Making Recycling More Effective

Communities – facing tight budgets, volatile markets, and a backlash against recycling – are turning their attention to making diversion programs more efficient and effective. Unfortunately, there is very little quantitative information available to help them improve their programs, even though the majority of recycling programs have been running for more than six years and there are thousands of programs in existence. At conferences, when planners ask about the likely impacts of possible program improvements, the answers usually begin, "well, the city of (fill in the blank) made that change and found...". Answers like this are seldom transferable to other communities.

Similarly, most published information also relies on one or a few – less than 10 – case studies, and published case studies usually describe programs that are outstanding in some way, making the information even less transferable. Can we really expect information from the city of San Jose, Calif., to transfer directly to the village of Hartland, Wis.? That is the only level of information that has, in the past, been available to planners.

Skumatz Economic Research Associates Inc., Seattle – a consulting firm which assists communities, counties, and state organizations across the nation on issues such as rates, revenues and incentives; program effectiveness evaluations; and economic analyses – developed an innovative approach to resolve this deficiency. The firm gathered real world program and performance data from hundreds of communities across the nation and statistically determined which program features are most effective at increasing diversion.

The study was sponsored by the National Soft Drink Association, the Steel Recycling Institute, EPA Region 5, EPA Region 9, the American Plastics Council, the State of Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance and SERA Inc., along with in-kind assistance from the Reason Foundation.

For the report, SERA used a phone survey to gather data from hundreds of communities across North America, including both large and small communities, with a wide variety of programs and approaches to waste management. Data collected included detailed information on programs, budgets, costs, and community information. SERA analyzed the data using a statistical technique that allows the development of defensible, generalizable estimates of the impacts of specific program features on diversion, controlling for differences in demographics and various other program elements.

The SERA report notes that the single most important strategy for improving the effectiveness of diversion programs – including recycling and yard waste programs – is to introduce a variable rate, or "pay as you throw" program, where customers pay more for more bags or cans of garbage generated rather than paying a flat rate. This single feature was shown to increase diversion by 8 percent to 11 percent above communities with similar diversion programs but no variable rates. That implies that variable rates can help a community get a third to halfway toward 25 percent recycling/diversion goals.

The most important features explaining diversion for recycling and yard waste programs are shown in Table 1. The full report presents numeric effects and explanatory discussions in association with each of the program change results included in the table.

A number of long-held beliefs are confirmed by SERA’s statistical results: higher income areas have higher diversion; weekly collection can add a small amount to diversion above every other week recycling; variable rates can be a very effective diversion program, and so on. The data allow communities to assess whether or not the estimated differentials in diversion are worth the additional cost based on their local costs and operational changes.

Interestingly, when confounding factors are controlled for, the report points out that several "convenience" factors such as weekly collection or other program options may not deliver sufficient additional tonnage to be worth the extra cost. Several examples and scenarios are provided in the report to illustrate how communities can use the report’s information to assess cost-effectiveness as one factor in their own program decision making.

During the last several years, it has become increasing frustrating for program managers to try to achieve recycling goals under difficult "real world" conditions, including volatile commodity prices and tightening municipal budgets. In response, this report from SERA uses a statistical approach based on data from hundreds of programs to provide quantitative information for program managers to improve the efficiency, impacts and cost-effectiveness of their recycling and yard waste programs.

In addition, SERA recently completed follow-up work on residential, multi-family and commercial programs, as well as work examining the costs of achieving higher levels of diversion, for the California Chapters of the Solid Waste Association of North America. More detailed analysis is also ongoing on the data from this report.

SERA reports that, although the results in the report are average impacts across all communities, the database and model also provide a rich resource for SERA to help communities "benchmark" program and collection efficiencies, develop tailored results based on community features, and identify successful funding, program design and implementation and other lessons from communities across the nation.