Customisation for high-rise waste separation

Abstract

With the Netherlands moving more and more towards a circular economy, stricter waste management policies and regulations demand developments in the household waste separation sector. The more household waste that is collected in separate fractions, the more waste that can be reused or recycled into valuable material again, rather than ending up at the landfill. Dutch waste system developments like Reversed Waste Collection and ‘polluter pays’ systems are implemented more and more by municipalities and have ensured that low-rise waste separation has reached a reasonable level. However, high-rise still lags behind significantly due to the influence of various contextual factors on separation behaviour. The initial aim for this graduation project was to design an incentive system in order to stimulate household waste separation in high-rise areas. A deprived high-rise neighbourhood in Arnhem was chosen as a case study for this project, under the important condition that the designed solution would be applicable in other high-rise areas as well, in order to be cost effective. After extensive analysis of waste systems, separation behaviour and high-rise contexts and exploration of different ideas and concepts, the conclusion led to a change in the design direction. On the one hand, it seemed impossible to develop an innovative ‘one size fits all’ solution for every high-rise area, because of the great discrepancies between high-rise contexts, its residents and the corresponding waste systems. On the other hand, municipalities often implement a waste system citywide, while the aforementioned context differences indicate that one type of system will not affect every high-rise context. In other words: in order to stimulate high-rise residents to separate their waste, context-specific – customised – solutions are needed. In addition to basic waste systems and facilities, many so-called intervention strategies exist that could somehow stimulate someone’s separation behaviour. These interventions exist in various shapes and sizes and nowadays, municipalities experience difficulties with finding a clear overview of all possibilities as well as searching for the right (combination of) interventions for a particular neighbourhood. The ‘Maatwerk voor Afvalscheiding’ (MvA) toolkit is therefore developed to support municipalities in finding a context-specific addition to the existing waste system, in order to eventually stimulate high-rise waste separation behaviour. A toolkit session should be held by a project group, not only participated by the municipality and its cooperating waste management company, but also with social stakeholders like a social housing company, a welfare organisation, a neighbourhood platform and perhaps even high-rise residents. These parties are more involved in the particular high-rise area, allowing the project group to make a more substantiated decision. Individual usability tests have indicated that potential users are very enthusiastic about the MvA toolkit and find it a relevant and welcome development in the field of high-rise waste separation. Further development is needed in order to complete the toolkit and pilot sessions with project groups have to find out whether a realistic discussion and outcome can lead to a context-specific addition to the waste system. For now, the MvA toolkit seems to be a promising design and chances are that this project will be continued.