On the road to Zero Waste:

Viability of schemes for organics

in a city with pop. above 1 Million

Enzo Favoino

Chair, Scientific Committee,

Zero Waste Europe

Scuola Agraria del Parco di Monza

Circular Economy

and Zero Waste:

the global role

Zero Waste a strategy intended to maximise short- and

long-term efficiency in resource management

The CE Package proposed in July 2014 sub-titled “A

zero waste programme for Europe”

A codified, peer-reviewed Zero Waste Hierarchy is kept

by ZWIA (Zero Waste International Alliance)

Ongoing recognition/certification programmes for ZW

Communities and ZW businesses. Minimisation of

residuals (kgs/person.year) the key goal / metrics for

performance

Milan

Tips for the (virtual) trip • Milan not a “Zero Waste city”

• No ZW commitment (yet?)

• No reuse centre

• No ZW Board

• Due to political will, kerbside anyway the backbone of

the system, and programmes rolled out in Milan show

viability in a big city

• A good lab (big city, Southern Europe!) to

• implement,

• test,

• assess,

• disseminate

Separate collection rates in Provinces

ITALY

Separate collection rates:

Around 1000 Municipalities above 70%

Around 300 Municipalities above 80%

A few above 90%

The new metrics! Minimised residual waste in

kgs/person.year

Hundreds Municipalities below 100 kgs

310 Municipalities below 75 kgs

Many below 50 kgs

Lowest ones around 20 kgs

Commissioner Vella (Feb 2016)

makes reference to Milan

(and Capannori, Treviso, Parma)

as “living examples of

operational implementation of

principles tabled in the Circular

Economy Package”

The key role of organics

QUANTITATIVE: fundamental to achieve highest

material recovery rates

QUALITATIVE/OPERATIONAL: minimising organics

in residual waste makes it possible to shrink

collection rounds

cost-optimisation

further driving effect for increased separation of dry

recyclables, too)

www.compost.it

Municipalities with

separate collection of

food scraps from

households

Not viable in densely

populated areas?

www.compost.it

Timeline - Milan

1995 – kerbside (door to door) for packaging waste +

organics from large producers (HoReCa, greengroceries,

and similar)

1995-2008 various pilots (up to 40.000 households),

generally good results, but no political will to follow

2011 the New Mayor announces a plan to tackle food waste

Early 2012 – black bags for residuals replaced by

transparent bags

Mid 2012 – starts the rolling out of kerbside organics

programme

2014 – ends the rolling out of kerbside organics programme.

Milan – pop. 1,4 M

.

Source separation of food

scraps

www.compost.it

Optimising separate collection

of organics: the basics

Keep food and garden waste separated

Different fermentability

Different volume

Seasonality

Tackle food scraps with intensive and cheap

collection rounds

Smaller volumes

Open, non-compacting lorries

Maximise captures of food scraps

Use vented kitchen caddies and compostable/paper bags

Make residuals much less fermentable

Reduce collection rounds

The kitchen-caddies

Volume: 6 -12 liters

Small and manageable

Vented reduce odors, moisture,

weight

Bags/liners as an additional tool to make

the system tidy/comfortable (must

comply with standard EN 13432)

Source Separation inside the kitchen

made easy, comfortable, clean

Hence, captures are maximised /

organics in residual waste minimised

Intensive collection

of foodwaste at high-rises

.

As easy as one-two-three

Where shall I put it?

Philippines 40.780

Egypt 35.902

China 26.889

Peru 19.590

Sri Lanka 16.068

Romania 14.546

Ecuador 13.229

Ukraine 8.209

Morocco 8.152

Bangladesh 7.563

*Progressive July 2016, adopting the Guidelines issued by D.M. of 26/05/2016

Starting in 2009, the DGR Lombardy No. 8/10619 has changed the method for calculating the recycling percentage; only recyclable bulky waste is taken for the calculation of

separate collection rate

7.0% 7.8%

12.1%

26.0%

28.5% 28.2%

36.7%

42.9%

50.0%

52.7%

54%

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Kerbside

Packaging +

Large producers

(HORECA)▼

Door to door households food waste collection►

Results

26

28,2%

In 2014, Milan first European city with pop. >

1M to overcome 50% separate collection

Results:

Diversion of food scraps from MSW: Food waste: 100 kg/inhab/yr 135.000 tpy

Purity of food waste from sep. collection: average non-compostable content 3,4% (worst case 5%)

Support (fairly/very satisfied) 79% at first customer satisfaction analyses (2013)

Grew to 92% at last one (May 2015)

.

0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

6.0%

7.0%

8.0%

9.0%

10.0%

Citycenter

Outskirts Socialhousing

Average

% N

on

co

mp

os

tab

le m

ate

rials

After 2 months

After 6-8 months

After 12-14 months

After 18 months and over

4.41% 4.13% 4.00%3.43%

4.06%

0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

6.0%

7.0%

8.0%

After 2months

After 6-8months

After 12-14months

After 18months and

over

AVERAGE

% N

on

co

mp

osta

ble

mate

rials

Non compostable materials -average trend

Food waste collection in the city of Milan

Source: analyses performed by CIC for AMSA / Novamont

Quality of food waste

“Always happy and never

satisfied” – next steps

Reducing sharply the number of street

baskets

Reducing collection rounds for residuals,

2/wk 1/wk

Pay–as–you–throw

Expo 2015 – “feed the Planet”

21 M visitors

72% separate collection

Food scraps were key

Water fountains

Reusable tableware at

tables

Compostable tableware

(EN 13432) for

street/finger-food

Cost optimisation(Lombardy, pop. 10M, 1547 Municipalities)

Cost of collection (green bars) and cost of treatment/disposal (blue bars)

Euro

/pers

on

TOOLS AND STRATEGIES TO CUT COSTS

Tool Details Applies where…..

Reducing collection time

Manual collection of small receptacles much faster than mechanical loading

… food waste collected separately from garden waste, in small receptacles

Reduction of the frequency for collection of “Residuals”

Effective systems to collect biowaste make its percentage in Residuals less than 15 %

…captures of biowaste are maximised

Use of bulk lorries instead of packer trucks

Bulk density of food waste is much higher (0.7kg/dm3) than garden waste

…different collection rounds/systems for food/garden waste

ANDAMENTO DELLA TARIFFA PRIULA RISPETTO ALL'ANDAMENTO MEDIO DELLE

TARIFFE DEI RIFIUTI IN ITALIA

3,05%-1,20%

0,32%

-5,96%

8,51%

5,72%

1,91%

2,63%

2,41%4,06%

11,06%12,94%

19,25%17,37%

22,47%

16,56%

8,88%

7,06%4,96%

2,40%

16,96%

56,92%

49,96%

3,54%

11,98%

33,92%

38,34%

22,67%

44,61%

7,80%

-10,00%

0,00%

10,00%

20,00%

30,00%

40,00%

50,00%

60,00%

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

ANNO

VA

RIA

ZIO

NE %

RIS

PETTO

AL 2

00

1

TARIFFA DOMESTICA CONSORZIO PRIULA variazione % rispetto anno base (2001)

INDICE NAZIONALE PREZZI AL CONSUMO ISTAT FOI variazione % rispetto anno base (2001)

EVOLUZIONE MEDIA TARIFFE RIFIUTI IN ITALIA -variazione % rispetto anno base (2001)

Average national cost of waste management (red line)

Cost of life /inflation (blue line)

Cost ofwaste management in high recycling schemes (green Line)

Trends in cost

Thanks for your

interest

(and commitment)Enzo Favoino

favoinoenzo@gmail.com

enzo.favoino@zerowasteeurope.eu

(M) +39 335 35.54.46