Currently, many local authorities are moving to co-mingled collections of recyclable material

Here are six reasons to avoid co-mingled collection systems

1:  It is wasteful - 12-18 per cent of all the materials entering the average UK Materials Recycling Facility are not sent for reprocessing. This means they frequently end up in landfill.  By contrast less than one per cent of all materials collected through source separated collection systems are wasted. Certain materials are almost impossible to separate, especially if they have been compacted together, for example glass and paper or glass and textiles.

2:  It is expensive – Co-mingled collection systems are capital intensive.  The RPS report on waste and recycling collection costs in Wales showed huge variations in collection costs per tonne.  The most expensive schemes were designed as mixed collections passing through MRF’s.  The most cost effective schemes (per tonne collected) focused on a source separated collection approach.

The primary reasons are that MRF’s are expensive to build and maintain, as are compactor collection vehicles. MRF’s also have a limited capacity that is extremely expensive to expand, and can take years to implement.  These risks and associate costs are passed on to local authorities. 

With increasing energy prices the value of recyclates with significant amounts of energy locked in them is also likely to increase. If re-processors have to use energy to post-sort materials themselves before they can be recycled, their increased costs will be reflected in their willingness to pay high prices.

3:  It does not address European landfill diversion legislation – The European diversion targets refer to biodegradable materials.  The largest single portion of biodegradable material in municipal waste is kitchen waste.  High weight and low value, kitchen waste is collected in relatively few locations and never collected co-mingled.

4:  It may actually increase carbon foot-printing. Frequently materials are not recycled as like for like, but sold as a new low value material for another use.  Mixed glass, for example, is increasingly used as road aggregate. This process actually contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and creates a low value product from a high value material.  There is also the issue of carbon emissions created by transporting semi-sorted materials long distances for further sorting.   

5:  Final destinations are hard to identify – Exports of reclaimed materials to Asia are possible primarily due to extremely low labour costs for subsequent sorting. Bales of paper rejected by UK Mills, for example, are shipped to countries like China and Indonesia where they are sorted by hand.  The average wage for sorting recyclable material in China is £1.64p per day.

6. Export markets are unstable:  China has already noted the relatively poor quality of plastics and paper coming from the UK, which only provides an extremely small percentage of its recyclates imports. Cutting imports from the UK would have virtually no influence on the Chinese or far eastern reprocessing industry. WRAP analysis notes that the most stable markets for exports are higher grades of all materials and that current markets for lower grades are, in the long term, inherently unstable.

Click here to learn about the alternative approach