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Ross-shire Waste Free Refuse Collection Vehicle |
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Thursday, 21 June 2007 |
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Ross-shire Waste Action Network Limited (RoWAN) was set up in 2001. It is a registered charity and company limited by guarantee. By raising awareness, offering support, involving local people and organisations and promoting good practice, it aims to improve waste management across the Ross-shire area. Previously RoWAN managed a pilot project which worked closely with 100 households monitoring their waste and aiming to encourage a reduction in the waste sent to landfill by reducing, reusing and recycling.
Plan
This innovative project proposed to reduce the volume of household waste going to landfill by targeting 4,000 households with an educational and support programme that would encourage them to reduce the waste they produce and to recycle, reuse and compost more of it. The project aimed to demonstrate the impact of the educational programme by providing detailed evidence of the weight of refuse produced by households each week (and to show the changes over time). The project aimed to fit a weight-measuring device to the collection machine which allows each bin to be weighed accurately. This would enable the project to build up a week-by-week dataset of the weight of waste sent to landfill by individual households.
The project proposal had a number of stages of implementation.
- Work with Highland Council to select a refuse collection route that is representative of the Highland population.
- Selection of a control group of households to allow comparison.
- Purchase of the refuse collection vehicle (RCV) with an on-board weighing system. Individual wheelie bins were to be electronically tagged (householders could opt out of the electronic tagging) to enable RoWAN to measure the volume of waste and to assess the impact of the project. Tagging the individual bins also allowed analysis by area or type of household.
- Education and information � participating households would be targeted with practical advice and support and a variety of educational and awareness raising materials. These included a telephone helpline, community meetings, presentations, school visits, and material such as an A to Z Waste Guide, a project bulletin, a newsletter and fact sheets.
The key objectives were to divert 1,607 tonnes from landfill, and to involve 75% of all households on the refuse collection route in waste reduction activities. Additional targets included:
- reduce waste to landfill by 30%;
- increase home composting from the current 27% to 47%;
- increase the percentage of households that recycle from 49% to 75%;
- increase the percentage of waste recycled from 3.5% to 25%;
- increase the household involvement in reuse from 68% to 75%; and
- increase the percentage of households engaging in waste reduction from 54% to 75%.
The total projected cost of the project was £227,000 over an 18 month period. This sum included capital costs of £31,336 and revenue costs of £195,664. An additional £72,205 was identified as an in-kind contribution.
The funding package outlined in the application was:
LEADER + Programme
£4,000
Scottish Natural Heritage
£30,000
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
£96,000
TWS Grant Scheme
£96,000
Total
£226,000
The projected outputs
- 3,000 households participating.
- 1,606 tonnes of waste diverted from landfill.
- Education and awareness programme.
- Behavioural changes in participating households.
Progress
The project experienced a delay in starting due to difficulties in securing partnership funding, staffing changes, and difficulties in reaching agreement with Highland Council on the ownership of the refitted vehicle.
It has also proved more difficult than anticipated to identify a suitable refuse collection route with Highland Council as detailed records of each route are not maintained. As the requirement was for a route which covered both urban and rural areas, the route which has now been identified crosses the Highlands from Alness to the West Coast, including Ullapool and Lochcarron.
There have also been a number of teething problems with the IT systems installed to collect and analyse the weight of each tagged bin.
Outputs
- The project is not yet operational so the anticipated outputs have not been delivered at this stage.
- The infrastructure is now in place. RoWAN has collected baseline information and will be able to develop detailed analytical information on the success of the education and community programmes to be carried out.
Successes
- Overcoming barriers
There has been a succession of barriers to the implementation of this project. However, RoWAN has now successfully overcome these and built a unique project with the potential to provide robust, detailed evidence on the success of waste education programmes.
Challenges
- Ownership of vehicle
It had been assumed that Highland Council would maintain ownership of the RCV, but in the event, RoWAN was forced to purchase the collection vehicle itself.
Learning points
RoWAN is a very small organisation. The Project Officer employed to deliver this project was the only member of staff. The implementation of this project has stretched the capacity of the voluntary board members.
Projects need to ensure that they have adequate staffing resources to deliver projects of this scale.
Review
Future
The next stage in delivery of this project is to deliver the education programmes in the community. A new staffing structure has been developed to increase the delivery capacity of the organisation (increasing the staffing of the organisation to two). RoWAN has applied to the INCREASE Programme for funding to cover the additional staff costs.
Summary of impact
Weight of waste diverted
- The project has now established baseline data but no waste has yet been diverted.
Household involvement
- The project will cover 2,100 households. It is anticipated that 75% will participate in waste reduction activities.
- The project will influence a wider group of households than those involved in the collection service through its educational programme which will involve schools as well as communities.
Social, economic or environmental benefits
- The key aim of the project is to raise awareness and change behaviours. The project has the capacity to inform future approaches to waste reduction.
Impact on the organisation
- RoWAN is a relatively new organisation. Managing this project has increased its credibility with funders and partners.
- The flexibility of TWS Grant Scheme funding has allowed the full financial package to be drawn down despite the delays in the project start.
Impact on the community sector infrastructure
- This is a research and development project. The objective is not to develop the physical infrastructure for waste management, but to create a sustainable change in the behaviours of individual households (reduction in the levels of waste produced).
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Communities