Making Simpler Recycling work

Grundon Waste Management Compliance Assessment

For years, the more than 300 local authorities in England used different recycling systems, which caused confusion about what could be collected in each area. To help fix this, the UK Government introduced Simpler Recycling regulations to improve the consistency of household and business collections. For waste collectors, this potentially meant they’d need to adapt their operational processes. Grundon Waste Management engaged us to assess how ready they were to comply with these rules, especially around the separate collection of paper and card and dry mixed recyclables.

We looked at the technical, economic, and environmental practicability of keeping their co-collection system. From our interviews with relevant parties and analysis of operational data, we found that Grundon’s current model works well. Their materials recycling facilities consistently recover between 95 and 98 percent of paper and card with very little contamination. Switching to solely separate collections would bring little environmental gains and create major logistical and financial challenges. Some of the biggest obstacles included depot constraints, vehicles not suited for split-stream collections—which could mean buying a new fleet—and almost no improvement in recyclate quality. Based on this, we concluded that Grundon could justify continuing to offer co-collection through the Written Assessment process, which allows for an alternative approach to separate collection of paper and card if specific criteria are met.

With these findings, Grundon has a pragmatic, data-driven approach to attaining compliance, balancing regulatory requirements with operational realities and client needs.