| recovery,
reuse, revenue & reality
- the SuperShed story
Joan McSweeney, Business Development
Manager, Darrell Higson, Business Manager Recycling
Centres and SuperShed & Sarah Gordon, Publicity
and Information Manager, Recovered Materials
Foundation
The following is an abbreviated version
of the paper presented by the RMF
on its experiences in developing and
managing a public service that meets
these goals.
Introduction
Resource recovery, or recycling centres
are not a new concept. Nowadays
most refuse transfer stations and
public landfills provide a drop-off area
for reusable and recyclable materials.
What is new is the need to maximise
the economic, social and environmental
outputs of these operations, the
associated goals and targets some of
which can sometimes be in conflict with
each other.
Planning and Design to Achieve
Targets
Joan McSweeney
The first Resource Recovery Centre
(RRC) for Christchurch was set up as
part of the new refuse transfer station
in 1981 to service the southern suburbs
of the City. Transfer stations with RRC’s
were set up for the eastern and northern
suburbs in ’84 and ’86 respectively.
At the RRC’s the general public could
drop-off reusable and recyclable items
at no charge. In 1992 there was little
monetary incentive for the public to use
these areas except for the environmental
good. The key focus for the staff was on
scrap metal, whole bottles and reusable
items recovery.
The people who frequented the centres
to purchase reusable items were
predominantly secondhand dealers.
Staff purchases were not restricted and
some had relationships with dealers and
outside business interests. By 1998 the
RRCs were difficult to operate. Revenue
had dropped with the advent of
imported bottles, the customers fought
and argued with staff over who was
getting the best deals, staff required a
lot of supervision, the money handling
system was not secure, theft was
obvious, and then the Asian crisis hit
home and metal prices plummeted. The
RRC’s were operating at a net cost over
proceeds of $130,000 per year.
In June 1998 the RMF secured a
contract with the Christchurch City
Council to manage the operation
of the RRC’s using current staff and
budget. Our primary focus was to
increase revenue from the centres whilst
increasing the volume of materials
diverted from the wastestream and
maximizing employment opportunities.
In order to achieve this, an initial study
made two key recommendations. Firstly
to focus more on the reusable whole
goods recovery and secondly, to clearly
separate the recovery and retailing
functions of the centres.
We decided to adopt the model for
the Logan Recycling Market, (south of
Brisbane) to set up a centralised retail
outlet for recovered reusable items.
Moving the retail outlet away from the
RRC allowed a greater focus to be put
on materials recovery, which is a more
site dependant function than a retail
shop. This also freed up both space and
staff time to assist more cars and trailers
to pull in and drop off materials quickly
and conveniently.
Having one centralised retail outlet
provides consistency in pricing, servicing
and displaying goods in one locality.
It also places a greater emphasis on
actively marketing the materials as,
once they have been transported acrosstown, it is simply not
economic to store,
or eventually discard them.
Finding the right premises was
essential. As a retail operation, it
needed to be accessible to most
customers by being on a bus route
and having adequate parking.
Obtaining a resource consent to operate
the SuperShed in a residential area was
a very long process. A resource consent
to operate the SuperShed was finally
granted with stringent conditions,
the main one being that all materials
delivered to the site could only come
from the refuse stations.
From the first report on the current
operation of the RRC’s in 1998, to further
investigation, planning and working on
resource consents, recruitment and
changes to staffing structures, it all
came together and the SuperShed was
officially opened on October 1 2000.
Operational Issues
Darrell Higson
The biggest daily issue is having to
choose between what is realistically
reusable and what we would all like
to see diverted from the wastestream.
Quite simply - items diverted from the
waste stream must sell, if they don’t
they take up valuable space and prevent
other items from being offered.
Similar to many retail establishments,
issues relating directly to customers are
important and can range from dealing
with valid customer complaints to rude
abusive customers, shoplifters, people
trying to con staff, second hand dealers,
answering customer queries and dealing
with unruly children.
We are not second hand dealers. We
deal with waste materials that wouldotherwise be landfilled
and consider this
operation to be the last option for these
materials. We do not purchase items, and
support and encourage other options to
dispose of unwanted goods eg: garage
sales, charity shops, advertising in “Buy,
Sell and Exchange” before taking them
to the Recycling Centres.
As both an employer and a retailer,
we deal with a range of legal requirements.
Health and Safety issues are a major
consideration. These include general
issues like lifting and carrying, to more
specific ones such as handling hazardous
waste and even used syringes.
As with other retail outlets we
must comply with numerous
pieces of legislation including the
Consumer Guarantees Act and
therefore do not sell a number
of items that could be classified
as hazardous unless checked by
a competent agency, including
gas bottles, gas BBQs, chemicals,
prams, cots, crash helmets, life
jackets and diving equipment.
Another issue is the requirement
for a second hand dealer license.
This has been a long drawn out
issue, but on legal advice it has
been determined that this is not
required as we do not “trade” (ie:
buy and sell), items but deal with those
only destined for landfill.
Marketing and Promotion
Sarah Gordon
Prior to developing the marketing plan
we undertook comprehensive market
research on the public perception and
use of the recycling centres to both
drop-off goods and purchase recovered
items. A key finding was that many
people did not understand the term “
Resource Recovery Centre”. Although
a technically correct term, it seemed to
have strong associations with some sort
of industrial process. The first step in
giving the whole area a face lift was the
rename them “Recycling Centres” (RC’s)
which was an easier term that everyone
could understand, not to mention say or
abbreviate.
Upgrading Drop-off Facilities
We upgraded the appearance of
these centres in conjunction with the
introduction of the waste management
unit’s domestic trailer weighing. The
message “Sort and Save” was a useful
tool to encourage people to drop offrecyclable materials prior
to going
through to the refuse station. Staff were
made more identifiable with red overalls,
and this look was carried through to the
SuperShed as well.
Focus on Demand more than Supply
So much for the drop-off side of the
operation - its all very well to recover
materials, but its not much use if they
have no markets. In our first year of
setting up the SuperShed, our focus
was to increase demand for the reusable
goods dropped off at the RC’s which in
turn would incentivise recovery facilities
and service.
As the SuperShed was a new operation,
we kept promotion low key in the first
four months to allow for any problems
to be identified and resolved. Over this
period our initial target market was
the existing customers of the RC’s.
Once we had amassed good stocks of
items and understood the turn-around
time for materials, resolved any public
safety, security and health and safety
issues, dealt with the legalities, staffing
requirements etc, we started a more
intensive campaign to raise the profile
of the SuperShed.
Our message was kept very simple
with the key objective for everyone
in Christchurch to know
of its existence as
a source of quality
reusable goods within
18 months. We did
not dilute this with any
messages about waste
reduction. We believed
that the SuperShed
should work as a
second hand retail
outlet in its own right
without having to play
the environmental card
to encourage peopleto visit and purchase items from
there. Customers’ principal motive
is a bargain purchase. Unfortunately
the environmental feel-good factor is
secondary to this.
The initial focus was on changing
the perception of these materials. We
targeted women, as up until then,
they were not a major user of the RC’s
to purchase goods (and who would
take their family to the refuse station
to shop?) Also a lot of the materials
recovered such as kitchenware never
moved from the RC’s and would
eventually end up back in the refuse
pit. The new SuperShed image was on
convenient access with clean,
sorted and tested materials,
and just a little bit retro and
different.
Secondary Focus on Supply
Now that we have a good
customer base, increasing sales,
and the SuperShed is a credible
established retail outlet, we will
have a stronger emphasis on
the Recycling Centres to drop
off materials for reuse and
recycling. This is linked to the
waste minimisation message
and encouraging people to
think more creatively about using
these resources.
Results to Date
Darrell Higson
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
for the SuperShed include increasing
sales revenue each subsequent year
(to measure economic effectiveness),
increased tonnage diverted to the
SuperShed; decreased refuse from both
the recycling centre and SuperShed
operations; and the number of direct
and indirect sustainable jobs created.
In line with our TBL philosophy our main guiding principles
are to:
- Increase diversion of materials from
the wastestream to viable end uses
- Develop more sustainable
employment opportunities in the
recovered materials industry
- To operate as a business, to at
least breakeven, and any surplus
revenue to be used in furthering
reuse and recycling initiatives and
services for the city.
There are trade-offs between
these three main principles.
For example: maximising
recovery of materials
(including those that do not
sell well) against maximising
revenue; increased
employment against higher
operating costs; maximising
access to materials through
the SuperShed with higher
operating costs as opposed
to having retail outlets at
the three recycling centres
which cost less to operate.
Although we are constantly juggling these values, we have clear
targets to increase materials diversion,
employment and revenue each year.
Materials Diversion
As we are now moving all reusable
materials to the SuperShed for sale,
we are able to weigh and monitor the
impact of this operation both in terms
or weight and volume. These items
are stacked into 20 foot shipping
containers for transport to the
SuperShed. As we are charged a set
rate per container movement, there
is a strong emphasis on ensuring the
goods are efficiently and safely stacked
in the containers. Records of each
container weight and safe loading are
maintained to give feedback to the
staff at the recycling centres.
Table 1 summarises the number of
containers and net weight of materials
transported to the SuperShed in the
2001/02 financial year.
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