Recycling worldwide

Policies to strengthen markets for recyclables What is the best policy to stimulate recycling? No single policy offers the right solution for every country, says a recent worldwide study. Yet essential ingredients include targets, economic incentives and education. Public interest in recycling has increased dramatically over the last 15 years throughout the industrialized world. This interest has been driven by a variety of factors, including concerns about increasing waste generation and dwindling landfill capacity, air pollution from incineration, and a general appreciation of the need for environmental protection. In response, a wide array of policies, regulations and programmes have been implemented. Some policies have set up targets to increase the supply of recyclables collected. These include changing the requirements for recycling in households and businesses, banning recyclables from being landfilled, creating deposit-refund programmes, and creating financial incentives for source separation and waste reduction. Other policies have been designed to stimulate the demand for recycled materials. These include guidelines for buying recycled products, requirements for a minimum recycled content and tax incentives for products with recycled content. Lightweight packaging being sorted. GermanyâÃÂÃÂs Green Dot system forces retailers and packaging companies to recycle used household packaging to ensure that the governmentâÃÂÃÂs recycling targets are met. DUALES SYSTEM DEUTSCHLAND In some countries, comprehensive extended producer responsibility (EPR) frameworks have been introduced to target both supply and demand. EPR policies shift the responsibility for meeting government-specified recycling targets to the industries that produce the recyclables. Governments are also increasingly encouraging industries to adopt environmental management systems (EMSs). These holistically address waste generation through source reduction, reuse and recycling. Table 1 provides a list of policies in each of these categories. Policies that promote recycling can be implemented at the national, regional or local scale, although some policies are more amenable to one scale than others. National policies provide a homogeneous framework across sub-national political boundaries. Homogeneity is important in programmes such as EPR because it provides the industries affected with a more level playing field. Policies implemented at the local scale, however, may have the advantage of being more adaptable to local conditions and attitudes. For example, it may be more cost-effective to operate kerbside recyclables collection in urban areas and drop-off collection in rural areas, as opposed to requiring kerbside collection nationally. Another consideration in evaluating recycling policies is the mechanism used for funding recycling programmes. Most recycling programmes in the US are funded through taxes or by waste management fees. In contrast, EPR programmes âÃÂàsuch as those employed in many European countries and Japan âÃÂàare funded by industry. It should be noted that the public ultimately funds these initiatives because they have to pay high prices for goods and services. TABLE 1. Policies that can be used to promote recycling Policies that promote the recyclable supply Implement kerbside collection or improve its efficiency Implement use-based pricing for waste disposal Improve availability of drop-off collection in public places Set ambitious, yet achievable, recycling and diversion targets Introduce regulatory requirements for source separation Require municipalities to operate recycling programmes Landfill bans for recyclables Landfill taxes Adopt deposit-refund programmes Charge consumers advanced disposal fees at the time of purchase Increase public education Provide funding to municipalities Promote long-term contracts to eliminate the risk of price fluctuation for recyclables Policies that promote recyclable demand Require minimum recycled content in products Implement procurement guidelines for government purchases Fund research and development Provide tax credits and/or low-interest loans Educate the public on the quality of products with recycled content Tax virgin materials Policies that promote recyclable supply and demand Implement extended producer responsibility Encourage companies to adopt comprehensive environmental management systems It has now been more than a decade since many recycling policies were first implemented. This provides an opportunity to examine their relative degrees of success and to characterize the conditions under which various policies have been successful. In this article, we survey programmes that have been implemented in 14 countries: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, the UK, Finland, the US, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Brazil. WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE COUNTRIES STUDIEDEach of the 14 countries has adopted a unique set of policies for promoting recycling (see Table 2). Their differences are due to many factors, including different geography and weather, demographics, legal systems, the extent of policy development at the national, regional or local level, manufacturing capacity, the demand for individual recyclable materials, the existing waste management infrastructure and public attitudes. TABLE 2. Recycling policies used in each of the countries studied Australia Belgium Brazil UK Finland Germany Hong Kong Policies targeting supply Mandatory public participation L L L Mandatory corporate or industrial source separation L N N Landfill bans for packaging or other recyclables L N Use-based pricing L L N L Disposal taxes L L N N Deposit-refund programmes L N N N Policies targeting demand Recycled content mandates Procurement guidelines N N N Product stewardship and voluntary agreements N N N N N Policies targeting supply and demand Extended producer responsibilitya N N N N Environmental management systems (voluntary programmes) N N N TABLE 2 continued... Recycling policies used in each of the countries studied Italy Japan Netherlands Singapore Spain US Luxembourg Policies targeting supply Mandatory public participation L L N L Mandatory corporate or industrial source separation L L N N N L Landfill bans for packaging or other recyclables N N L Use-based pricing L L L L Disposal taxes N N L Deposit-refund programmes N Policies targeting demand Recycled content mandates N N Procurement guidelines N N Product stewardship and voluntary agreements N N N N Policies targeting supply and demand Extended producer responsibilitya N N N Environmental management systems (voluntary programmes) N N N N = The policy has been adopted at the national level L = The policy has been adopted at the local level, such as by one or more municipalities, states or regions a Australian packaging companies have voluntarily adopted EPR in an effort to avoid a less flexible government-mandated programme Germany In Germany, recycling has been driven by public support for sustainable development and by concerns about diminishing landfill capacity. In response, the German government was among the first to institute a comprehensive national framework to promote recycling. This framework includes high national recycling targets for municipal waste, EPR policies on used packaging, a deposit system for beverage containers, and requirements for the commercial sector to source-separate recyclables. Perhaps the most notable component of the German system is the EPR scheme for used household packaging, which was first introduced in the 1991 German Packaging Ordinance.In GermanyâÃÂÃÂs EPR system, the packaging industry is responsible for ensuring that government-specified recycling rates for used household packaging are met. Recycling targets are 60% for aluminium, plastics and composites, 70% for paper and cardboard, 70% for steel, and 75% for glass. Retailers and packaging companies are required to accept and recycle used packaging from consumers. As an alternative, companies can contract with a third party to collect packaging from households and ensure that government-specified recycling targets are met. Paper and cardboard in Germany are mainly collected directly from consumersâÃÂàhomes and recycled. With a share of around 60%, waste paper is the most frequently used raw material in the German paper industry DUALES SYSTEM DEUTSCHLAND Most of the German packaging industry has adopted this alternative approach. The resulting Green Dot system has become a model for subsequent EPR programmes in Europe and elsewhere. Green Dot member companies pay per-package, materialspecific fees to the Duales System Deutschland (DSD). The DSD uses proceeds from the fees to fund household collection and sorting, as well as to contract with end-users to accept and recycle specific quantities. (For more information on the Green Dot system, see Waste Management World, JanuaryâÃÂÃÂFebruary 2005.) The success of the DSDâÃÂÃÂs efforts in recycling used household packaging is evident in the recycling statistics as reported by EUROPEN (www.europen.be). Packaging under the DSDâÃÂÃÂs purview was recycled at a rate of roughly 50% in 1991. This rate increased to over 85% by 2000. Further, between 1991 and 1998, German companies reduced the overall level of packaging placed on the market by nearly 10%. Despite these successes, GermanyâÃÂÃÂs Green Dot programme has been criticized for its high costs, to which contribute: hasty implementation, which led to unfavourable waste management contracts a focus on household packaging, which is typically more expensive to collect and of poorer quality than commercial and industrial packaging overly ambitious recycling targets, resulting in market saturation loopholes that have allowed some companies to benefit from DSD collection without paying licensing fees mismanagement of materials that were exported for recycling. Many of these early problems have been corrected through amendments to the Packaging Ordinance. Germany pioneered a comprehensive national framework to promote recycling Legal challenges have also recently called the design of the programme into question. These challenges have targeted the DSDâÃÂÃÂs monopoly on household recycling, its efforts to leverage this monopoly to expand into recycling of commercial packaging and deposit schemes, and its charging of licensing fees for materials that are discarded or recycled via some other system. To address requirements laid out by the German Federal Cartel Office, industry shareholders have been divested, and the DSD was recently acquired by a private company. It is unclear how these developments will affect the DSDâÃÂÃÂs operations, although they will still allow the DSD to continue its role in collecting household recyclables. The US Individual states in the US set up and implement their own recycling policies, resulting in a heterogeneous mix of programmes MORTON BARLAZ The US has taken a very different approach towards promoting recycling. While GermanyâÃÂÃÂs EPR policies are highly centralized, the US federal government has largely delegated the states to handle municipal waste management. Thus, specific recycling policies have been adopted at the state and local levels, largely in response to pressure from environmentally conscious citizens and, in some areas, a desire to extend local landfill capacity. The result is a very heterogeneous set of policies, which commonly include: state- and county-level bans on the landfilling of certain recyclables such as old corrugated containers, aluminium cans and container glass municipal-level pricing based on use, in which household waste management fees depend on household generation state-level deposit-refund programmes implemented in the 1970s. Heterogeneity has led to widely varying recycling performance. In 1999, for example, the mid-Atlantic states recovered 40% of MSW through composting and recycling, while this value was only 19% in the Rocky Mountain states. Access to kerbside recycling programmes also differed greatly, ranging from 89% of the population in the mid- Atlantic to 35% in the Midwest. These trends reinforce the idea that limited landfill capacity and high landfilling costs, typical of more densely populated areas such as the mid- Atlantic, are major factors in determining the scale of recycling programmes. Brazil Faced with high unemployment, the Brazilian government has not implemented many policies to promote recycling. Instead, recycling in Brazil is driven by a strong aluminium industry that demands inexpensive raw materials, by energy considerations that favour recycled content, by a trade imbalance that puts a premium on recovering the relatively small supply of post-consumer aluminium, and by the presence of a low-wage workforce that improves the economics of collection and sorting. As a result, BrazilâÃÂÃÂs aluminium recycling rate is the highest in the world. The government has made an effort to improve working conditions and to train recyclables collectors to recycle additional materials. BrazilâÃÂÃÂs aluminium recycling rate is the worldâÃÂÃÂs highest Belgium, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy Paper recycling in Finland. The country has called for its local governments to establish use-based waste management pricing systems. MORTON BARLAZ These countries have adopted EPR regulations in the mould of GermanyâÃÂÃÂs, but with less stringent recycling targets and many differences in implementation. As with Germany, these countries complement EPR with other policies. In Finland, the Federal Waste Act specifies recovery targets for municipal waste as well as for 12 specific industrial waste streams, and the National Waste Plan calls for local governments to develop use-based waste management pricing systems. Also, a deposit-refund scheme has been in place for 30 years for glass, plastic and aluminium beverage containers. The Netherlands has adopted a landfill tax and the mandatory source separation of industrial waste. Italy encourages companies to adopt EMSs. In contrast to the other countries, SpainâÃÂÃÂs poor economic conditions have resulted in a focus on drop-off collection instead of kerbside recyclables collection. Australia The Australian government introduced a target to reduce the amount of waste landfilled to 55% of 1990 levels by 2000. To reach this target, some states introduced landfill taxes and used the revenues to subsidize recycling and to fund public and corporate educational campaigns. Recognizing that the landfilling target would not be met âÃÂàand that most environmental impact occurs not when a product is disposed of but during production, distribution and use âÃÂàthe government in 1999 shifted to a more holistic approach. The country now strongly promotes voluntary agreements that address the environmental impact of all activities, from purchasing to product design and manufacturing to waste management. In addition, the government has promoted voluntary EPR actions through the adoption of the National Packaging Covenant in 1999. Under the Covenant, companies involved in producing and distributing packaging are encouraged to work together to meet government recycling targets. Failure to meet the targets will result in the imposition of more stringent requirements, including EPR regulations, a national container deposit system and a tax or ban on plastic shopping bags. While the packaging covenant has been adopted at the national level, most Australian environmental policies have been adopted at the state level. The UK While the UK has adopted EPR, it has taken an unusual approach. The countryâÃÂÃÂs packaging industry is responsible for demonstrating that recycling targets have been met through the purchase of tradable packaging recovery notes (PRNs). These notes, which are created when specific quantities of materials are recycled, are purchased by brokers and are then sold to individual companies or to industry compliance programmes. Since PRNs are not specific to a particular location, reprocessors tend to recycle the materials that can be collected and reprocessed at the lowest cost, leading to a system that theoretically is very cost-effective. As a result, paper and plastic packaging recycling efforts have targeted the high-quantity, relatively homogeneous materials collected from commercial and industrial generators. However, as glass, aluminium and steel packaging wastes are only generated in low quantities by commercial and industrial sources, the programme targets household collection of these materials. The PRN system is intended to adapt automatically to changes in recycling targets. For example, when recycling targets are increased by the government, such as in response to more stringent European Union packaging recycling targets, there is more demand for PRNs, leading to an increase in their price. The increased revenues to reprocessors from PRN sales would then be used to develop additional materials collection and recycling infrastructure. By informing industry in advance of target increases, this process could occur proactively. In practice, however, increases in processing capacity have not met the necessary targets. In 2001, for example, industry failed to acquire the necessary number of PRNs to meet government targets. Several criticisms have been levelled at the UK scheme, including: the fees charged by brokers, which serve as middlemen between recyclers and the packaging industry, reduce the systemâÃÂÃÂs cost-effectiveness the scheme does little to target household paper and plastics there are limited safeguards to ensure that PRN proceeds are indeed used by the recycling industry to develop recycling infrastructure the large number of industry compliance programmes complicates the determination of accountability regarding whether the recycling targets are met and who is at fault if they are not met. Japan The Japanese Government adopted a policy framework to increase recycling, in response to concerns about emissions from incinerators. MARA REGINA MENDES Japan, like the other Asian countries evaluated in this study, is densely populated and has limited landfill capacity. As a result, the country has relied on incineration as its predominant means of waste disposal: nearly 70% of JapanâÃÂÃÂs MSW is incinerated. In the 1990s, concerns arose about emissions from incineration. In response, the Japanese government adopted a comprehensive policy framework to increase recycling. Components of this framework include: a 50% reduction target in landfilling rates from 1996 to 2010 material-specific recycling targets for packaging materials locally enforced source-separation mandates a requirement for municipalities to operate recycling programmes federal government subsidies to support recycling programmes EPR laws for packaging and electronics national green procurement regulations government financing of pilot programmes and research and development. Many of these policies came into place after 2000. Their effects are just beginning to appear in the recycling statistics available. Hong Kong Hong Kong has an effective population density of 14,000 people per km2, compared with 2050 per km2 and 3540 per km2 in New York City and Paris respectively. Hong KongâÃÂÃÂs geography, limited size, high population density and increasing waste generation have resulted in predictions that the countryâÃÂÃÂs landfill capacity will be exhausted between 2012 and 2018. In response, Hong Kong adopted the Waste Reduction Framework Plan, a 10-year plan that aggressively promotes waste reduction, reuse and recycling. The goal is to reduce the annual quantity of waste landfilled by 58% from 1998 levels. This plan specifies a 20% reduction target in waste generation combined with increased recycling activities. The high population density makes transport distances short, improving the economics of recyclables collection and transport to market. However, most inhabitants live and work in high-rise buildings, making it difficult to implement use-based pricing for refuse collection. Further, high land values make it difficult and expensive to locate facilities for recyclables collection, storage and reprocessing. Singapore Singapore has a land area of only 660 km2 and a population of 3.89 million, 80% of whom live in multi-family, high-rise buildings. Over 90% of its waste is incinerated in waste-toenergy (WTE) facilities, with ash buried in an offshore landfill. The overall recycling rate in Singapore in 2000 was 40%, while the recycling rate for the municipal portion (such as domestic and commercial waste) was only 17%. These data suggest very high industrial and institutional recycling rates. To recover a greater fraction of municipal waste, the government has required private waste management companies to collect recyclables. In addition, the government has set recycling targets for various components of municipal waste. The targets for 2012, however, provide little immediate incentive for progress. RECYCLING PERFORMANCEMunicipal waste and packaging recycling rates for each of the countries included in this study are presented in Table 3. This comparison is complicated by many factors, including the different lengths of time that policies have been in effect, the unavailability of comparable data for all of the countries for the same year, the different definitions of municipal waste, and the different methods for determining municipal waste generation and recycling rates. Thus, the recycling rates provided in Table 3 should be interpreted qualitatively. Also, reported statistics are for the year 2000 or the years around it. More recent data may be available for some of the countries. EPR can be complemented with policy incentives to boost recycling The high recycling rates for Hong Kong and Singapore are somewhat deceptive because they include industrial and commercial wastes, which are typically recycled at higher rates than MSW. Disregarding these countries, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands have achieved municipal recycling rates that stand out among the others. Each of these countries has adopted EPR for packaging and has also complemented EPR with various policies that provide strong regulations and incentive drivers for citizens and businesses to recycle. Recycling policies and infrastructures in Italy, Spain, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore are still evolving. Much of their progress could not be captured by the data in Table 3. COMMON PATTERNSThe countries included in this study differ considerably with respect to demographics, geography, manufacturing industries, policy structure and cultural acceptance of recycling. As a result, they have differed in their approach to promoting recycling. Despite these differences, a number of common themes emerged. For example, in all countries, markets for most post-consumer recyclables exist, provided that the materials can be delivered to market at reasonable quality, quantity and price. The costs of collection and sorting, however, typically do not allow most household recyclables to be delivered to market without additional funding. It is the public that ultimately provides this funding. For example, in the US, waste generators pay through taxation and fees, while in Germany the waste-generating public pays via part of the cost of a product bought. In this context, the level of recycling that occurs depends on the publicâÃÂÃÂs willingness to pay. The manner in which recycling costs are presented to the public, however, can also have a considerable impact on willingness to pay. For example, the public may find a US$10 monthly recycling bill more objectionable than an additional 5 US cents required at the time of purchase of a $2 beverage. This is one reason that European nations have been able to achieve high recycling rates for packaging, as have US states with deposit-refund schemes. The presentation of costs also has the potential to introduce positive incentives for recycling. For example, usebased pricing encourages recycling as a method to reduce waste fees. It does not, however, provide a direct incentive for manufacturers to use recycled content or decrease the amount of packaging materials they produce. In addition, the benefits of use-based pricing are reduced if the government does not take steps to prevent illegal dumping of refuse. This illustrates the need for co-ordinated polices that address unintended incentives or loopholes. Highly related to the publicâÃÂÃÂs willingness to pay is its ability to pay. This is reflected in the higher recycling rates reported for the more affluent countries (Germany as opposed to Spain, for example). Brazil is an exception to this, however. The countryâÃÂÃÂs unemployment is sufficiently high and wages sufficiently low that collection is economically more favourable. Given that comprehensive kerbside recycling programmes typically require public funding, many municipalities and local governments may have little incentive to operate such programmes. Regional or national regulations can galvanize municipal efforts. For example, the Netherlands has adopted national policies requiring municipalities to operate recycling programmes and to ban collected recyclables from landfill. Thus municipalities must operate recycling programmes regardless of market conditions for collected materials. Similarly, the UK and Italy offer financial incentives for municipalities that meet or exceed specific recycling targets. TABLE 3. Reported MSW and packaging recycling ratesa Country MSW recycling rate (%) MSW composting rate (%) Year of MSW data Packaging recycling rate (%) Year of packaging data Germanyb 51 2001 75 2001 Belgium 40 15 1999 70 2001 Netherlands 23 24 2000 51 2001 Luxembourg 0 15 1999 n/a n/a Italyc 12 10 1999 46 2001 Spain 5 18 1999 44 2001 UK 9 2 1999 42 2001 Finlandd 32 1999 47 2001 US 22 7 2001 38 2001 Japane 9 1999 n/a n/a Hong Kong 41 2003 n/a n/a Singapore 40 1999 n/a n/a Australia n/a n/a n/a n/a Brazil n/a n/a n/a n/a a For more information on the sources for each country, see the original report, available from the authorâÃÂÃÂs website listed at the end of this article b The 2001 data did not differentiate between recycling and composting. In 1998, however, Germany had recycling and composting rates of 34% and 7% respectively c 1999 data for Italy did not include a quantity for incineration. Thus the 1997 value was used, with the landfill rate being calculated as the remaining fraction d Data for Finland were not available for recycling and composting fractions. The combined fraction was assumed to be the fraction that was not incinerated or landfilled e No data were provided for composting in Japan. Thus the recycling percentage was assumed to include composting Overall, EPR policies appear to have the greatest impact on producing high recycling rates. The German experience illustrates that implementation of such a fundamentally unique policy will undoubtedly lead to âÃÂÃÂgrowing painsâÃÂÃÂ. By learning from GermanyâÃÂÃÂs experience, however, other countries have been able to construct EPR policies that avoid many of its initial problems. By using weight-based fees, EPR schemes also have the benefit of providing a direct financial incentive to reducing the amount of packaging per package. In some instances, per-package fees have been used to shift packaging from one material or collection method to another. In Finland, for example, only part of a deposit is refunded on the purchase of single-use bottles, whereas the entire deposit is refunded on reusable bottles. It is the public that ultimately provides the funding for collection and sorting Landfill taxes on municipal waste provide an example of how some policies may have very little effect on consumer behaviour. If the amount of these taxes is not readily visible as a line-item on the waste management bill, citizens may not feel as if they have a direct incentive to reduce waste quantities. Compared with landfill taxes, source separation mandates and landfill bans âÃÂàaccompanied by penalties for non-compliance (if politically feasible and enforceable) âÃÂàmay be much more direct and effective policies to encourage recycling. Landfill taxes may, however, be used to discourage landfilling relative to alternative waste management strategies, primarily combustion. Also, landfill taxes provide funds that can be used to subsidize recycling programmes. Increasingly, many of the countries included in this study are turning toward voluntary agreements with industry to achieve environmental goals. The success of these voluntary programmes is affected by whether there are adequate incentives for industry to participate. Australia takes this approach by threatening much stricter regulations if targets are not met. Italy also provides an incentive for EPR: simplified regulatory requirements. RECOMMENDATIONSGiven the differences from one country to another, it is not possible to specify a blanket set of policies that are best for all. Instead what is best for any particular country, region or locality depends on what is practical, affordable, as well as politically and socially acceptable. There are several general recommendations, however, that fall out of the observations made in this study: aggressive but attainable recycling targets are powerful tools for integrating recycling into government policy decisions governments should explore co-ordinated policy packages, consisting of both supply- and demand-side policies people respond to economic incentives, so policy packages should provide direct financial incentives to increase recycling and to use recycled content in manufacturing incentives must be examined carefully to determine if they lead to the desired behaviour. Regulations should complement incentives where needed by closing loopholes and discouraging illegal behaviour education is important. The public should be given information to understand the environmental benefits of recycling, such as reductions in energy use and in pollutant emissions, and how recycling may directly affect their taxes or waste management bills best-practice information and the experiences of other countries should be considered when developing or modifying a pro-recycling policy framework ommunities should re-evaluate their waste management practices periodically to identify if bestpractice approaches may increase recycling governments should explore approaches for encouraging the adoption of environmental management systems with private sector manufacturers governments should explore regulations that effectively require recycling to be carried out as a service, independent of market conditions for countries without EPR, landfill tax revenues potentially provide a useful source of funds for recycling programmes to avoid the inefficient transfer of waste to landfills with lower taxes, landfill taxes should be implemented uniformly across a country. Morton A. Barlaz is Professor and Associate Department Head, and Daniel H. Loughlin is Adjunct Assistant Professor, both at the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University, US. e-mail: barlaz@eos.ncsu.edu This article is based on a detailed report which can be downloaded from http://people.engr.ncsu.edu/barlaz. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTFunding for this research was provided by the Environmental Research and Education Foundation, Alexandria, Virginia, US. \\n\n