Is there a Sustainable Future for Recycling in Remote and Rural Places?

• Rebecca Smith: rebecca.smith@uhi.ac.uk

• Part-time PHD student

• Part-lecturer on the Sustainable Development BSc/MSc Programme based at Lews Castle College, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis.

The main focus of my research

Household Waste Recycling• particularly the waste we bring home in our weekly grocery shopping to meet our nutritional and household needs.

Achieving Zero Waste• How rural local authorities hope to adapt to zero waste policies set by the government for achieving zero waste societies

Zero Waste SocietiesThe Waste Hierarchy as often depicted: R

educe

Reuse

Recycle

Recovery

Disposal

The preferable presentation of The Waste HierarchyD

isposalRecovery

Recycle

Reuse

Reduce

Most Sustainable

Least Sustainable

Least Sustainable

Most Sustainable

Weinberg, Pellow & Schnaiberg (2000)Urban Recycling Programmes in the United States:

Two shifts in the History of Recycling

Shift 1Away from the focus on:

Waste as a Panacea“Saving the

Environment and Providing Jobs for the

Poor”

Towards a focus on: Waste as a Commodity – that could generate

revenues

Shift 2Away from recycling as an

activity in which:Marginalised social groups

and community-based organisations engaged

Towards its Control by large firms, many now operating

in the global market

Recycling and Recovery A capital intensive industry

Urban• Better placed to reap profits

• Large populations living in close proximity

• Big economies of scale for collection and processing

• Less distance to travel to processing facilities

• Lower costs per unit of recycling and recovery

Rural• Poorly placed to reap profits

• Low density populations• Time consuming and expensive collection costs

• Waste needs to be transported to large processing facilities

• Higher costs per unit of recycling and recovery

‘Zero Waste’ means changing the way we look at waste so that we see it as a resource, not a problem?

A Remote and Rural Example

The Outer Hebrides Meeting Landfill Targets• April, 2013 – £72 per tonne of waste to landfill

• April, 2014 - £80 per tonne of waste to landfill

• Approx. 15,000 tonnes per/yr

• £1,200,000 per/yr 2014• £10 million of public money invested in a recycling centre just outside of Stornoway

• Anaerobic Bio-digester converts organic and garden waste into gas and compost.

The Creed Waste Management Facility

Comingled: paper, glass, plastics, cans

• 4 operators on the picking line

• Materials go to highest bidder at the time

• Market price fluctuations for the materials

• Need to negotiate transport price with haulers

• Money received only just manages to cover costs.

Anaerobic Bio-digester (2006)

• Grossly over specified – too big for purpose.

• The compost cannot be sold as soil conditioner.

• Contamination- tourists

• Hot rods of in-vessel composter have never worked (climatic reasons)

How much more waste can we take?

• We currently seem to be using a deficit-based approach. Imported technology/subsidies

• Is it time we used an asset-based approach?

• “Success cannot be obtained by some form of magic produced by scientists, technicians, or economic planners. It can come only through a process of growth involving the education, organisation and discipline of the whole population” (Schumacher, 1970)

• What kind of growth involving the education, organisation and discipline of the whole population could we aim for in rural areas to create sustainable zero waste societies?

• What about a growth that provides as much investment and support for ‘prevention and re-use’ as it does in recycling and recovery?

• Could it be these policies would be cheaper and easier to pursue, in the long-term, than policies of recycling and recovery?

Disposal: banned/costly

Recycle and Recovery: Unfeasibly expensive

Reduce and Reuse: All that’s left!

Education for reducing waste through policies of prevention and reuse?

• Critical and wary of the importation of highly packaged produce.

• The role of markets – can pricing of packaging be used as an incentive to reduce waste?

• Be-unpackaged: a strengthened approach to locally sourced food with significant reductions of waste

• Decentralised consumer model• Bring back more social capital to our villages• .....could also be the beginning of more education around nutrition, a local education that can involve young people.