The European Commission is tightening waste laws, and many local authorities, particularly in countries with low recycling rates, face the question of what system to introduce for the sourceseparate collection of food waste from householders. This study provides empirical data in form of fuel consumed and waste yield from four councils that already have source separate organic waste collections in operation. Two systems were compared: (i) door-to-door collection and (ii) bring systems where the householder walks to the bin in her/his street to drop off organic waste. Fuel consumption for the collection operation with the bring system was dramatically lower compared to the door-to-door system. Organic waste yield was constant over the observation year in the door-to-door system employing small 20-to 30-litre bins, but increased notably in the summer with the bring system that used 240-litre bins. The metric used to quantify seasonality was the summer/winter yield ratio. As commercial waste companies do not normally allow the making of data public, this is a rare opportunity to learn from collection systems currently in operation.
This article provides a brief to potential authors of articles for Waste and Resource Management on the status of energy recovery from waste in the UK as of October 2013. The aim is to present the position in the industry at the time of writing, state the issues prevailing at the time of writing and suggest topics that could be addressed by potential authors.
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