Reaching cost-saving effects by a mixed collection of light packagings together with residual household waste?

Abstract

To enforce material recycling of household waste at high levels, separate collection schemes often under a producer’s responsibility regime were implemented in Germany since the 1970s and 1990s, respectively. The separate collection of recyclables (Sorting—Transportation—Sorting—Recovery’ system) is assumed, guaranteeing higher purities of the collected material streams but also causing higher costs for logistics and the processing of the waste fractions. Several authors argue that since the rapid development of automatic sorting systems in recent years, a mixed collection of recyclables and residual household waste with a downstream sorting strategy (Transportation—Sorting—Recovery system) is cheaper than the currents system while keeping the product quality constant. This paper evaluates the economic saving potentials in logistics and the extra costs for separation technologies when implementing a mixed collection system for light packagings together with residual household waste in an East German city. The results show that costs for process technologies in a mixed collection system can overcompensate cost-saving potentials in logistics.