Community Recycling Sector

The community recycling sector comprises a huge range of organisations delivering a variety of services in the Region. As social enterprises, unconstituted local groups, charities, cooperatives and community interest companies, all profits are returned to directly support the operations and the development of their work.

More importantly, they share a belief in supporting the local communities from which they arise. This means working to achieve benefits in the local economic, social and environmental spheres - the ‘Triple Bottom Line’. This might be done by:

• providing jobs and training for targeted sections of the community which find it hard to fend for themselves

• developing tailor-made waste education programmes for minority communities

• maximising the range and quality of materials being collected for recycling

• treating organic waste locally and marketing the end product for local consumers

Successfully operating sustainable waste projects requires a partnership approach. Communication between community recycling groups is developing and there are strong links with public and private sector clients and partners. The sector relies on a variety of sources of income: sale of materials; contracts with statutory providers; service agreements with clients and grants, principally as start-up funding.

In many ways, community recycling organisations and businesses are no different to private sector businesses. They require an income to carry out their activities, strive to maximise efficiency within their operations and provide high quality services to their customers.

Where they may differ is in having formal statements of intent to deliver benefits to local communities. This encourages the sector to go further than a policy on social responsibility or environmental management might allow, since the organisation will be driven to maximise social and environmental benefits.

The strength of this approach can be seen in the ‘buy in’ and customer loyalty many community recycling organisations gain from local stakeholders. Building an enterprise up from the grassroots also allows its development to be responsive to opportunities and changes in the local business environment.

The cohesion within community recycling organisations can provide the basis for innovation and identification of opportunities at an early stage. However, the drawback in seeking new solutions is increased exposure to risk. The sector is managing a move away from grant dependence towards commitments to partnering work and delivery of waste services for local authorities and businesses.

Engaging with the community recycling sector allows many companies to provide additional benefits to staff and customers, reduce costs, achieve corporate social responsibility objectives and gain support from local communities. This applies not only to engaging with a large national charity, for example, but is also true of working with a local furniture reuse service.

There is a range of practical services currently offered in the region by community recycling businesses. As well as those listed below, the sector delivers education on reducing, reusing, recycling and composting of waste and plays an important role in forming local policy on waste and recycling issues. Businesses are under pressure from rising costs for waste disposal, increased customer expectations and more legislative controls. These all put pressure on the bottom line. Community recycling businesses can help by providing advice and services to increase reuse and recycling, cutting the cost of waste.

Community organisations play a major role in collecting items which can be reused, providing specialised handling, sorting and storage facilities. Items are refurbished to support less well-off households and communities. This prevents environmentally damaging wastes from being disposed of and provides opportunities for training.

Businesses may also gain substantial waste avoidance benefits by providing community organisations with redundant resources, such as furniture, electrical and electronic items, timber or scrap materials. Where a waste exchange is in operation, matching supply and demand is made much easier.

The research, development and operation of kerbside recycling for households and businesses was pioneered by the community recycling sector. Kerbside recycling rounds in many local authority areas in Yorkshire & the Humber are run by the sector, covering over 160,000 households. The systems used, emphasising ‘separation at source’, allow the schemes to work with households to maximise the quality and quantity of recycled material.

For businesses, recycling services are provided by the sector, often where there is no private sector waste service other than disposal.

Recycling enterprises are seeking to expand and develop collections from many more business customers and target waste streamswhich continue to be overlooked.

Garden wastes have traditionally been a target for community organisations to compost. Many are now targeting food waste, which requires greater capital investment and technical control to treat. Composting schemes on local sites provide valuable training and educational opportunities for communities. When linked with food growing schemes, they can also provide fresh produce for local retailers.

Catering wastes from hotels and cafes impose significant costs on business and a high impact on the environment. In landfill sites, food waste produces methane, which has 23 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide. Community organisations, with support from the Community Composting Network, are developing systems which will remove food waste from landfill and produce high quality compost.

For more details please the links on this page or contact:

Community Waste Network,
Yorkshire & the Humber

Munro House
3rd Floor Duke Street
Leeds
LS9 8AG

Tel: 0113 200 3977
Fax: 0113 234 4222