Capture Rates of Source Separated Organics: a Comparison Across EU, with a Focus on Metropolitan Areas Giavini, Michele, Ars Ambiente srl, Italy Garaffa, Christian, Novamont spa, Italy Favoino, Enzo, Scuola Agraria del Parco di Monza, Italy Petrone, Paola, AMSA spa, Italy CONTACT Michele Giavini ARS ambiente srl Via Carlo Noè, 45, 21013 GALLARATE (VA) - Italy Tel: +39 348 7811749 Fax: +39 0331 777991 E-mail: giavini@arsambiente.it
ABSTRACT Organics (biowaste) collection, and in particular the intensive residential food waste collection, is increasingly gaining a major role in integrated waste management schemes, as the diversion of organics from landfill is prioritized by EU. In Europe, two different types of organic waste collection from households have been implemented. In many parts of Italy, Catalunya in Spain, Scandinavian countries, and parts of the UK, food waste is collected kerbside separately from garden waste, while in central Europe (e.g. Germany, Netherlands, Belgium) the two streams are collected commingled in the same container. After gathering official data and performing statistics on Germany, UK, Spain and Italy, the main findings of this study are that capture rates of food waste are quite different within these schemes. Commingled garden and food waste collection lead to lower capture of food waste, while garden waste arisings are higher. A comparative assessment is presented in this study with a focus on metropolitan areas, namely Milan (Italy), Munich (Germany), Bristol (UK) and Barcelona (Spain). The results from the city of Milan (1,300,000 inhabitants) are particularly interesting in terms of citizens participation and quality of food waste collected.
INTRODUCTION Regulatory drivers for biowaste collection across EU Organic waste represents the biggest fraction of municipal waste in Europe, constituting 30% to 50% of the total, depending on local conditions. Article 22 of the EU Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) asks Member States to ‘take measures, as appropriate, to encourage the separate collection of biowaste, with a view to the composting and anaerobic digestion of bio-waste. The term "encourage" is used, compared with Article 21 of WFD which asks Member States to ‘ensure’ separate collection of other fractions i.e. paper, glass, plastic, metals. Nonetheless, in the Guidance on the interpretation of key provisions of WFD published in June 2012, the Commission recalled the Communication of 18 May 2010 on future steps in biowaste management, which concluded that composting and anaerobic digestion offer the most promising environmental and economic results for biowaste that cannot be prevented. An important pre-condition is a good-quality input to these processes. With the WFD Guidance the EC stated that today this would be best achieved by separate collection, recommending Member States to make the fullest possible use of the options provided by Articles 11 and 22 of the WFD to introduce separate collection systems of biowaste as a matter of priority.
As a matter of fact, another important driver for spreading biowaste collection across EU is the Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC), which since 1999 obliges Member States to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste that they landfill to 35% of 1995 levels by 2016 (for some countries by 2020). The Landfill Directive does not prescribe specific treatment options for the diverted waste. Nonetheless, EC itself states that the most significant benefits of proper bio-waste management - besides avoided emissions of greenhouse gases - would be the production of good quality compost and biogas that contribute to enhanced soil quality and resource efficiency, as well as a higher level of energy self-sufficiency.
Current status of biowaste collection implementation Currently, various EU Member States are unfortunately often inclined not to opt for composting or biogas production and instead choose the seemingly easiest and cheapest option such as incineration or landfilling and disregarding the actual environmental benefits and costs, as shown in Figure 1. Looking at Eurostat 2011 data on waste managed through composting (including garden waste and food waste, Table 1), currently in Europe the highest amount is found in Germany, France, UK, (in terms of total amount) and Austria, Netherlands, Belgium (as a percentage of total MSW treated). Actually, the lack of distinction between green waste and food waste in this figure may lead to some misleading evaluations. It's commonly understood that the major benefits of the composting value chain come from food waste collected separately, as its greenhouse gas generation potential is higher if landfilled and because it's not suitable for energy recovery through burning. Figure 2 is focusing more on food waste collection , and is clearly highlighting the countries where this kind of collection is most developed (Germany, Austria, Italy, Catalunya, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden). Table 1 - First 10 EU countries ranking top in biowaste collected and sent to composting (source: EUROSTAT data, year 2011)
Country Germany France United Kingdom Spain Italy Netherlands Poland Austria Belgium Sweden Other EU27 countries
Total biowaste recycled through composting (T) 8.429.906 6.206.134 4.598.237 4.388.646 3.831.704 2.375.709 1.657.153 1.511.300 1.031.821 654.317 2.082.515
% municipal waste recycled through composting 17,3% 18,0% 14,2% 17,9% 12,5% 28,3% 16,9% 33,9% 20,3% 15,0% 5,0%
Figure 1 –Municipal waste management in Europe (GIS prepared with EUROSTAT 2011 data). Symbols proportional to total waste generated; Composting of biowaste displayed in brown.
Figure 2 - implementation of biowaste (food waste) collection across EU (source: European Compost Network, adapted)
METHODOLOGY National waste data sources This work focused on evaluating food waste captures, also trying to evaluate food waste content in commingled garden / food waste schemes. Official data sources from four countries have been investigated, as shown in the following table.
Table 2 - National data sources investigated Country / Data source Reference Region year
Aggregation
Italy
ISPRA, Rapporto Rifiuti 2012
2010
Provinces
Germany
VHE, Statistik der รถffentl. -rechtl. Abfallentsorgung
2010
Regions
England (United Kingdom)
WRAP, LA Portal / DEFRA statistics
2010 2011
Catalunya (Spain )
ARC, Dades de residus municipals de Comarques i Municipis de Catalunya
2011
-
Local Authorities
Local Authorities
Filter
Average performed on Provinces collecting at least 60 kg/ca.y food waste only Average performed on Regions collecting at least 60 kg/ca.y biowaste (commingled garden + food waste) Average performed on LAs with at least 70% households covered with specific food waste collection schemes Average performed on LA with dedicated kerbside collection of food waste
Population covered after filtering 18,196,399
81,751,602
5,527,710
359,088
Focus on metropolitan areas Biowaste collection is generally more difficult in large metropolitan areas with a majority of multi-family residential buildings than in mid-sized villages with a higher amount of single family homes (detached homes or townhouses with 5 or fewer units). This difficulty can be measured in terms of capture rates (kg per capita of biowaste collected) and percentage of contamination in terms of presence of non compostable items in the collected materials. This fact is also related to the fact that in multi-family buildings, the control of waste delivered by the individual households is more difficult, even with kerbside collection schemes. Nonetheless, there are some excellent examples of implementation of organic waste collection schemes in large metropolitan areas. Here four cities are described, taken from the countries listed in Table 2.
UK: Bristol Bristol was the first city in the UK to offer kerbside collection of food waste to all residents. The council rolled out food waste collections in two phases in 2006 to 150,000 households, providing a kitchen container for food waste and a 25 litre brown bin to be exposed on the kerbside during the day of collection (Fig. 3) . At the same time, it introduced a weekly collection of cardboard, a paid-for green waste service and a fortnightly (every other week) residual waste collection. A black box recycling service collects paper, glass, cans, foil, textiles, batteries and aerosols. Residual waste has been collected fortnightly (every other week) since 2006 with smaller waste bins introduced in 2012 to help encourage the growing list of materials recycled. Plastics were added to the list in 2012, formerly only limited collection points were provided e.g. in the car parks of large supermarkets. In the first year after the scheme was introduced the recycling rate increased from 18 per cent to 37 per cent.
Figure 3 - Kerbside residual and food waste collection in Bristol
Spain: Barcelona All households in Barcelona have access to the same recycling and waste collection schemes. It's a bring scheme based on 2200 litre road containers (Fig. 4), and on the 1st November 2010, the range of materials collected was expanded to include organic waste (El contenedor Marron). The average is one container per 260 households, located next to the grey residual waste bins already located throughout the City. The brown 2200 litre bins allow residents to deliver commingled food and green wastes, and residents are advised to use biodegradable and compostable bags to collect their kitchen waste. because of the urban context, most of the dwellings served by this scheme are the flats from multi-family buildings.
Figure 4 - Recyclables and organics collection with large road containers in Barcelona
Germany: Munich Separate collection of biowaste was started in Germany in 1983 in Witzenhausen with the introduction of the “Biotonne� (German term for the biobin). After several years of experiments and experiences the "collection at the door-step" (fetch-system) using wheelie bins in green or brown colour established itself as the most common organic waste collection system among German municipalities. German biowaste collected kerbside contains an essential amount of green waste (grass clippings and wood trimmings) from gardens and only in rare cases it is exclusively food waste. About 55-60% in weight of the biobin content is garden waste according to some sorting analyses referenced by IGWIngenieurgemeinschaft Witzenhausen Fricke & Turk GmbH (Fig. 5). Waste analyses show that even in metropolitan areas such as Munich and Berlin compostable waste has the largest share (approx. 40 %) of the household waste. Munich was one of the first large cities in Europe to a test of separate collection of biowaste at the beginning of the nineties. The test phase has been followed by the city-wide introduction of the biobin which by now is common in many cities in Germany.
Figure 5 - Biowaste collection in Munich: leaflet and composition of organics in the biobin
Italy: Milan Milan (1,300,000 inhabitants) is the second largest metropolitan city in Italy, with a high density population (about 7.000 inhab/Km2) living mainly in multi-family buildings. Its recycling system is based on kerbside collection of glass, paper and cardboard, plastic and light metals. In order to boost recycling, AMSA, the public company in charge of the waste collection services, started in November 2012 the roll out of the residential collection of food waste from households. The collection program aims at extending what was already in place for commercial activities also to private households, covering stepwise 4 consecutive city areas of approx. 180.000 households each, by June 2014. The implemented kerbside collection scheme is dedicated to food waste only which is collected twice a week. Amsa distributed to the households a starter kit made of a 10lt vented kitchen bin (Fig. 6), one or more 120lt wheeled bins for every building and 25 compostable bags, made with the bioplastic Mater-Bi and supplied by the biopolymers producer Novamont SpA. A leaflet with instructions to the householders about the new scheme was also part of the starter kit.
Figure 6 - Kerbside collection of single stream food waste with compostable bags in Milan
RESULTS Looking at the average capture rates at a regional / national scale, the Catalan and Italian residential food waste collection scheme are achieving the highest food waste captures. The overall capture of organics is more or less the same as in Germany, with an important remark: in Italy green waste collection is usually not performed kerbside (which could lead to an additional capture of 60-80 kg/capita.year) but relies on bring systems where people have to deliver their green waste to the recycling centres. For Germany, official national statistics (UBA-Texte 43, 2010) show that the average capture rate of organics is 108.9 kg/ca.year, of which 52.2 is biowaste collected in biobin and 56.6 is garden waste delivered
to civic amenity sites. Assuming 45% food waste in the biobin, this lead to very low figures in specific food waste capture rates comparing to the Italian or Catalan situation. Table 3 - Capture rates, in kg/capita.year. Average of areas where residential food waste collection schemes are widely implemented
Average capture food waste + garden Food waste waste where Garden waste only only kerbside scheme implemented Germany 109 23* 86* Italy 116 79 37 UK 84 Catalunya 127 111 16 *Estimates using 52.2 kg/ca.y biowaste in biobins, of which 45% food waste. Source IGW) Regarding the metropolitan areas, the results from the city of Milan after 8 months of intensive food waste collection in a quarter of the city, show a yearly capture rate estimated to be 90 kg/capita (Table 5), which is a remarkable figure considering that it is not including garden waste but only food waste from households and commercial activities; the latter contribute with about 26 kg/ca.year according to previous measurement when residential collection wasn't implemented. Capture rates are interesting also considering the high population density of Milan (7176 inhabitants/square km). As of July 2013, 370.000 households were served by food waste collection, representing 50% of the whole city and the recycling rate after complete roll out in the rest of the city is expected to reach 50% from 37% before the introduction of food waste collection. As to the quality of the collected materials, the first waste analyses showed an average contamination rate of 2,7% (Table 4). Table 4 – Data from waste analyses showing the contamination rates of organics in three different areas of the city of Milan Outskirts KG Food waste 175,8
A % of CM
KG
B % of CM
99,5
173,8
Social housing KG
C % of CM
KG
A % of CM
99,9
208,7
KG
B % of CM
99,6
164,7
99,4
152
City center KG
C % of CM
KG
A % of CM
KG
B % of CM
KG
C % of CM
99,1
162,7
99,9
181,5
98,8
169,4
99,5
163,3
99,8
Grass clippings
0,7
0,4
0
0
0,5
0,2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0,9
0,5
0,4
0,2
0
0
Yard trimmings
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Paper & cardboard
0,2
0,1
0,2
0,1
0,3
0,1
1
0,6
1,4
0,9
0,1
0,1
1,1
0,6
0,5
0,3
0,4
0,2
Wood pacckaging
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
TOTAL compostable 176,7 materials (CM) KG % of NCM Non compostable plastic 0,4 17,9 bags
174
209,5
165,7
153,4
162,8
183,5
170,3
163,7
KG
% of NCM
KG
% of NCM
KG
% of NCM
KG
% of NCM
KG
% of NCM
KG
% of NCM
KG
% of NCM
KG
% of NCM
0,7
22,6
0,5
12
0,8
8,7
1
12,4
0,7
22,6
0,3
7,3
0,7
19,4
0,9
15,3
other plastics
0,9
46,2
1,6
50
1,3
34,7
1,6
16,9
3,4
42,2
1,1
35,5
1,3
30,5
1,6
44,4
1,8
30,5
Glass
0,1
5,1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0,2
2,5
0
0
0
0
0
0
0,2
2,5
Metals
0,3
12,8
0,4
11,3
0
0
0,2
2,2
0,9
11,2
0,2
6,5
0,5
11
0,3
8,6
0,4
5,9
Inherts
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Other
0,4
17,9
0,5
16,1
1,7
45,3
6,6
72,1
2,6
31,7
1,1
35,5
2,1
51,2
1
27,8
2,7
45,8
TOTAL non compostable materials (NCM)
2,1 % NCM 1,2%
3,1 % NCM 1,8%
3,8 % NCM 1,8%
9,2 % NCM 5,3%
8,1 % NCM 5,0%
3,1 % NCM 1,9%
4,1 % NCM 2,2%
3,6 % NCM 2,1%
5,9 % NCM 3,5%
An essential contribution to the low contamination rates is given by the use of compostable plastic bags certified according to the European compostability standard EN13432. Moreover, Italy in 2011 started introducing a ban on single use shopping bags which is exempting certified compostable ones that can be
reused for source separating residential food waste. In fact, a significant percentage of bags used to collect the food waste are actually compostable shopping bags. Table 5 - Capture rates of organics and recycling rate in selected metropolitan areas Green waste Population Green + Food waste only Overall density Inhabifood waste only (kg/ca.ye Recycling (people/sq. tants (kg/ca.year) (kg/ca.year) ar) (%) Km)
Munich
1.378.176
4.439
50,9
Milan
1.324.110
7.176
90**
428.100
3.639
67,5
1.615.448
15.970
82,9
Bristol Barcelona
0,3
rate Year and data source 2010, GENESIS Die Statistischen Ämter des Bundes 41,57% und der Länder 36,7% (whole city), 50% (expected after complete food waste roll 2013, AMSA out ) Milan
6,1
37,49% 2011, WRAP UK 2011, ARC 37,28% Catalunya
(21,4*)
90**
76,8
* Estimate from waste analyses of Munich’s biowaste ** Expected yearly capture rate for food waste; projection after 8 months of implementation
CONCLUSION Different EU member states have tackled the issue of residential food waste collection by implementing different schemes, mainly single stream or commingled with garden waste Single stream schemes for food waste, collected at the kerbside with biodegradable and compostable bags certified according to the EN13432 standard, allow for high captures of food waste which otherwise is mainly left in the residual waste, even in commingled schemes such as in Germany. To this respect, “intensive food waste collection”, when supported by user-friendly tools, is the only mean to effectively ensure lowest percentages of organic waste left in the residual waste, hence the possibility to reduce collection frequency of residual waste when it has not been already done, for instance switching from biweekly or weekly to every other week whenever possible (important as a cost-saving tool, see for instance WRAP, 2009) . Results from the city of Milan prove that this is possible even in large metropolitan areas, ensuring the same participation level and quality as smaller cities with more single houses, where traditionally food waste collection performs better. It's interesting to compare the case study of Milan, a city outperforming the other 1000 smaller municipalities in terms of food waste capture rates while keeping quality high, to the situation of Barcelona, where the metropolitan area shows lower capture rates and quality than the Catalan villages performing an intensive kerbside collection. Garden waste collection can be considered as an additional option, although higher priority should be given to waste prevention (e.g. home composting).
REFERENCES • •
AMSA, personal communication, 2013. ARC, Agència de Residus de Catalunya. ARC, Dades de residus municipals de Comarques i Municipis de Catalunya. From: http://www20.gencat.cat/portal/site/arc/menuitem.d79bdb4ba0c86afd624a1d25b0c0e1a0/?vgnextoid
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=def920228aa76210VgnVCM1000008d0c1e0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=def920228aa76210VgnVC M1000008d0c1e0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default (May 15, 2013) DEFRA: Local Authority Waste Management Statistics for England – Final Annual Results 2010/11 From: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130123162956/http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/envir onment/waste/wrfg23-wrmsannual/ EUROSTAT, Environmental Data Center on Waste: Data available from: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/waste/introduction (July 24, 2013) Friends of the Earth, Briefing - Food waste collection. September 2007. From: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/food_waste.pdf (July 24, 2013) GOVdata, Datenportal für Deutschland: Statistik der öffentl. -rechtl. Abfallentsorgung. GENESIS Die Statistischen Ämter des Bundes und der Länder Downloaded from: www.govdata.de (May 15, 2013) ISPRA, Rapporto Rifiuti 2012. From: http://www.isprambiente.gov.it/it/pubblicazioni/rapporti/rapporto-rifiuti-urbani-2012 (July 24, 2013) Sustainable Food in Urban Communities: Bristol Domestic Waste Food Collection Service. From:http://www.sustainable-everyday-project.net/urbact-sustainable-food/2013/05/22/bristoldomestic-waste-food-collection-service/ WRAP, LAportal. Local Authority Waste and Recycling Portal. Website: http://laportal.wrap.org.uk/Login.aspx (May 15, 2013) WRAP, Performance analysis of mixed food and garden waste collection schemes, 2010.