Hertfordshire waste officials to delve into bins for data on what’s thrown away

Waste officials in Hertfordshire are drawing up plans to delve deep into rubbish bins across the county – for a detailed picture of what residents throw away.

The last ‘waste compositional analysis’ survey – in autumn 2020 – looked at the contents of ‘residual’ waste bins from across the county.

And it found that more than 44 per cent of household ‘rubbish’ could have been recycled or composted.

At the latest meeting of the Hertfordshire Waste Partnership – which brings together waste officials from the county’s 11 councils – it emerged there are plans for another.

Plans for the survey have yet to be finalised but it could look at areas that include food waste and electricals.

It could also be used to determine the impact the proposed ”extended producer responsibility’ (EPR), ‘deposit return scheme’ and emissions trading scheme’ could have.

Extended producer responsibility would put the onus on those producing and packaging goods to deal with the waste those products produce.

And the partnership’s analysis would seek to determine the proportion of waste in Hertfordshire that would fall within the scope of the proposed EPR legislation.

Meanwhile there are also national plans for a ‘deposit return scheme’ – whereby a deposit on a single use drinks container would be refunded on its return.

The partnership is also aiming to determine what proportion of drinks containers – in the council’s residual waste and recycling streams – would be covered by the scheme.

Meanwhile the analysis is also expected to look at the amount of ‘fossil content’ is the residual waste stream by looking at the impact of ‘energy from waste processes’ being added to the UK’s ‘Emissions Trading Scheme’.

Levels of food waste – avoidable and unavoidable – are also likely to be scrutinised in order to look at the impact of the county-wide #Worth Saving campaign.

Partnership development managerDuncan Jones said the analysis was key to understanding what was being collected and where, and what goes into the waste stream.

And he said good data should equal good policy.

According to the last waste compositional analysis survey, 28 per cent of household residual waste collected from the kerbside was food waste.

And around 14 per cent was made up of ‘dry recyclables’, that included plastics, cans and glass.

Commenting on the plans for the analysis, partnership chair Cllr Eric Buckmaster – who in the county council’s executive member for the environment – told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the planned analysis would “go beyond” what had been done before.

He pointed to the past analysis that had highlighted the amount of food waste – including packets and items of food that had not even been opened.

And he said that had enabled them to campaign against food waste – highlighting the £700 a year that could be saved if residents were only to buy the food they needed.

He also highlighted upcoming government reforms – including EPR, the deposit return scheme.

And he said the data would be “very important” in order to calculate, for example, the income that would be generated from EPR.