Of the respondents who said they weren’t happy with how their council has asked them to recycle, 23 per cent rated their bin lids and boxes blowing away in windy weather as the top negative factor.
“Innovations in recycling technology are transforming the way we work, to improve the sorting of recyclables, at a rate unrivalled in history and Re-Gen Waste has made a conscious effort to keep pace.
Reassuringly, 81 per cent of the householders surveyed across Northern Ireland said that they try to recycle everything they can, up from 74 per cent from the same poll held in 2019. However, 17 per cent of the respondents admitted to recycling only when it was convenient for them, but not always.
“And the irony is, that contamination is still present in a kerbside sort system; the difference is that it is left in the box by kerbside sorters and the householder dumps it in their residual waste bin. This material can end up in landfill at a cost of £120 per tonne, resulting in an increased cost to councils. They also need to factor in the landfill tax. Co-mingled can create a higher value. It will be recycled one day when economics make it viable.
When asked what would encourage them to recycle more, of the councils that don’t offer a fully comingled recycling service with glass, over half said they would recycle more if there was one bin that took all recycling, including glass. Doherty continues: “These survey results are very similar to the results of the survey carried out by Lucid Talk in 2019. Simplicity and convenience continue to be the most significant factors in determining the success rate of householder recycling. “It is heartening to see more householders are saying recycling is very or somewhat important to them (95 per cent) and that eight out of 10 people say that they try to recycle everything.” The survey found that 8 per cent of people across Northern Ireland who cannot recycle their glass along with the rest of their recycling waste, will put their glass in the municipal waste (black or grey) bin, compared to 1.8 per cent who live in council areas that offer a co-mingled glass recycling service.
“Our recent £5 million development including an investment in 10 of the latest generation Autosort units, has already boosted dry recycling sorting performance. The new units use sophisticated infrared sorting technology to increase the quantity of fibre and paper materials and have increased the output of plastic fractions, enabling Re-Gen Waste to move from their current mixed plastics output to more refined, higher purity single stream plastics fractions. The equipment combines near infrared (NIR) and visual spectrometers (VIS) to quickly and accurately recognise and separate different materials according to their material type and colour, extracting highpurity, high-value end fractions.
In Belfast, 22 per cent of respondents said they put their glass in their municipal waste bin rather than recycle it, an increase of 2 per cent since 2019. This council area does not offer a co-mingled glass recycling service to half the district.
The technology also provides Re-Gen with invaluable in-depth digital metrics and data about the status, performance and operation of their sorting equipment and the material waste composition it detects. Doherty says they can “quickly understand what materials are coming in and how they are changing due to shifting societal and household dynamics and the enactment of government policies”.
When respondents who live in council areas where glass is co-mingled were asked if they would recycle less if they had to place their glass waste into a separate caddy, one third said they would.
“We can then feedback to local authorities to help them understand where contamination is coming from and, in turn, provide more targeted recycling information to householders,” he adds.
Doherty says: “It is patently obvious that if we make recycling easy for householders, they will recycle more. And if we provide householders with a recycling service that allows them to put glass into their recycling bins, the volume of glass in their black bins and therefore landfill, decreases dramatically.
“As one of Europe’s most advanced materials recycling facilities we have the investment capital and the operational expertise to provide next generation sorting technology that is diminishing the already low contamination levels and can transform how councils handle their dry household recycling.”
Research commissioned by Re-Gen Waste Ltd. Polling was carried out by Belfast based polling and market research company LucidTalk. The project was carried out online for a period of five days from 14th March to 18th March 2022. The project targeted the established Northern Ireland (NI) LucidTalk online Opinion Panel (13,816 members) which is balanced by gender, age-group, area of residence, and community background, in order to be demographically representative of Northern Ireland. 1,945 full responses were received. A data auditing process was then carried out to ensure all completed poll-surveys were genuine 'one-person, one-vote' responses, and this resulted in 1,770 responses being considered and verified as the base dataset (weighted and unweighted). Then in order to produce a robust and accurate balanced NI representative sample, this base dataset of 1,770 was weighted by gender, community background and additional demographic measurements to reflect the demographic composition of Northern Ireland resulting in the weighted data tables and weighted results set i.e., the final results – 1,770 responses (weighted) and these are the results presented in this report. All data results produced are accurate to a margin of error of +/2.3 per cent, at 95 per cent confidence. NB all surveys and polls may be subject to sources of error, including, but not limited to sampling error, coverage error, and measurement error. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.
