Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability - Circular Cities Hub: Innovative solutions for waste

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus

Cities Hub Innovative solutions for waste in Rotterdam Student Graduation Report October 2018 - July 2019

Can we create innovative circular solutions for collecting and processing waste, in the compact, vertical areas of Rotterdam?

Six ambitious students dedicated their graduation research to this question to, find answers, together with the municipality.

Table of Contents 1.

The Hub

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2. Context

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3.

Case: Circular Rotterdam

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3.1 Objectives municipality of Rotterdam

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3.2 Research objectives

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4. Methodology

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5. Students

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6.

Field of research

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7.

Research questions

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8.

Research conclusions

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9.

Research results

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9.1 Activating household waste separation behavior in high-rise Rotterdam

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9.2 The introduction of food waste disposal units and the role of the end-user

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9.3 High living and low recycling

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9.4 Changing customers’ behavio

r for enabling a circular economy

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9.5 Partnerships in the Dutch commercial waste collection system

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9.6 Finding the ‘ideal’ waste scenario

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1. The Hub The Cities Hub is one of the three hubs that are part of the LDE Centre for Sustainability. A hub is an open research programme that connects master students, researchers, municipalities and businesses.

Our mission is to accelerate the transition to a circular economy to achieve a sustainable society with a focus on the province of Zuid-Holland/MRDH (Metropolitan region Rotterdam The Hague) . By offering interdisciplinary research opportunities for students and academia, we reach out to municipalities to help them in reaching their sustainability goals. This way we offer master students from the Leiden University, the Delft University of Technology and the Erasmus University Rotterdam the possibility to write an impactful master thesis. The research themes in the hub are directly connected to external stakeholders, such as municipalities and developers/companies involved in a project. In short the hub aims to:

Importance of the hub

The hub coordinator

In the hub because of the independent nature of the platform, new ideas arises by the independent nature of the platform. Discussing challenges of the MRDH region collectively creates great added value for the development of knowledge and skills of the urban professionals. Across the boundaries of layers, sectors, organizations and disciplines we connect people to innovate. The ultimate goal of the hub is to really get things moving. Every year we are learning by doing, and the first pilots already have been put into practice.

Every hub has its own hub coordinator who reaches out to its partners. Together they formulate the scientific research themes that result from their knowledge and innovation request. Thesis themes form the framework in which the master students can conduct their master thesis research.

You can find the contact details of the coordinator at the last page of this document.

Universities

Practice

1. Formulate demand-driven research topics together with external stakeholders 2. Allow master students to conduct impactful research 3. Develop interdisciplinary research, by connecting students and researchers from three universities.

Fig. 1. The hub as the connector between academics and practice

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2. Context In the Cities Hub we research what the cities of the future will look like and which technical, social and business innovations are needed in order to create a healthy and sustainable environment for people. In this case we examine the cities in the province Zuid-Holland. The province is a highly urbanized area with a concentration in the Metropolitan region Rotterdam The Hague (MRDH).

The region has to respond to issues such as the necessity to recycle, a changing climate, digitalization and automatization. This leads to increasingly complex challenges that require interdisciplinary collaborations and the integration of local and global perspectives to solve them.

The MRDH is highly ambitious in its plans for the future; in the Roadmap Next Economy it maps out a collective route towards an inclusive society, an entrepreneurial climate and a circular economy. With multiple universities and many innovative partners at its side, the ideas on how to tackle specific problems are certainly present. However, it is not always clear how local people can benefit and participate in these plans.

Pompenburg The Cities Hub tackles exacly this. Working on cases around a specific area in the region and its challenges, graduation students explore transitions in an integrated way, connected to local interests.

Fig. 2. MRDH region

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3. Case: Circular Rotterdam Waste management in high-rise Pompenburg The city of Rotterdam is densifying its city center, with the aim to develop 50.000 new residencies by 2040. Districts such as Pompenburg are developed to become compact neighbourhoods with many high-rise residential buildings.

At the same time the municipality has the ambition to become a fully circular city, minimizing waste production and recycling what is left.

In other words, innovative solutions are needed to deal with the 500 kilos of waste currently produced per person per year in Rotterdam’s quickly developing vertical neighbourhoods. These can be design-related (how do we collect waste streams in a smart manner, can this create value for public space), about management (who is responsible, how to scale this system to a city-broad solution), technical (what comes in, what goes out and how to process this) or completely integrated, giving answers to multiple discussions at once.

3.1 Objectives municipality of Rotterdam Circularity The municipality of Rotterdam has high ambitions on circularity: in 2050 the city and municipality should be fully circular. In order to achieve this, the municipality has set, among others, goals on managing waste separation and collection of household waste and commercial waste.

The challenge includes minimizing waste generation, and finding ways to entirely recycle the waste produced. In combination with the development of more and more high-rise towers in the city center, the amount of people per square meter will increase, and even more challenges related with circularity will emerge.

High-rise buildings The increase of people per square meter expands the amount of waste generated in the city center. The research “Vuilnis in de flat” shows that residents of high-rise buildings produce on average 150 kg more residual waste per year than residents of low-rise (Design Innovation Group, 2015). At the same time the pressure on the public space increases due to the garbage containers and logistics. Therefore, rethinking the way the municipality manages the waste in high-rise will need to tackle multiple challenges (1) decreasing the pressure on public space that the current system puts on it, (2) increasing the re-use of garbage and (3) all stakeholders need to gain something

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with a new solution in order to get them involved. In the current system waste is managed outside the high-rise building, and collected in containers in the public space.

Separation A related challenge is the low percentage of separation of waste in high-rise buildings. Currently only 24,8% of the waste is separated at the source to be recycled (CBS Statline, 2018). This number needs to increase in order to reach the City of Rotterdam’s 2020 goal of 40% household waste separation (Gemeente Rotterdam, 2017) and the European Union’s ambitious goal of 65% waste recycling by 2035 (European Parliament, 2018). Without effective separation of waste, a lot of the high-quality circular opportunities for waste processing cannot be used.

3.2 Research objectives The objectives of the students in the Rotterdam case are focused on different aspects of dealing with waste. Their research could differ in point of view from municipality, developer, resident or waste processing companies. The complexity of the waste cycle has been looked at through the different scales. They have looked at the ambitions and the current waste management system in the municipality of Rotterdam and use this as a startingpoint of their research.

The municipality of Rotterdam distinguishes ten fractions of waste that they want their citizens to separate at the source: glass, paper and cardboard, PMD (Plastics packaging, Metal and Drinks cartons) , bio-waste, textile, (deep frying) fat or oil, small chemical waste, bulky (garden) waste, electronic appliances and reusable goods. The graph (Fig. 3) shows the share per fraction in the total separated waste.

Municipality of Rotterdam

Dries Zimmermann Planoloog

Daan van den Elzen Project leader waste separation in high-rise buildings

Fig. 3. Mass percentage of waste sorting of fine residual waste in

Sigrid Schuurmann Project leader ‘Schone Stad’

Rotterdam (spring 2018) (De AfvalSpiegel, 2018, p. 4)

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4. Methodology

5. Students

The students conducted their research in different ways.

The methods they have used varied from interviews to data analysis. The methods used depended on the information the students want to obtain.

To obtain qualitative data and information, interviews were conducted with residents of high-rise buildings, but also with experts in the field of waste management.

To find interviewees, the connections within the Hub were used, which mainly included experts. In addition, the students themselves also set out to look for people living in high-rise buildings, therewith creating a varied and total picture of the target group.

Some students have organized a workshop with people from a specific target group participating. Questions were raised and discussions were held about the research topics.

Students tested their projects on the target group and the feedback was used to improve the project.

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Alissa Griffioen MSc Global Business & Sustainability (EUR)

Bogdan Kolos MSc Strategic Management (EUR)

Iris Groot Koerkamp MSc Integrated Product Design (TUD)

Renske Boeve MSc Global Business & Sustainability (EUR)

Sebastiaan van der Made MSc Integrated Product Design (TUD)

Wies de Jong MSc Global Business & Sustainability (EUR)

6. Field of research The work of the students was focused on a particular part of the waste cycle. The cycle runs from the residents to the companies collecting the waste. The figure below (Fig. 4) shows the different steps in the cycle.

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Step 1

Step 2

Residents have a feeling of responsibility to recycle their waste in an acceptable manner. However, this behavior could be improved by looking at the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of the residents. This could be done by informing and educating the residents or motivating residents to better separate their waste.

High-rise buildings ask for an integral system for residential waste collection. Indoor waste collection therefore could be improved to make it easier for the residents to better separate and recycle their waste.

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Waste recycling behavior

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Indoor waste collection

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Waste seperation system

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Outdoor waste collection

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Waste collection companies and logistics

Step 3 When the waste collection of high-rise is managed inside the building, a system should be provided. There are pros and cons, like odor and use of space, that influence whether or not to use an indoor system.

Step 4 Against the indoor waste collection stands the outdoor waste collection. This system currently includes several waste collection containers, each categorized by the type of waste (e.g. plastic, paper, residual, glass). These containers are spread around the streets and in some cases may mean that residents have to bridge a distance to dispose their waste.

Step 5

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After all waste is disposed and separated, it is collected by waste collection companies. For household waste this is regulated by the municipality, while for companies and small businesses the waste is collected by private companies. This generates a lot of logistic movement in the city centre, which should be improved.

Fig. 4. Waste cycle, from household to collecting companies

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7. Research questions

Iris Groot Koerkamp

“How can we create a solution to stimulate and facilitate waste separation at the source for residents of high-rise buildings in Rotterdam, to minimize the amount of residual waste?”

Wies de Jong

Bogdan Kolos “How can a market actor use an ecosystem approach to accelerate customers’ readiness to participate in a circular ecosystem?“

“Which factors influence waste recycling behavior in high-rise buildings?”

Can we create innovative circular solutions for collecting and processing waste in the compact, vertical areas of Rotterdam, possibly scaled up to city-broad systems?

Alissa Griffioen

Sebastiaan van der Made “How can collaborations in waste collection be established in cities in The Netherlands in order to decrease logistic pressure on city centers and CO2-emissions?”

“How can we understand the system of waste collections in Rotterdam to find the ‘ideal’ waste scenario?”

Renske Boeve “What factors influence the acceptability of environmental actions, like the introduction of the food waste disposer, that aim to encourage pro-environmental behavior?”

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8. Research conclusions

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The project ‘Schone start’ supports high-rise residents with the creation of a waste separation habit in the first month after moving by providing the means to set-up a system for waste separation.

Pro-actively informing citizens helps to improve their understanding of what needs to be separated, how to do this and where to dispose it.

Receiving ‘Schone start’ and exploring its content triggers the recipient to think about the topic of household waste separation consciously: the package claims attention Offering facilities combined with information lowers the barrier to start waste separation and activates this behavior with residents who do not experience significant practical limitations (such as the absence of or large distances to containers) or a lack of motivation (to separate waste for environmental purposes only) A pilot of the ‘Schone start’ will be introduced by the municipality of Rotterdam

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High-rise residents experience unfamiliarity with outside recycling facilities due to the vertical distance. This can lead to non-recycling behavior when there are no in-house recycling facilities In order to increase the hygiene, and therefore the recycling rate, of inside recycling facilities, the waste area needs to be maintained well (e.g. ventilation systems and well closing containers) Cluster different fractions outside high-rise buildings and inform high-rise residents about the available fractions outside the building.

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• • • • • •

Positive effects on the environment are taken into account as a motivation to act pro-environmentally.

Pro-environmentally intentions are only strong when there is a low-cost environmental behavior/effort.

Changes in an individuals’ environment often reinforces or forms habits and therefore could boost pro-environmental habits.

Adequate accessibility results in high participation rates, especially for high-rise residents who have to collect save and store waste in their apartments.

People are more likely to accept a policy when they are involved in the decision making process.

Residents have a need for insight in the actual recycling process and consequences and lack knowledge on how to properly recycle their waste.

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• • • •

Recognize the importance of reducing CO2-emissions and logistics pressure on city centers Recognize how partnerships in waste collection are valuable in reaching these aims Consider the various roles the municipality can play in such collaborations and the effects of the various roles on the end results of the partnership Take into account how the past and current nature of the relationship between the various partners in the waste sector is essential to consider when collaborating to reach mutual goals

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The design of a waste collection system in a building shouldPickup-Point encompass the 17. Re-Posit in Detail: multiple facets that affect recycling behavior, instead of focusing on a single factor. A balanced approach is vital because different people have different reasons The forpickup-point not recycling is the location that the waste is Because the pickup-point is only accessed by trained collected and stored before being picked up by the workers, concerns about safety and aesthetics are less The quality of recyclable materials is through very important forchanges theirtoreusability in a municipal collections. It arrives in this location crucial, making this room more viable. the conveyor belt system.

Onekeep other factor that is more informed feasible in the pickupcircular way, especially for plastic waste.

Try to yourselves of how In this room, the conveyor system ends is a sorting point in comparison to current collection methods system thatwaste makes sure waste ends in the righton your is volume reduction.methods Some waste fractions can bepost or the processed isthe used, andupdecide sorting (source, container. This can be done using computer controlled reduced in volume by a large percentage through deflectors that push the waste off the conveyor at compressing or shredding.

It was calculated that a combination) accordingly. the right time. Because the system knows how many shredding PMD waste would lead to a 90% reduction of the conveyor it takes bringresidents the waste the have volume of this recyclable material, which can save a lot One wayrotations to make it easier fortothe isinofto the fractions from the start to the end of the belt, it can determine space or amount of collections that are needed. thecloser—or exact timing that at is needed for this distance—to push.

This means that it would be to install a collected an even the residence asadvantageous the residual waste. compactor or shredder inside the pickup-point, if it The waste can be stored in standard waste containers, is possibleoption to do with instead the space that allocated In this scenario, be equipment seen as an equal ofcanasbean extra which can berecycling emptied using can the current that is used by the municipal collection service. This

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belt trench with a view on the

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Looking at the strenghts and weaknesses of the municipality of Rotterdam, the citizens and the development agencies could help to accelerate citizens’ readiness to participate in a circular ecosystem High-rise residents form a creative source of ideas regarding practical implementation of theoretical concepts.

Developers need stimulation or motivation to contribute, but can clearly identify other parties that should be involved in the ecosystem and what would be their tasks.

Municipalities cannot take ownership of every initiative required for changing customers’ behavior

there. There are other benefits to shredding PMD

waste, which were explored during a previous iteration effort when waste to not therequire containers. means bringing that the Re-Posit system will any of the concept. More about the topic of shredders can alterations to the current methods of collecting waste. in appendices F and H. the city did BecauseHowever, quality important factor, itbeisfound a good thing that oneis of such the mainan advantages of this setup is that it is a lot more flexible: the amount and types not implement waste tax. However, it would be helpful to incentivise the of waste thatDIFTAR are collected can be changed more easily because the changes do not have any impact citizens inoftheRotterdam to recyclce different ways. public domain, whereas adding or in removing containers on the street would.

Figure 35 - Example of how the pickup-point might look

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Activating household waste separation behavior in high-rise Rotterdam

Capitalising on the moment of moving for stimulating behavioral change Iris Groot Koerkamp

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Graduation assignment The starting point of this graduation project was the following graduation assignment: “Create a solution to stimulate and facilitate waste separation at the source for residents of high-rise buildings in Rotterdam, to minimize the amount of residual waste.”

The project consisted of four parts. The first part comprised the analysis phase, where research into the waste management system in Rotterdam and high-rise residents’ separation behavior led to a problem definition and design vision. In the second part, possible solution directions were explored, resulting in the final concept. The third part presented this concept, called “Schone start”. In the last part of the project, Schone Start has been evaluated through a small scale pilot.

Research

The performed research consists of combined qualitative research methods, such as a photo observation study, semi-structured interviews with high-rise residents, and generative research in the form of workshops. The findings from the qualitative analyses are back-upped and explained by findings in literature.

from literature, the interviews, and the generative research with high-rise residents in Rotterdam (Fig. 6 on page 15. Understanding high-rise residents’ mindset towards household waste separation, reveals four different groups of people: the Enthusiasts, the Potentials, the Skeptics, and the Conservatives (Fig. 5 on page 15).

Problem definition From human behavior theory, behavior can be explained as a combination of one’s motivation, ability, and opportunity.

When one’s motivation is low, a low ability needs to be sufficient to trigger action. Behavioral change is a process consisting of several stages and can be stimulated by intervention techniques. A change of environment can support a behavior change. Therefore, the moment of moving is identified as a key moment for activating waste separation behavior amongst high-rise residents. The complexity of waste separation behavior becomes apparent, as many influencing factors for waste separation are found

Fig. 5. Four different mindsets towards household waste separation

Fig. 6. Influencing factors for waste separation behavior

©Iris Groot Koerkamp

©Iris Groot Koerkamp

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The Potentials are closest to following the Enthusiasts in practicing waste separation. However, they currently lack a (physical and mental) system for doing so. When considering starting this behavior, the required effort for creating a system outweighs their medium level of motivation.

Design vision To tackle this defined problem, my design vision is:

Fig. 8. The waste map and guide in use in a citizens kitchen

“I want to design a product to support the City of Rotterdam with activating the “Potential” to improve their household waste separation in a low effort manner within the first month after moving to high-rise in Rotterdam.”

Provided solution: Schone start Schone start (Fig. 7) supports high-rise residents with the creation of a waste separation habit in the first month after moving, by providing the means to set-up a system for waste separation. The mail delivery package contains a Waste guide, Waste map, small waste bin, medium waste bag, large waste box, stickers, and suggestions for use. All essential information to start waste separation is actively provided and in accordance with the circular ambitions of the City of Rotterdam. The physical package invites people to explore its content and stimulates them to think about waste separation actively. The combination of pro-actively informing and facilitating high-rise residents triggers activation of the desired in-home waste separation behavior.

Small scale pilot test

Fig. 9. The waste facilities in use showing their limited size

Fig. 7. Schone start, waste map, small waste bin, medium waste bag, large waste box, stickers and suggestions for use

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Fig. 10. Resident receiving the package

Recommendations Schone start is evaluated with six recently moved high-rise residents in Rotterdam, in a small scale pilot. A prototype of Schone start is sent to their home address without further instructions. 1,5 to 2 weeks after receiving Schone start, the product is evaluated with the high-rise residents through an interview. “To make starting waste separation as easy as possible is a purpose that this package serves well�

- Concludes a high-rise resident in Rotterdam

Generally, Schone start is positively evaluated by the test participants regarding helpfulness with household waste separation. The Waste guide and Waste map were highly appreciated (Fig. 8 on page 16). The waste facilities (waste box, bag, and bin) were partially used, but can be optimized to improve usability (Fig. 9 on page 16).

To implement Schone start, its design should be optimized for appearance and size to maximize the percentage of citizens making use of the product. A second step is to organize a large scale pilot (100-200 households) to test Schone start among a larger and more diverse group of Rotterdam citizens. It is recommended to evaluate the long-term quantitative effect (the household waste separation rate) and qualitative effect (awareness of the household waste separation practice) of Schone start over six months. This way, more insights can be gained regarding the potential impact of Schone start for different target groups and contexts. The ease of disposal of the separated waste stays a critical boundary condition: when the containers for separated waste are further than residual waste containers and motivation is limited, residents are not likely to start waste separation.

Fig. 11. Waste system ŠIris Groot Koerkamp

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The introduction of food waste disposal units and the role of the end-user

A research into the factors that influence the acceptability of environmental actions, like the introduction of the food waste disposer, that aim to encourage pro-environmental behavior Renske Boeve

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Introduction Many environmental problems form a threat to environmental sustainability, including loss of biodiversity, urban air pollution, global warming, environmental noise or water shortages and so on. However, most if not all of these problems, are established by human behavior (Steg & Vlek, 2009). By managing to change this behavior, environmental impacts can be reduced. Changing human behavior is considered to be necessary since the technical efficiency advantages that are created by, for instance, home insulation, energy-efficient appliances and water-saving tools, are likely to be taken over by consumption growth (Midden, Kaiser, & McCalley, 2007). Furthermore, technical and physical innovations suggest behavior changes too, since individuals are required to accept and understand them, buy them, and use them as they are meant to be used. This applies to the introduction of food waste disposers as well.

Problem statement Given the opportunities that the introduction of the food waste disposer provide for the aim of the municipality of Rotterdam to become more circular as a city, the main research question in this thesis is: What factors influence the acceptability of environmental actions, like the introduction of the food waste disposer, that aim to encourage pro-environmental behavior?

Method In order to answer this research question, the existing

literature on pro-environmental behavior change theories was critically reviewed, together with various case studies on the introduction of food waste disposal units.

furthermore to a large extent dependent on the perceived actions of others, including business, and a lack of perceived action had a negative influence. This again

Subsequently, the research methodology that was used to develop an answer to the research question was in the form of a focus group. Three focus groups about environmental behavior and about the introduction of the food waste grinder were performed.

negatively impacted the attitude component of the theory of planned behavior.

Research results Researchers have studied various factors that influence recycling behavior and the user’s acceptability of actions and strategies that are meant to motivate people to engage in more pro-environmental actions.

Concerning individual motivations to engage in environmental behavior, both the case studies and the focus groups showed that most respondents state that they take the positive effects on the environment into account as a factor of motivation. People give themselves a pat on the back when they contribute to the environment, it makes them feel proud and it motivates them. This is in line with the theory on Values, Environmental Concern, and Environmental Behavior, and supports the idea that higher environmental concern is associated with acting more pro-environmentally. It’s also in line with the behavioral intention component of the theory of Planned Behavior. However, when looking at the element of perceived behavioral control, this was only positive in a situation where people saw themselves as responsible and in control, but negative in the situation where they ascribed the responsibility to the government.

The perceived behavioral control of most people, was

The intentions to act pro-environmentally were additionally only strong enough to lead to low-cost environmental behavior/effort. When costs were perceived as too high or when more than a one-time-investment was required, residents were no longer committed. This is in line as well with the theory of Schwartz (1977) and Stern (2000). Social norms from friends had, as opposed to expectations from the literature review, almost no impact. However, a person’s upbringing did form an important element in the process of the formation of subjective norms. Besides the pressure from family, respondents also mentioned that they would be effected by the recycling efforts from co-workers and policies implemented at their work place or by companies and business in general. The perceived pressure from family and co-workers does therefore seem to influence subjective norms and consequently the intention to recycle.

Then looking at the theory of Aarts, Verplanken, and Van Knippenberg (1998) on habitual behavior, it was crucial to take into account how exactly an individual forms habits, reinforces them and ultimately sustains them. The theory did not address these factors specifically, but the focus groups showed that the participants’ upbringing and perceived social norms played a role at forming and sustaining the habits, and changes in their environment oftentimes reinforced habits or formed them to begin with. This aligned with the suggestion in the literature that habits only tend to be reconsidered in case of a significant change in context. As stated by Darnton et al. (2011), when

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an individual’s life course is about to change, this forms a convenient occasion to change and create new habits.

Such a moment, like moving, was mentioned by some of

likely to accept a policy when they were involved in the decision making process, as became clear from the practical case studies of the food waste disposer. It was

Additionally, when the municipality considers to introduce a specific policy or tool, such as the food waste disposer, the municipality should communicate about the function-

the focus group participants to have boosted their pro-environmental habits.

also very important to many residents that they received more insights into the actual recycling process, as they had little trust in the current system. Lastly, it became clear that respondents oftentimes did not have enough knowledge about how to properly recycle or they perceived their efforts to have no impact. More knowledge and awareness about recycling and also more awareness about the positive and negative consequences of being engaged or not in recycling activities, was therefore mentioned a lot by participants, as a solution to overcome internal obstacles.

This was in line with the findings from the case study in Sneek in the literature review, where it was found that a combination of information in advance and a demonstration of the project, appeared to be most effective.

ality and process of the system in the most transparent way possible, to increase trust and commitment to its positive outcomes. A combination of an information campaign and a demonstration project is recommended, as this proved to be fruitful in the Sneek case study. Some participants in the focus groups expressed confusion about the message and purpose of the food waste disposer, as the tool would signal that having food waste and leftovers and throwing them away is okay. The municipality should therefore, in the case of the food waste disposer, consider what the ultimate goal and aim of the introduction of the tool is and then clearly communicate this to the end users through an information campaign and demonstration project.

What remained the most mentioned factor and, in both theory and practice, the most important predictor of success and motivation, was convenience, ease of use and comfort. The ABC-theory from Hage et al. (2008) stated that high accessibility would result in high participation rates, independently of attitudes and environmental awareness, while at the same time, even in cases of high environmental awareness and positive attitude towards waste recycling, the participation rate would remain low in case of inadequate accessibility. This turned out to be so, especially for participants who already lived on their own in a (small) apartment. This was due to the fact that residents had to collect, save and store their waste sometimes before throwing it away. Timlett and Williams (2008) had mentioned this in the literature as well when they sated that individuals in semi/detached households tend to participate more in recycling and therefore have higher recycling rates, as opposed to residents of flats, who oftentimes have less space to temporarily storage recyclable materials.

What hasn’t been fully addressed in the literature review, but did came forth from both the practical case studies and the focus groups, is the fact that policies are considered to be more acceptable when residents feel like all relevant parties are included in the execution of a project and its participation, especially businesses. This is connected to the perceived behavioral control and impact element of the theory of planned behavior. People were also more

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Advice for the municipality Based on these findings, the following practical recommendations are suggested to increase the engagement in proposed recycling activities.

First of all, knowledge and awareness about recycling needs to be increased. Possible and practical ways to do this is by advertisement about recycling and its consequences to raise awareness and knowledge, through education at schools and through partnerships with bigger companies. These steps help people to overcome the internal barriers they experience, by creating more knowledge and awareness, by possibly influencing the habituation process of children through their education and by taking away the perceived lack of control and impact by involving bigger companies to take responsibility as well.

Secondly, in many situations people are unaware of the costs and benefits of pro-environmental behavior, as they aren’t directly confronted with the consequences of their behavior. They may engage in environmental actions, if they would have been, as various participants have indicated. It is therefore recommended to provide more information and feedback about the consequences of environmental behavior. Information in general about environmental problems is mostly ineffective, but specific information that is tailored to the end user is likely to work motivating. By providing end users with specific information, about for example the amount of energy or water they save or the impacts and yields of separating plastic and glass fractions by using a certain solution, they aren’t overloaded with irrelevant general information, but only receive information about effective options that can help and stimulate them to increase efforts to make a pro-environmental impact. Information is recommended to be

spread not only by words, but also by visual imaging.

Various focus group participants also suggested, for example, that environmental impacts could be visualized on product packaging (similar to the idea of cigarette packaging). In general, the idea is that specific information on the impacts and consequences of certain efforts have motivational power when they are made specific for the situation of the end user, because the information then has implications for their core values. Lastly, pro-environmental behavior is encouraged when people are frequently provided with feedback about their behavioral actions, especially if the feedback is given straight after the

moment could be moving. If the municipality considers to go through with the proposed food waste disposer, it is recommended that they ensure that a kitchen is always

mental objectives. They can give people a reason to reconsider their decisions and engage in a pro-environmental action as opposed to a habitual environmentally harmful

properly installed with the adequate equipment and required materials to sort food waste conveniently when, for example, a new tenant settles in his/her new home.

This change in environment can enable and sustain habit change (Darnton et al., 2011). It is therefore also recommended to introduce the grinders in newly build apartments first, as opposed to existing apartment blocks with current residents.

action.

Furthermore, policies are more likely to be accepted when people feel like the decision making process that took place before the implementation of the policy, has been fair (Steg, 2016). To increase perceived procedural fairness and therefore acceptability, people should be involved in the initial decision making process. This public involvement gives people the chance to voice their concerns and opinions, and makes them feel like their concerns matter and

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6.

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7.

Hage, O., Sandberg, K., Söderholm, P., Berglund, C., 2008.

Household Plastic Waste Collection in Swedish Municipalities: A Spatial-Econometric Approach. Report within the SHARP (Sustainable Households: Attitudes, Resources and Policy) project.

8.

Timlett, R., Williams, I.D., 2008. Public participation and recycling performance in england: a comparison of tools for behavior change. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 52, 622–634.

have a serious impact in the decision making process. This ultimately increases commitment to the outcome in return.

Fig. 12. InSinkErator, food waste grinder

moment of action.

Another recommendation, for introductions of specific policies or tools, is to introduce them at the moment when an individual’s life course is about to change. As stated by Darnton et al. (2011), when an individual’s life course is about to change this forms a convenient occasion to change and create new habits. An example of such a

A last practical recommendation to increase acceptability could be to make Pro-environmental actions more attractive to execute, and environmentally harmful actions less attractive. This could be done through for example, pricing strategies like subsidies or taxes or regulations and laws. This could lead to a situation where people without any environmental concern also participate in the desired behavior, because the pro-environmental behavior leads to the most profit and pleasure. Although small financial incentives can be considered to be unworthy of the effort, they can motivate people to engage in pro-environmental behavior if they are distinctly connected to pro-environ-

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High living and low recycling

Factors influencing household waste recycling behavior in high-rise buildings

Wies de Jong

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Introduction An important reason why cities face problems to increase the recycling rate of household waste is due to the fact that relatively more people are living in high-rise buildings within cities compared to rural areas. It is likely that the total number of people living in high-rise buildings in cities will increase globally, due to the increasing global urbanization rate in combination with increasing ground prices and a claim for space in cities. The need to decrease the ecological footprint of cities will therefore only become more urgent.

This paper investigates the factors that influence

household waste recycling behavior in high-rise buildings to gain a better understanding of the phenomena by providing a solid foundation for specifically future

the research method. There is an enormous amount of inquiries conducted about household waste recycling behavior, however few studies were interested in

quantitative research and for providing practical recommendations. These can be used by municipalities, housing developers, individuals living in high-rises and other stakeholders to implement more effective interventions to increase the recycling rate of household waste in high-rises.

household waste recycling behavior in the specific context of high-rise buildings. The few studies which investigated household waste recycling behavior in high-rises all had a quantitative data analysis approach. This paper contributes to this underexposed academic subject by researching the factors that influence household waste recycling behavior of residents living in high-rise buildings. Additionally, the qualitative data analysis approach with an inductive nature contributes to a more comprehensive picture of the most important factors influencing household waste recycling behavior in the high-rise context. This study specifically focused on high-rise residents living in the city of Rotterdam.

Problem statement The research used thematic analysis as a qualitative data analysis approach with semi-structured interviews as

Research Results The results of the most important factors influencing

Fig. 13. Thematic map: factors influencing

household waste recycling behavior in high-rises are placed in three areas: (1) Non in-house recycling facilities, (2) In-house recycling facilities and (3) Social norms of recycling. These areas consist of themes and the themes consist of sub-themes (Fig. 13).

The area (1) Non in-house recycling facilities consists of two themes: (1A) Physical distance to inside and outside recycling facilities and (1B) Inside high-rise recycling facilities. The sub-themes of these themes are discussed respectively below.

household waste recycling behavior in highrise buildings

(1A) Physical distance to inside and outside: The sub-theme Inconvenience of inside and outside facilities is a factor that influences household waste recycling behavior in high rise buildings by reflecting the

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distinctive added vertical distance to recycle waste in highrise buildings which results in an increased inconvenience and therefore a decreased self-efficacy.

(1B) Inside high-rise recycling facilities: The sub-theme Unavailability of inside facilities as a factor influences household waste recycling behavior in the high-

The sub-theme Unfamiliarity with outside high-rise facilities can explain high-rise household recycling behavior for the reason that the increased physical distance to cover for high-rise residents has the consequence of an increased unfamiliarity of outside high-rise recycling facilities which understandably leads to non-recycling behavior.

The sub-theme Unfamiliarity with fractions outside highrise is a factor that has an effect on household waste recycling in the high-rise context due to the increased physical distance which needs to be covered which leads to an increased unfamiliarity of fractions (i.e. waste streams) which logically results in non-recycling behavior.

rise context due to the consciously perceived difference in convenience between inside and outside high-rise recycling as a consequence of the unavailability of certain fraction facilities offered in high-rises, this convenience discrepancy results in an extra barrier for recycling which leads to a lower self-efficacy.

The sub-theme Odor from inside facilities results in an increase of inconvenience, especially due to the perceived odor, at the moment of recycling, which certainly does not have a positive effect on high-rise household recycling behavior.

The area (2) In-house recycling exists of two themes: (2A) In-house recycling structure and (2B) In-house recycling hygiene. The sub-themes of these themes are discussed respectively below.

(2A) In-house recycling structure: The sub-theme Limited space for in-house containers reflects the practical factor of the generally smaller living space in the behavioral context of high-rises which leads to not buying containers for recycling due to a decrease in self-efficacy and this results logically in non-recycling behavior.

The sub-theme Unsuitable in-house containers reflects the perceived barrier of the replacement of unsuitable containers in high-rises which results in non-recycling behavior due to a decreased self-efficacy.

(2B) In-house recycling hygiene: The sub-theme Odor from in-house containers leads to less recycling in high-rises due to increased inconvenience and therefore a decreased self-efficacy of recycling for the reasons that it is less possible to store organic waste out-house, the in general lower amount of people living in a high-rise home and the in general larger distance to inside and outside recycling facilities in high-rises.

The area (3) Social norms of recycling consists of the theme (3A) Recycling as a collective. The sub-themes of this theme are discussed respectively below.

(3A) Recycling as a collective: The sub-theme Perceiving incorrectly recycling reflects the act of recycling behavior which is more notable in high-rises due to the collective recycling facilities and this results in a more clearly present social norm of recycling.

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The average recycling rate of high-rises is generally lower compared to non-high-rises which leads to a bigger chance on a non-recycling social norm in high-rises. This

Firstly, an increase in availability of inside high-rise recycling facilities would not only increase the overall convenience of recycling but it would also decrease the unfamiliarity of

the odor; well closing containers to avoid the odor and to decrease the chance of attracting rats and the overall space of the waste area needs to be well closed to prevent rats

may lead in combination with a more prominent role of the recycling social norm to less recycling. The accepted social norm can also be the reason why people are not corrected when they conduct non-recycling behavior.

Additionally, the dependency of recycling on others to make recycling effective can also have a negative effect on recycling behavior because of the confrontation with non-cooperation of recycling by fellow high-rise residents.

outside high-rise recycling facilities, it would decrease the unfamiliarity of whole fractions which were offered outside the high-rise and it would eliminate the convenience discrepancy between inside and outside high-rise recycling facilities.

coming in.

The sub-theme Perceiving incorrect recycled waste is about the perceived results of non-recycling behavior by residents from the high-rise, which is as well as the sub-theme Perceiving incorrectly recycling more prominent in the high-rise context. This theme also results in a non-recycling social norm and more emphasis of non-cooperation of recycling as a collective action.

The paper ends with a discussion in which a comparison with literature is conducted, the limitations of the research are discussed and the recommendations are presented existing of practical recommendations and future research recommendations. In this way understanding of household waste recycling behavior in high-rises will be deepened so more effective interventions can be implemented to increase the recycling rate in high-rises. This will contribute by decreasing the ecological footprint of cities which will only become more urgent in the future. It must be said that there is no silver bullet solution to the problem of the generally low recycling rate in high-rises, due to the reasons that the factors are interrelated. The practical recommendations are discussed below.

Secondly, when high-rises do not have inside high-rise recycling facilities and where it is impossible to create such inside high-rise recycling facilities it is important to locate the outside high-rise recycling facilities as close as possible to the high-rise to increase the overall convenience of recycling, to decrease the unfamiliarity of outside highrise recycling facilities and to decrease the unfamiliarity of whole fractions which are offered outside the high-rises.

In such a case there is not a difference in convenience between inside and outside high-rise recycling, however it is important to cluster as many facilities for different fractions outside the high-rise to avoid convenience differences between outside high-rise recycling fractions.

Thirdly, inform residents of high-rises more about the fractions which are possible to recycle outside the highrise and the location of these recycling facilities for these outside high-rise fractions. This will decrease the unfamiliarity of outside high-rise fractions and outsidehigh-rise recycling facilities.

Fourthly, the negative experiences which are encountered in an inside high-rise recycling facility are needed to be tackled to make recycling a more positive experience.

The waste area needs to be maintained well in general terms and this needs to be supplemented with specific alterations, such as: installing ventilation systems to avoid

Fifthly, municipalities could offer (i.e. for free or with discounts) suitable in-house containers including the service of installing the containers. This will decrease the perceived limited in-house storage space for recycling and it would eliminate the barrier for replacing unsuitable containers. The volume of the specific containers for organic waste needs to be taken into account to not make it too large, otherwise it would increase the change of resulting in odor.

Sixthly, the more prominent present social norm of recycling in high-rises is negatively influencing household waste recycling behavior in high-rises because of the generally low recycling rate in high-rises. However, this could also mean that when the prominent present social norm of recycling would be pro-recycling it then could positively influence the recycling rate. This would also increase the chance that fellow high-rise residents would conduct corrective behavior when someone is non-recycling and it would decrease the confrontation with non-cooperation of non-recycling behavior of fellow high-rise residents.

Lastly, certain recycling facilities could be offered whereby it is impossible to see the prior recycled waste to eliminate the confrontation with seeing the incorrect recycled waste of fellow high-rise residents. Such recycling facilities also have the advantage that they can be well closed which decreases the chance of odor and the attraction of rats.

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Changing customers’ behavior for enabling a circular economy

Ecosystem approach to eliminate the bottleneck

Bogdan Kolos

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Introduction Humanity has faced severe results of overconsumption and intensive polluting of air, water, and earth. We are now using 1.7 times more natural resources than our planet can produce yearly – a sign that we exhaust our planet and make it inappropriate for inhabiting. Moreover, the situation is going to become even worse. Humanity will need 3 times more resources compared to the current level until 2050 due to the increased population. In other words, our current lifestyle is paid more and more at the expense of future generations.

Circular economy is a potentially new way of doing things correctly in terms of business (enables gaining profits), society (saving the planet for the future generations), and environment (decreases the pressure of humans on the ecosphere). However, although institutional environment (legislation, business, society, etc.) is ready to support the transition of humanity to a sustainable way of living, the chances of successful implementation of sustainable value proposition depend on whether end customers are ready to change their behavior. Therefore, the main deliverable of this research would be an answer to the question: “How can a market actor use an ecosystem approach to accelerate customers’ readiness to participate in a circular ecosystem?“ Academic implications of this research are an additional focus of attention while describing concepts of the circular economy. This research also combines studies of ecosystems and theoretical techniques of influencing a behavioral change of customers in order to provide an approach for analyzing ways to implement (additionally to

only design) concepts of circular economy in real life.

Managerial implications of this study are the discovered ways of how a company can use available on the market

citizen), and collaborating company (development agencies). Table 1 provides a summarized view of the results of the conducted interviews with ecosystem

partners to join forces for facilitating the customers’ environmentally friendly behavior. A designed guideline is particularly useful for market actors who are aiming at noticeable contribution to the UN Sustainable Goals while still pursuing economic and strategic targets.

stakeholders (ecosystem creator, customer, and collaborating company). The main findings are grouped into the strengths and weakness of each stakeholder group from the perspective of ecosystem creation. This information will help to understand how a market actor can use an ecosystem approach to accelerate customers’ readiness to participate in a circular ecosystem.

The research gap addressed in this study is filled with a case study of the Rotterdam ecosystem aiming at increasing rates of by the Rotterdam citizens separated waste.

A careful analysis of the obtained information allows dividing the interviewees into three categories: ecosystem creator (Rotterdam municipality), customer (Rotterdam

A logical sequence of creating an ecosystem for tackling the multifaceted problem should start from understanding that there is actually a gap between the current and desired situation. After the root causes of the problem are analyzed, an ecosystem creator should start thinking about countermeasures. Searching for a solution or set of

Stakeholder

Strengths

Weaknesses

Ecosystem creator

- highly experienced and knowledgeable about an

- may overlook an opportunity or necessity to involve a partner;

investigated problem

- cannot take ownership of every initiative required for changing

- able to critically evaluate suggested practical

customers’ behavior

implications Customer

- a creative source of ideas regarding practical

- less than other parties concerned with questions who should be

implications of theoretical concepts

responsible for which action; - may not possess a full picture and think about obstacles for implementing suggested ideas

Collaborating

- provides necessary constituents of an ecosystem

- needs appropriate stimulation and/or motivation to contribute to

company

solution;

the success of ecosystem

- can clearly identify other parties that should be involved in the ecosystem and what would be their tasks

Table 1. Stakeholder comparison

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countermeasures should be done through the interviews with stakeholders and can be guided by the case specific choice architecture techniques.

After choice architecture techniques are chosen according to their applicability to the case, an ecosystem creator can start involving customers in finding out ways of implementing theory into practice. In-depth semistructured interviews based on the theoretical concepts to be are a reliable approach for capturing unique as well as most common ideas. An ecosystem creator can further investigate the collected responses, evaluate their feasibility, and develop them because it has a required exposure to the market, relevant knowledge, and experience to make useful suggestions out of the conducted interviews with customers. New ideas gained from the customers would potentially lead to an understanding that there is an opportunity or necessity to collaborate with a specific partner or group of partners.

The third step of ecosystem formation is interviewing potential partners the same way as it was done with customers. Such an approach will increase the chances of capturing constructive insights not heard before.

The analysis of previous interviews should be also discussed with potential partners in order to understand their concerns, suggestions, and possibilities regarding the implementation of one or another technique. It is also recommended to assess interdependence risks of coordinating with enabling partners, initiative risks connected with project management, and integration risks of adopting the solution across the value chain, An aim of this step is to clearly define partners, their roles, and interconnections in the designed circular ecosystem.

Fig. 14. Forming an ecosystem for accelerating customers’ readiness to opt for a

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sustainable value proposition

Finally, the whole process should lead to prototypes and mass implementation in case of successfully passed tests.

Therefore, the above-described actions should result in the birth of a whole ecosystem where the strengths and weaknesses of all the ecosystem stakeholders will be leveraged in order to create a joint solution of a problem.

A process of ecosystem creation (Fig. 14) aimed at solving a problem of customers’ unsustainable behavior has an iterative nature from problem definition to the discovery of countermeasures, testing the solution, implementing it in full scale, tracking the results, and expanding it to other areas if needed. Choice architecture techniques should be an integral part of a solution in order to be able to transform a customer into a partner of a circular ecosystem.

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Partnerships in the Dutch commercial waste collection system

The process, the barriers and the opportunities in establishing waste collection partnerships in order to reduce traffic, fine dust and CO2-emissions in Dutch urban areas

Alissa Griffioen

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Introduction Ever since the modern age, waste collection and management are crucial public services for communities worldwide and are essential for sustaining the environment and protecting public health. Urban management recognizes this crucial service, since high quality waste systems are vital for thriving economies and enjoyable public spaces. The moment that these waste services act poorly, citizens are prone to bad living conditions (United Nations Habitat, 2010, p.7).

With increasing consumption rates, enormous urbanization rates and growing population, while simultaneously having shrunken natural resources, the view on waste has moved from an end-of-the-line product, to a potential precious new resource (United Nations Development Programme, n.d.). In increased terms it is recognized that the ‘take-make-and-dispose’ model of production and consumption is no longer sustainable. This shift in thinking about waste has led to an increased popularity of ‘circular economy’ by both policy makers and business owners. The shocking images of our oceans filled up with 8 million tons of plastic every year and the effect this has on the marine ecosystem, led to international outrage (ibid). The result is a global call to clean up, install global regulations for proper waste services and start consuming more responsibly.

This increased global awareness led to the fact that waste services are prominently featured in the targets of both Sustainable Development Goal 11 and 12. The global targets focus upon reducing, preventing, recycling and reusing urban and food waste by half in 2030 (Sustainable Development Goals, n.d.). These targets are also featured in most policy frameworks worldwide, like it is the case

the Netherlands. The importance of waste services has been recognized in the Netherlands for some decades, however there is a lot to gain in order to increase recycling

Additionally, on a more urban scale the waste collectors are competing to collect commercial waste at the lowest price possible. This competition has resulted in a commercial

rates, make our waste management systems future proof and in line with our environmental aims.

Ever since the Dutch government decided to privatize the waste sector at the end of last century, the sector has been dominated by price, which made sustainability related issues of secondary importance. The rationale behind opening up the market was to make the waste collection and -processing less expensive and efficient again (Van Waarden, 2012, p.20). The government would take on the role of supervising the market on fair competition.

However, an inevitable consequence is that ever since the waste market turned into a buyer’s markets, where waste processors compete over every piece of waste.

waste collection market that is dominated by in some cities up to 26 different carriers since the introduction of the national privatization efforts. Every office, shop or heavy industry can choose its own carrier to pick up waste where the only competitive edge between carriers is price (Gradus et al., 2012). The result is city centers where the claims on space are already enormous combined with increasing amounts of traffic crossing the city.

Since 2007 the Dutch government decided to shift its focus towards sustainability (Rijksoverheid, n.d.). The waste sector can ultimately contribute to this aim by incorporating circular business models. The waste carriers understood their responsibility: the rates of sorted waste increased, more waste is being recycled and non-recyclable waste is used for energy generation. However, sustainability is still being overshadowed by competition in both waste collection and -processing. Currently there is overcapacity in the national waste processing sector which means that waste incineration plants are actively seeking waste and offer waste processing for dumping prices. Waste travels large distances to be processed at the lowest price possible. The emissions of these transportation are not taken into account, only the cheap offers (Het Financieele Dagblad, 2018).

Especially the large trucks that are used for logistics and collecting waste are perceived as undesirable by the citizen. The trucks block the flow of traffic in busy streets, causing delays and annoyance. Not only the street

Busy city centers with high volume of logistics activities and CO2-emission

Decrease this pressure as waste sector

Waste collection partnerships

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views and flow of the city are affected, also the high CO2-emissions and fine dust in Dutch urban areas are for 39% percent the result of logistics of trucks (Gemeente

The aim is to increase efficiency, have less trucks driving around in the city center and ultimately have less emissions and fine dust (Gemeente Haarlem, 2018). The

Haarlem, 2018). The presence of the trucks in the streets and the environmental affects they have on the urbanized area make the collection of waste into a societal activity, which makes it into more of a priority to decrease the undesirability of waste collection trucks and the large emissions.

collaboration of these parties seems a promising and progressive initiative in the Dutch waste collection sector in order to increase efficiency in collecting waste and decrease the pressure on city centers in terms of flow and CO2-emissions.

Currently the negative impact of the waste collection trucks on the city’s traffic and air quality is only increasing, since the Dutch growing economy creates more waste every year. Not only the amount of waste is increasing, the large economic activities also bring greater pressure on the mobility and air quality of the city. A promising example to increase efficiency in the logistics of commercial waste collectors has been initiated in 2018 in Haarlem, where the municipality joined forces with four commercial waste collectors. In this pilot ‘Green Collecting Haarlem’ (Fig. 15) these parties collect residual waste and paper from commercial clients with one ‘neutral’ truck that is responsible for the collection of waste in a certain area.

The recent introduction of this pilot in Haarlem is an opportune moment to engage in the question whether this form of collaboration and partnership could be implemented in other urban waste collection systems. In this paper, the aim is to explore the barriers and opportunities that became apparent throughout establishing this initiative. Since the introduction of the pilot in Haarlem, also other similar initiatives have been established. The experiences from these various pilots and the different stakeholders involved will lead to identifying the crucial elements of forming such collaboration and ultimately to an advice on what the municipality of Rotterdam can take into account when establishing a similar pilot. By conducting qualitative research on the different stakeholders of the waste collection system involved in these pilots the following research question can be answered, with in the end a focus on how such an initiative could potentially be implemented in Rotterdam.

‘How can collaborations in waste collection be established in cities in The Netherlands in order to decrease logistic pressure on city centers and CO2-emissions?’

Fig. 15. pilot ‘Green Collecting Haarlem ‘

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Methodology In order to answer the research question on how collaborations between commercial waste carriers can be established, an abductive method of research is used. This method is dominated by an iterative process of moving between theory and data, which leads to a combination of both inductive and deductive research (Bryman and Bell, 2015, p.23). In the case of this research, it means that the literature about partnerships and collaborations is reviewed to obtain an understanding of the literature that is guiding the empirical research on how these partnerships can be established in this particular case. This literature review is only guiding, and not limiting, the empirical research.

The case in this study will be formulated and defined as the Dutch waste collection system. The case study is conducted through a qualitative research strategy, whereby the emphasis is on the understanding of words, instead of quantification of data like with a quantitative research strategy (Bryman and Bell, 2015, p.392). The stress is upon understanding how the social world is viewed through the eyes of the participants. It is interesting to examine this view, since qualitative research implies that this social view is constructed by the interactions by people (ibid). In order to gather intensive and detailed date of the single case, interviewing is especially a helpful data collection method (Bryman and Bell, 2015, p.68). The main source of data is generated through several semistructured expert interviews with respondents that are representatives of the most important stakeholders in the Dutch waste collection system.

Fig. 16. Model of the proposed collaboration

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A proposed model for implementing waste collection partnerships

Another theme to consider in forming similar waste collection partnerships, is the legal context in which these collaborations have to be established. The legal separation

During the research it became apparent that pilots like the ‘Green Collecting Haarlem’ are important learning processes on how to implement similar waste collection partnerships. The overarching goal of the collaborations is to decrease pressure on city centers and emit less CO2 during waste collecting. Various waste collection parties signed the Green Deal 06, which shows that they are committed to this end goal and agree that partnerships are essential in reaching these sustainability aims. However, the process of forming these partnerships is not low hanging fruit. That is why this research looked into the important factors on how to establish these partnerships.

From the findings it became apparent that establishing trust between the different involved partners is essential.

The municipality and the commercial parties have a history of not trusting each other to some extent, which still impacts current relationships. Additionally, there are trust issues between the commercial partners to collaborate, since they have always been competitors. Changing the nature of these relationships seems difficult and challenging.

between household- and commercial waste can be a barrier in forming partnerships between the municipality and commercial waste collectors. However, it is very likely that this legal context is going to be the reality for the immediate future. This means that in forming partnerships, there is the need to make fair agreements between the involved partners on how to deal with this. It seems that especially a neutral third-party can facilitate this process effectively, to make sure the highest synergy is created by the partnership. All these elements are summarized in Fig. 17 on page 33.

In order to establish trust, it is essential in the process of forming these partnerships to have a neutral party that looks at all the different interests. The involved parties have different origins and fundaments, which make that their interest for these partnerships can differ. The neutral party can analyze these different interests and foster trust by making sure that none of the parties are better off in the collaboration than others.

During both the first and second round interviews, it became apparent that waste policy makers in Rotterdam do have the ambition to decrease CO2-emissions, fine dust and logistic pressure in the city center. This did not only became apparent throughout the interviews, also by signing the ‘010 City Logistics’ initiative, mentioned in the context chapter. However, not yet has there been made steps in order to implement a similar partnership like in Haarlem in order to reach those aims. If Rotterdam still has these ambitions and recognizes the added value of these

partnerships, the findings from this research can assist in the formation process to know which are important elements to take into account.

Practical implication findings for Rotterdam

First, it is recommended to realize that the operational details of the formation process are important to consider, but especially the more intangible process which this research analyzed is critical and non-trivial to organizations.

The operational details that were discussed during the process in Haarlem can function as a blue print for other similar pilots. However, the more intangible part of the process of forming partnerships in another context with other parties is what needs time and effort. Therefore, it is essential to take a closer look at the themes that derived from the findings in this research to know which are barriers and drivers in this process.

This research found several essential elements and barriers in the process of forming waste collection partnerships.

Since this research has been done in the context of the

The practical implications of the findings are that when forming a waste collection partnership, it is important to build trust, let a neutral party participate in order to foster

interdisciplinary research group Centre for Sustainability that is closely involved with the municipality of Rotterdam, this paragraph looks at the practical implications of the findings for Rotterdam.

that trust and make sure that the aims of the collaboration are clear. These aims are essential to form consensus on the agreements made throughout the whole process.

The mutual goals make sure that there is a basis to form agreement upon and keep progressing as partners during the whole process. This fundament is also important as a way to overcome pasts that make current relationships difficult and challenging. Fortunately, a waste policy maker from Rotterdam indicated that the relationships in Rotterdam are quite well, which may be an indicator that this might be less of a difficulty in the Rotterdam context.

Various commercial waste parties indicated as well that they recognize that Rotterdam would be a good context to initiate another pilot. However, they also argued that they need the municipality to be proactive in initiating

this. Especially since in Rotterdam the municipality has a large waste collection party themselves that also has some additional commercial contracts. This is a party with large

References 1. Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2015). Business Research Methods.

stakes in the waste collection section in Rotterdam and therefore it is essential to set out the first ground rules and aims.

2.

Gemeente Haarlem (2018). ‘Green Collecting’, Retrieved on 11 February 2019 from: https://www.haarlem.nl/nieuws/ green-collecting-haarlem-veelbelovend-van-start/.

3.

Gradus, R.H. J.M. , Dijkgraaf, E. & Wassenaar, M.C. (2012).

‘Heen en weer in privatisering afval’ ,Economisch Statistische Berichten, 97, pp. 394- 396.

4.

Het Financieele Dagblad (2018). ‘Meer afval verdwijnt naar de stortplaats’, Retrieved on 11 February 2019 from: https://fd.nl/economie-politiek/1265348/meer-afval-verdwijnt-naar-de-stortplaats.

5.

Rijksoverheid (n.d.). ‘Overheid steunt groene groei economie’, Retrieved on 11 February 2019 from: https://www. rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/duurzame- economie/ groene- groei.

6.

Sustainable Development Goals (n.d.). ‘Sustainable Development Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’, Retrieved on 13 February from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg11.

7.

Sustainable Development Goals (n.d.). ‘Sustainable Development Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns’, Retrieved on 13 February 2019 from: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg12

8.

United Nations Development Programme (n.d.). ‘Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production’, Retrieved on 13 February 2019 from: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/ en/home/sustainable-development- goals/goal-12- responsible-consumption-and-production.html.

9.

United Nations Habitat (2010). Solid Waste Management in the world’s cities. Water and sanitation in the world’s cities 2010. London: Earthscan.

Taking all the findings and essential elements for forming waste partnerships into account, it is recommended to the municipality of Rotterdam to start talking to various key stakeholders in the process. The formation process is the most difficult part of the process, so it is crucial to immediately start the process focused. In order to immediately have a good start, appointing a mediating role to a neutral party seems critical. A branch organization, that was already closely involved in the Haarlem initiative, could have mediating function to make sure that all the involved parties have the same aims and could start building agreements. In this process it is important as well to decide in which role the municipality of Rotterdam will participate: as a full waste collection partner that also collects commercial waste, more as a facilitator, or as a party that makes the rules for that particular area.

All these themes, derived from the findings, are considered as essential in forming waste collection partnerships. It seems like the relationships in Rotterdam are of good quality, which is a good starting point. Pronounce these aims as municipality is now an essential second step, to increase the chances of becoming the next city where such a waste collection partnership can be established.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

10. van Waarden, F. (2010). ‘Was Privatisering van het Publieke Domein wel in het Publieke Belang? Een kritische beschouwing over het Nederlandse privateringsbeleid van de afgelopen decennia.’, De Parlementaire Onderzoekscommissie ‘Privatisering en Verzelfstandiging van Overheidsdiensten’, Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal.

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Finding the ‘ideal’ waste scenario

Understanding the system of waste collections in Rotterdam, and designing for its future

Sebastiaan van der Made

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Problem statement The city of Rotterdam is looking to expand within its city limits, using new high-rise buildings to be able to offer more housing for its growing population. Next to this, the city is increasing its ambitions to become circular. In a fully circular city, all the resources are retrieved from the waste that it generates, and used again in the production processes that provide for the city’s needs.

Between these two ambitions, there is a big mismatch: high-rise districts are notorious for having the worst recycling rates of any type of district, and Rotterdam’s recycling rates are already one of the lowest in the country.

Method When designing a product it is important to understand the context that you design for. Therefore I made a thorough analysis of the system of waste collection in Rotterdam, by mapping out the ways different municipal wastes are collected, transported and processed as well as getting a sense of the relative amounts of these different waste fractions. No less important than this was to understand the concerns and behavior of the citizens of Rotterdam towards the recycling process, and finding the factors that influence this recycling behavior. This way I was able to understand the current situation of the waste journey in the city.

Next I started looking for the ‘ideal system’ of waste collection. To be able to imagine an ideal world, first we have to define the qualities that make the situation ideal.

Since the ambition is about becoming a circular city, this seems clear: In the ideal situation the amount of material from the waste stream that is being reused in

the production of new consumer goods is as high as possible.

essential to the recycling process.

For increasing the collection rates I looked at how other cities in the world were able to become successful in

This comes down to two main criteria. The first of these criteria is the quality of the (separate) collected materials.

The quality and purity of the output of the waste processing decide the usability of the processed materials for production. The other criterion is the amount of these separate collected materials, which is directly linked to the rate of participation by the citizens. If more people separate their waste, the amount of reintroduced material increases.

When people talk about recycling, they are mainly talking about this second point: the amount of separately collected materials. In my project I wanted to also keep the quality and purity of those materials in mind, since they are

recycling, to see which principles might be used in Rotterdam. For increasing the material quality I looked at sorting technologies that are used currently, and those that might become viable in the near future. I also had a specific look at the plans for the Pompenburg area in Rotterdam to get insights about how waste collection could fit together with the aspects of a modern city neighbourhood.

Research results Current Situation The results of my current situation analysis were the ‘Rotterdam waste cycle map’ and the ‘Drivers and barriers for recycling behavior’ his infographic shows the ways the MSW is collected, the relative weights of these fractions both those that were collected separately and those that were collected within the residual waste. Then it shows a processing step together with the result of that processing.

Only by a balanced approach of increasing the drivers and reducing the barriers can the recycling rate reach its potential.

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Future ‘Ideal’ Situation During the research the following ideal world considerations were found:

Strive for a balanced approach The research demonstrated that increasing recycling rates is best done by a balanced approach to the different problems associated with recycling. Different people have different reasons for (not) recycling, and Rotterdam especially is a collection of many different people from different backgrounds. It is therefore important to have a broad solution area that includes providing information, convenience, and incentives, instead of fully focusing on one problem.

Important waste fractions There are lots of considerations that need to be taken into account when deciding which types of waste are collected where. The municipality is collecting 6 different streams within the city. To recap chapter 4: these are residual, organic (GFT), paper, glass, Packaging (PMD) and textiles.

Between them, they also vary in importance. The graphs show the relative amounts of these fractions that are collected both separately and within the residual waste.

The left graph shows the weights of the fractions, while the

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right shows the volumes. Looking at the left graph, you can see that organic material is by weight the biggest fraction that could be collected separately. While this material is being used in (and even important to) waste-to-energy processes, separating it from the rest of the waste would increase the quality of materials that are post-separated from residual waste as well as increasing recycling rates.

In the right graph in figure 16 you can see that the PMD waste encompasses as much as half the total volume of all the waste that is collected locally by the municipality.

Separating this fraction will decrease the volume of the residual waste by a large amount, and the PMD waste lends itself to shredding or compressing to reduce the volume locally, which will decrease the frequency of collections that are needed.

Out of all the fractions, textile is a somewhat different waste type from the rest. The residual, organic, PMD, paper and glass fractions all have in common that they are produced constantly, since they are the result of daily consumption of items such as supermarket products.

Think of matters such as food leftovers and the packaging materials that were used to hold the food. Textiles are more of an incidental kind of waste, similar to chemical waste or discarded electronic devices. Therefore, these are not as important for the waste collection system as the others.

Considering what materials to accept In the recyclable waste fractions, the result of processing is very important. To be able to keep reusing a material over and over, its quality should be maintained during the waste processing steps. It is therefore important for the municipality to be aware of the result of the processing of these recyclables, to see whether they are actually being reused in a similar way to their original purpose. It would be good to discuss with the processing companies if there is any accepted waste that lowers the quality of the result material significantly. These might (for now) be better suited for energy production alongside the other residual waste.

An example of this change would be any paper material that has been in contact with food being thrown in with the organic waste. Contaminated paper lowers the quality of the paper recycling process, but paper is also an organic material which can be composted or digested. Another example might be plastic foils: these are hard to sort and mostly result in low quality material since they are contaminated easily. These might for now be better suited for the residual waste.

Residual waste as the largest distance One of the reasons for people not to recycle is that it always takes more effort than just dumping everything in the residual waste. This is due to the separation that needs to take place at home, and because finding and going to the appropriate containers that are usually farther away than the residual bins. This added distance is a big issue for high-rise residents, since they never qualify for kerbside pickup schemes and have to instead bring their waste to a collection point. One way to make it easier for the residents is to have the recyclable fractions collected closer—or at

an even distance—to the residence as the residual waste.

In this scenario, recycling can be seen as an equal option instead of as an extra effort when bringing waste to the

people that use them. This means for example that the residents can throw away their trash on their way out of the building, and the waste can be collected in

containers.

a spot where a garbage truck can park close by.

Somewhere in the building they find the waste receptacle.

Here they can throw away their waste and find information about how recycling can be done in their neigbourhood

Using Differentiated Tariffs... or not?

As mentioned in chapter 3, the municipality of Rotterdam has decided not to implement any kind of DIFTAR waste tax in the city. Even though most of the cities with high recycling rates do practice DIFTAR, there are viable arguments to be made against implementing it.

While it does increase the amount of waste that is collected in the organic and recyclable waste streams, this waste will likely include more items that do not belong in the waste fraction. Since keeping the quality of the material high is important, it is better for the city to try and incentivise its residents in another way. If the city does change its mind and starts using DIFTAR, it should implement some kind of way to check what is being thrown away to be able to give warnings or fines to those that abuse the system.

It works like this: First they scan their electronic key fob

Next they will be able to choose the waste fraction they want to throw away

Advice for the municipality The final result of my project was the design of a system for waste collections in the planned high-rise buildings in Rotterdam. This system allows people to enter any of the five most important waste types, after which it gets moved to a separate storage area where it gets sorted into the right container automatically. It would work like shown in the figure on the right.

After this, it is moved via a hidden conveyor system to the pickup-point, which might look something like this: This system will allow the developers of the new high rise buildings to select different locations for the waste disposal and the waste collection, which are more accessible for the

They can see the weight of the waste they just threw in on the screen, along with instructions on the correct disposal

Finally, they throw the waste into the receptacle, and tell it they are finished

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CREDITS

CONTACT

Editors:

Centre for Sustainability LDE Cities HUB www.centre-for-sustainability.nl 5 August 2019

Cities Hub

Thanks to the partners: Gemeente Rotterdam Stadsbeheer Rotterdam

Special thanks to: Synchroon ontwikkelaars

Postal Address: CML: Centre for Sustainability Einsteinweg 2 2333 CC Leiden HUB Coordinator Tjerk Wobbes t.wobbes@plein06.nl

The report is made possible by the students of Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University: Alissa Griffioen, Bogdan Kolos, Iris Groot Koerkamp, Renske Boeve, Sebastiaan van der Made, Wies de Jong

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