Creating a "smart" solid waste recycling system : the case of high rise residential apartment block

Abstract

South Africa has experienced rapid urbanisation, population growth, and economic growth since 1994 and as a result, solid waste is being produced on an ever-larger scale, despite significant environmental, social and economic consequences. The South African State, via the South African National Waste Management Strategy (NWMS) aims to divert 50 percent of all recyclables away from landfills. However, by 2015 only 7.2% of urban households reported regularly recycling their solid waste. For apartment complexes, some 14.2% reportedly separated their waste in 2015. However, in general, data on waste separation and recycling in South Africa is poor. Thus, this study represents a novel intervention, whereby QR codes were used to characterise the waste stream of an apartment block in Gauteng. The purpose was to firstly generate a base line dataset of waste generation rates, recycling participation rates, and attitudes towards recycling. Secondly, it hoped to increase the recycling rate, which it did, achieving a recycling rate of 35% for those residents who participated in the intervention. By the end of the intervention, participating units generated 4.95kg/household/week of solid waste compared to 5.81kg/household/week before it. Thus, the intervention helped participants reduce their total solid waste outputs by 14.8%. In terms of recycling behaviour, the study found that lack of knowledge, apathy, and a lack of facilities (recycling bins) on each floor were the main inhibitors of recycling. In a further intervention, whereby large, dedicated recycling bins were installed on each floor, a recycling rate of 19% was achieved. Finally, an awareness campaign using flyers, posters, notices, door-to-door conversations, weekly bin stickers with actual versus target rates, and a responsive website was implemented. This also had positive results, with a steady weekly increase in the recycling rate from 8.1% to 24%. Residents reported a strong influence of the interventions on their recycling behaviour. That said, the recycling rate is still far from the national target of 50%, although biodegradables were not measured in this study and they are likely to be a sizeable proportion of the solid waste stream. It is recommended that additional incentives such as free recycling bags, and in-unit separation receptacles be introduced to increase recycling and participation rates. But additional research is required to establish why some households persistently refuse to recycle their waste.