The potential for joint domestic/commercial collections

Local authorities can set up their own trade waste collections for business customers, and under the Controlled Waste Regulations they can charge businesses for these services. A key driver behind the set-up of such services is the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS), which sets challenging targets for the reduction of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill (DEFRA, 2005). Trade wastes count against an authority’s LATS targets, and there is therefore an incentive for authorities to better address the recycling or composting of biodegradable trade waste and divert it from landfill. This would not only help an authority meet its LATS targets but could also increase its overall recycling rate. Research by Enviros Consulting (2005) showed that nearly 22 per cent of the co-collected waste stream was made up of recyclable paper and cardboard, and if such percentages were diverted away from landfill in London this would equate to over 100,000 tonnes as a contribution towards the capital’s LATS targets.

Local authorities that offer trade waste collections often do so as a separate entity, using a fleet of dedicated vehicles and hiring out bins to businesses as part of the overall service contract. Within the UK there are a few examples of waste collection authorities facilitating the collection of domestic and commercial waste as part of the same collection round. For recyclate collection, this appears to be a much more efficient use of transport resources, as residential areas encompassing areas of retail/ business can be covered using the same vehicle fleet as part of the same round. All commercial waste collected as part of a joint collection would have to be separated out prior to weighing to meet legal requirements.

New Forest District Council (NFDC) has operated such a joint commercial/domestic waste collection service, allowing SMEs to put out recyclate for collection as part of the domestic round (McLeod and Cherrett, 2006). In their operating model, commercial waste is collected from SMEs that have pre-registered with the council and have acquired a ‘duty of care’ certificate (defined under the Control of Pollution Act 1974, the Collection and Disposal of Waste Regulations 1984 and the Environmental Protection Act 1990). This waste is collected on the same rounds as the domestic recyclate collection. In research undertaken by McLeod and Cherrett (2006), 13 weekly residual-waste rounds were operated by NFDC, with the proportion of commercial waste collected ranging from 0.1 per cent to 3.2 per cent (97.5 tonnes collected during 2005/06 through the domestic rounds). Such a system is ideally suited to small businesses that may be producing small quantities of waste and do not want to sign up to a large-scale commercial collection service.

The ability of an existing domestic round to collect additional SME waste is dependent on the spare capacity in the refuse collection vehicle (RCV). Spare capacity is needed in terms of both physical space and also in the amount of time available for collecting due to the time constraints associated with crew shift patterns and the operating hours of waste treatment/disposal facilities. A theoretical study, modelling the impacts of incorporating SME commercial waste collections into certain domestic rounds across Rushmoor and Hart in Hampshire, was undertaken (McLeod and Cherrett, 2006). Using data collected from the domestic collection fleets, a total spare capacity of 11.3 per cent (14.4 tonnes) was estimated across the eight modelled rounds, with an additional one hour and 16 minutes of time available for each round. The impacts on round distance, time, revenue generation and cost were investigated, associated with collecting different amounts of commercial waste (3.9 T, 7.4 T, 14.4 T) from random points on the round. The results suggested that additional commercial waste loads of 3.9 T and 7.4 T could be accommodated using the existing domestic collection rounds. For commercial waste volumes of 7.4 T and 14.4 T however, one and two additional trips to the waste disposal sites were needed respectively, which would increase the overall collection costs.

There may be wider environmental benefits to be gained through the introduction of joint domestic/commercial collections. Recycling performance amongst SMEs should improve whilst the volume of waste taken to landfill would reduce. Total vehicle mileage and traffic congestion may be reduced, particularly in shopping areas, if the number of visits by waste collection vehicles could be reduced. The current fragmented situation, where some areas can be serviced by many different collection companies, could be improved if the WCA offered a commercial waste collection service of this type.