LARAC Local Authority Garden Waste COnsultation

Service: Bespoke Research

Topic: Public Sector Services

SOENECS undertook a project for the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) in March 2021, focused on local authority garden waste collections. Through a process of questionnaires, website reviews, case studies, and data summarisation, modelling and analysis, the findings in the report could be utilised by LARAC to inform on government consultations regarding household waste and recycling. 

The report covers data modelling of 128 local authority respondents. The findings explore the percentage of authorities that charge for garden waste collection, the range of costs for the service, the distribution of service type, types of operational delivery method, and methods of presentation. In its analysis, the report models the government’s proposal for a free garden waste collection across all authorities, making note of the income generated from households under charged garden waste collection. It concludes that if all authorities across England can go from their existing services and offer a free collection service based upon the modelled good performance, then an extra 2.06 million tonnes of garden waste (excluding food) could be collected but resulting in a loss of a possible £629 million in income from households.