A survey of UK local authorities to assess attitudes towards direct charging of householders for waste management services, backed by an examination of the current practices/programmes of direct charging across Europe and a review of alternative collection procedures.

Objectives

To identify the barriers to implementation of direct charging in the UK and to make recommendations that can be used in the development of policy enabling this or some similar mechanism to be used to increase the participation of householders in recycling and to contribute to waste minimisation.

To identify ballpark revenue/administrative costs for direct charging relative to current collection costs.
From European experience, to highlight the perceived and actual benefits of direct charging.

To draw comparisons with the results of revised collection practice (e.g. reduction in bin size/alternate week collection of residual household waste) in the UK.

Project Partners

The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM)
Local Government Association (LGA)

Status
Completed March 2003.  There is a summary (39 page) document available from our free publications section of the website.  The full report is 255 pages long (1.3 MB) and will take about 10 mins to download.