Abstract
Recycling levels have been stagnating for a decade in England. Over the last 2 years, 39% of local authorities have seen a reduction in their recycling rates. Social housing has historically been neglected in waste service provision and literature. Housing associations own 2.5 million dwellings, representing 10% of all housing stock in England. Improvements to waste services and increased resident engagement in social housing could address stalling recycling levels and contribute to the aim of the national waste strategy of moving towards a circular economy. This paper presents the results of engagement with housing association residents across 24 sites in England. Following community engagement workshops, a range of resident-led interventions were implemented, including improvements to recycling services and installation of onsite food waste composters. An inclusive resident engagement programme bespoke to each site was pioneered, including regular feedback on waste reduction and recycling performance. The impact of the project was evaluated using mixed methods, including monitoring of recycling levels and resident and stakeholder surveys. The interventions stimulated behaviour changes, leading to increased recycling rates (+10.4% per site compared to baseline), waste reduction (0.4 kg per flat per week compared to baseline), increased recycling quality, and social cohesion. The research outcomes provide a model for improving waste management in social housing globally.
Highlights
In England, recycling levels have been stagnating for a decade, and over the last2 years, 39% of local authorities have seen a reduction in their recycling rates [1,2]
The interventions stimulated behaviour changes, leading to increased recycling rates (+10.4% per site compared to baseline), waste reduction (0.4 kg per flat per week compared to baseline), increased recycling quality, and social cohesion
This excludes the quantitative data from the six Recognition sites where recycling was introduced after the baseline—at these specific sites, by the end of the project, the recycling rates varied between 7.0% and 31.7%
Summary
2 years, 39% of local authorities have seen a reduction in their recycling rates [1,2] Reasons for this include government spending cuts impacting front-line services [3], recycling behaviour not being maintained—referred to as ‘recycling decay’ [4]—and a lack of consistency, with local authorities using different containers to collect different materials at different frequencies [5]. The lyrics were changed in a fun way to relate to how residents could have been managing their waste Those who remembered the song were encouraged to sing along spontaneously.
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