Household waste management practices in Charnwood Borough

Household waste recycling rates vary between 20-60% across the UK. Legislative and financial measures introduced to reduce landfill disposal of waste in the UK, have impacted on the way Local Authorities operate their household waste and recycling collection services. This paper reports on the performance of Charnwood Borough Council (CBC), a Local Authority in England, it is responsible for the collection and recycling of waste from 67,000 households. This service is carried out by a private company, Serco, who operate household waste collections for 15 UK Local Authorities. To improve recycling performance CBC has changed the collection frequency and increased the number of materials segregated from residual waste for recovery. There have also been actions and campaigns to raise public awareness. Together these have improved recycling and composting rates in the CBC area from 16% in 2002/03 to 46.1% in 2010/11. This paper is a case study and progress report on the details of how this was achieved. It compares performance with other Local Authorities, explores the impact of local operational and policy issues on the amount of household waste collected for recycling. The research has concluded that differences in how the household waste services were provided and local policies influenced the amount of recyclates recovered. Local decision making and the ability to tailor services to suit different demographic areas, together with partnerships between neighbouring Authorities supported better sustainable waste management.