International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

Where metals are concerned, there is clearly room for improvement, but few Member
States achieve, for metals, the sorts of recycling rate which they achieve for paper
and board, or glass. This is somewhat surprising given a) the value of the material,
and b) the ease with which it can be collected and sorted. Metal packaging materials
might not be captured so well as larger, bulkier metal fractions, but at the same time,
the relative quantities of metals in bulky items, and metal packaging within the Irish
municipal stream may be relatively even. The data suggest that a capture rate of 80
to 85% would be a challenging target.
Where plastics are concerned, few Member States report a very high recycling rate.
This is a consequence of the fact that whilst bottles might be well recycled, other
materials, notably films, are not so well recycled. Indeed, some Member States take
the view that non-bottle plastics are simply too expensive to target for recycling (a
perspective which is assisted by the low targets for plastic packaging recycling under
the Packaging Directive). Also, in some Green Dot schemes, only packaging marked
with the Green Dot is actually collected through the collections set up through the
system. Although the raw material has considerable value, plastics are more
expensive to collect and can be costly to sort. This will be the most challenging
material for which to achieve high recycling rates, particularly as one expands the
range of materials beyond bottles.
59.6 Levels of Achievement for Municipal Biowastes
Where biowaste is concerned, the information on captures is less clear. However,
there is considerable evidence to support the view that where garden waste is
collected, the capture of garden waste tends to be extremely high. Flanders reports a
capture rate of 94% for garden waste. 1104 In 1999, the Danish EPA reported that: ‘97
per cent of garden waste was recycled in 1997... almost all garden waste is recycled
today’. 1105 Note that the Danes also set a target for a maximum of 15% of garden
waste to be incinerated in their 1993-7 Plan (which was clearly met). One of the
reasons for high captures is that garden waste tends to draw additional waste into
the waste stream. Consequently, the numerator and denominator, in calculating the
recycling rate of the garden waste fraction, are similar, giving rise to high capture rate
figures.
Table 59-4 shows some countries with high performance in respect of biowaste
collection. Most countries that have high capture rates for biowaste collect garden
and kitchen waste together in their waste collections. This suggests that typically,
captures of food waste achieved nationally are lower than those for garden waste.
The approaches now being adopted in parts of Italy and Catalunya in Spain, however,
target kitchen waste fractions in an attempt to optimise the collection system in terms
of cost. Although these systems do not achieve the same level of biowaste capture (in
1104 OVAM (2007) Evaluatierapportage 2006: Uitvoeringsplan Huishoudelijke Afvalstoffen 2003-2007,
Mechelen: OVAM.
1105 Danish EPA (1999) Environmental Review from the Danish EPA, No.1 1999, Copenhagen: Danish
EPA.
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