public toilets Recommendations for Litter Bins The public litter bins in Horseshoe Bay are accessible for sizeable bags of food, waste and recycling materials and are being used to dispose of materials excess to household and business bin capacities. There is a separate bin for the collection of 10 cent drink containers (Lions Club), but 43 drink containers were counted in litter bins. To reduce waste it is recommended to: Restrict the opening of the bins so that bags of household waste cannot be dumped Assess the disposal of waste, recycling and food scraps by local businesses (cafés, takeaway food) and offer options for collection of food scraps and comingled recycling/cardboard Increase opportunities to collect CDL drink containers for refund/ fund raising. 4
2.4 SKM audit A sample of approximately 2 cubic metres (1 bucket full from the front end loader) of recycling was required to be audited at Lonsdale each day in the week beginning November the 3 rd. A collection truck (incorrectly) deposited a small sample of approximately 50 bins at Lonsdale on the Monday and Tuesday and the audits were repeated on Monday December 16 th and Tuesday December 17 th with samples from full collection trucks. From Wednesday to Friday (initial November audit) the audit materials were taken from loads collected at kerbside, transferred to a skip at the Goolwa Depot, transported to Lonsdale and tipped. The table below gives the weight for each sample (including the isolated 50 bin samples) and shows that with normal processing and transfer of recycling, the weight of materials for the same volume (one bucketful from the loader) is approximately doubled: Day of collection Total kg % Recyclables % Contamination Mon 3.11.14 121.44 90.30% 9.70% Tues 4.11.14 187.64 84.41% 15.59% Wed 5.11.14 359.34 79.97% 20.03% Thurs 6.11.14 395.64 82.22% 17.78% Fri (x2) 7.11.14 312.28 89.20% 10.08% Mon 16.12.14 456.46 68.75% 31.25% Tues 17.12.14 243.80 81.80% 18.20% Table 4: Total kg s audited per bucket load for each sample day (Friday is doubled for comparison as half a bucket load was audited due to time constraints) and % breakdown of recyclables and contamination. Recommendations To reduce contamination levels in recycling collections, key contamination issues need to be addressed as noted in Section 2.1. It is recommended that FRWA consider a bin tagging program to visually inspect bins for contamination prior to collection to educate residents about materials that are not acceptable in recycling. Textiles, e-waste and metal are likely to be considered recyclable by residents who believe they are doing the right thing by disposing them to their recycling bin. Bagged general waste materials, (especially with food) must be deterred and are common in recycling collections. If contamination is found in the bin, a message is left to educate the resident and further inspections are conducted to monitor behaviour change. Broken glass increases contamination levels as recycling collections are processed. The audit shows that residue, (which comprises dirt, shredded paper and broken glass less than 20mm that is not able to be captured), increases with the initial transfer of materials to Lonsdale either via RoRo bin or kerbside collection truck. 5
Wine bottles do not have a 10 cent deposit to attract separate collection at depots and Scout recyclers, but kerbside recycling collections would benefit from their removal with reduced glass contamination. More glass would also be captured and not lost in residue. It is recommended that residents be encouraged to drop wine bottles to depots when they are taking other 10 cent containers. There may be other viable options to separate or cushion glass bottles in recycling loads to explore. 4. Household Bin Audit Results A total of 5,549 kilograms and an estimated 58,060 litres of materials were sorted from household bins over 5 collection days. 4.3 Contamination Recorded at Collection Visible contamination was recorded at collection. Appendix A details the households with materials incorrectly disposed. Overall in waste bins: 49 households had visible recycling 10 households had visible garden materials 3 had visible e-waste In recycling bins: 59 households had visible contamination In green organics bins: 10 bins had visible contamination 4.4 Residual Waste Bin Audit A total of 1,576.72kg and an estimated 13,940L of materials were audited from 154 waste bins; an average weight of 10.24kg/hh/week. This is comparable with the FRWA reported average weight of 10kg per bin per week. 4.5 Recycling Bin Audit A total of 1732.19kg and an estimated 23728L of household recycling bin materials were audited from 154 bins across the 5 days. Taking into account the weekly collection of recycling on Kangaroo Island and the 4 weekly collections on the mainland this is an average of 3.84kg/hh/wk. FRWA reports an average weight of 3.25kg/hh/wk for the 4 weekly (mainland) collection. 4.6 Green Organics Bin Audit The total amount of materials audited from 102 green organics bins was 2,240kg and an estimated 20,388L. This is an average of 5.49kg/hh/wk and 200L per bin. FRWA reports a comparable average weight of 5.75kg/hh/wk for green organics bins. Contamination with non-organics material was 36.84kg; 1.64% of the total sample by weight and a count of 164 pieces. 6
There is potential to increase the capture of garden materials with more frequent collections (Normanville and Goolwa South in particular). Pruning s and weeds dominate the green organics collection and it may be worth increasing collection frequency at this time of year (change of season). An increased frequency for collections would make it more viable to dispose food scraps to green organics bins in terms of odour and insect issues. 5. 2012 Audit Results Comparison The methodology and timing for the 2012 audit is quite different to 2014 as the purpose of the 2012 audit was to assess garden materials in residual waste bins on the mainland pre and post green organics collections. Other variations included; The timing of the audits - May and June in 2012 and October in 2014 and The method of collection of bin materials on Kangaroo Island as a split truck collected both waste and recycling samples. The 2012 report comments on unusually high levels of cross contamination in waste and recycling collections as a result of this. Recommendations The recommendations in 2012 are similar to 2014 in that more garden materials would be captured in services are increased in frequency and/ or geographically Waste bin materials will be reduced with a policy to encourage the diversion of food scraps for composting either at home in via a green organics bin More recycling can potentially be captured with a fortnightly rather than 4 weekly collection. 6. Commercial Bin Audits Victor Harbor Commercial Waste Bins 10 waste bins from commercial premises were collected in Victor Harbor. Bins were an average of 94% full with a range from 80 to 100%. Port Elliot Commercial Recycling A total of 128.62kg and an estimated 2020L of materials were audited from 10 commercial recycling bins. The average weight of bins was 12.86kg and estimated volume averages just over 200L per bin or 83% full. Kingscote Commercial Waste 10 Kingscote commercial waste and recycling bins were collected from the same premises and included a veterinarian clinic, Caltex service station, Hot Stuff (takeaway food), Finding Workable Solutions, Turner Tyres, Kingscote Movie Hire, Whitham and Couchman (accountants) and Beaumont Tiles. The veterinarian clinic presented 3 waste and 3 recycling bins. Recycling bins were an average of 80% full and waste bins 72.5%. A full record is included in Appendix A. A total of 100.78kg of materials and an estimated 972L were audited from the Kingscote commercial waste collection. 7
Kingscote Commercial Recycling A total of 43.68kg and nearly 1050L of materials from the same 10 commercial recycling bins were audited. Recommendations The audit of commercial waste and recycling loads identifies opportunities to increase the recovery of clean and dry recycling with more frequents collections (Victor Harbor), and to provide education so that more materials are recovered for recycling through SKM guidelines. Food based businesses offer opportunities to recover food scraps for compost. It is evident from bagged waste materials that most of the businesses surveyed would benefit from source separation systems in kitchen and office areas to capture fundamentals like paper and CDL drink containers. An approach to provide bin assessments, education, extra and increased frequency of collections will be beneficial given that recyclable materials are now a commodity for FRWA member councils. An assessment involves a walk through the premises, inspecting and photographing bins and talking to staff about the existing collections and disposal practices. Solutions can often be simple such as: Having consistent bin colours and signage for disposal Ensuring there are collection points in the place where materials are generated (recycling can often be placed in a waste bin collection because a collection point is not available; waste bins were 14% paper by weight) Educating staff about collection options other than waste for some materials (e g hair and hand towel for organics collections). 7. Public Litter Bins 10 public litter bins were collected from Horseshoe Bay on Monday October 27 th and audited at the Goolwa depot. A total of 91.54kg and an estimated 1180L of materials were audited. Recommendations The public litter bins in Horseshoe Bay are accessible for sizeable bags of food, waste and recycling materials and are being used to dispose of materials excess to household and business bin capacities. There is a separate bin for the collection of 10 cent drink containers (Lions Club), but 43 containers were counted from the public litter bin collection. The audit has identified opportunities to reduce waste: Restrict the opening of the bins so that bags of household waste cannot be dumped Assess the disposal of waste, recycling and food scraps by local businesses (cafés, takeaway food) to implement options for collection of food scraps and comingled recycling/cardboard Increase opportunities to collect CDL drink containers for refund/ fund raising. 8