Leaders in municipal waste management
A service design story
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My interest in municipal waste services started late in my career.
First, I became the manager responsible for a waste collection service, then, several years later, I was given responsibility for a waste collection at a large suburban council and the management of major regional landfill. This led to me visiting the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Switzerland to look at municipal waste collection and disposal in 2018. While there, I attended the IFAT international solid waste trade fair in Munich.
More recently, in 2019 I visited the City of Parma and in 2023 I went to Treviso to interview the International Relations Manager for Contarina Spa., who provide waste services in the region. Both are leading Zero Waste Europe case studies.
My combination of working experience and overseas investigations has provide me with a broad understanding of the leading municipal waste collection and disposal services and technologies.
This leads me to my story.
Introduction
Contarina Spa., based in Treviso in the north of Italy, is owned by 49 councils. I went there because I had read about Contarina in a Zero Waste Europe case study about councils leading in diversion of waste from landfill, incineration and the environment. In the case study, Contarina were achieving 85.4% diversion. When I went there they had achieved 96.7%, although this had reduced to 89.7% as a result of high energy costs because of the war in Ukraine.
Contarina’s objectives are to:
Increase the percentage of waste in separate collections (i.e. separated at source).
Decrease the amount of waste produced in total and especially non-recyclable dry waste (i.e. residual mixed waste or refuse).
Increase the quality of collected materials.
Improve services offered.
Optimise the cost : benefit ratio in services offered.
Contarina make collections in a diverse range of collection settings (see ‘The 4 main waste collection streams’ below), including suburban areas, using side-loading compactors and mobile garbage bins (MBGs). Despite being in Italy, the methods and technology I saw being used are the same as Australia.
When I started, I really only had one question - how did they recover more than 90% of materials?
The back story
Contarina's story is typical of those situations where decades of gradual improvement leads to overnight success.
It all began in the late 1990s when two groups of councils decided to avoid incineration becoming the accepted municipal waste disposal option. They wanted to recover materials from their wastes, not the energy (i.e. they were not interested in waste to energy). They joined forces in 2010 to create Contarina Spa. (this is what we would call a beneficial enterprise in Victoria). At that time there were 50 councils and the Mayors formed the board of management. Today 49 councils remain involved.
The company has invested in waste sorting and processing to support collections from over 550,000 people in 260,000 properties distributed throughout 13, 000 kms of municipal area. Waste collection areas ranged from historic towns, to suburban villages and rural and alpine villages.
Between 2000 and 2022 the amount of waste produced per capita declined from the from 800kgs to 403 kgs and amount of residual waste from 217 kg to 40 Kg. At the same time, the materials recovery rate increased from 27% to 96.7%.
Waste collection
Contarina offers 4 waste collection service streams with multiple options for containers within each stream. They also offer a range of convenient take or collect services for wastes that residents are unable to put in their bins.
The 4 main municipal waste collection streams
A menu of options exists for residents to customise their household waste service by making choices from within a set of standardised options. This approach sounds contradictory but it goes to the heart of Contarina's success in working with residents to separate, sort and divert wastes from incineration.
The selection of bins available for residents for each collection
Waste is collected in mobile wheeled bins, just like in Victoria, unless there is nowhere to store the bins, when smaller containers and bags are provided. The wastes being collected and how often they are collected is standardised to suit Contarina's collection and processing capabilities. However, how the wastes are contained within the home and put out for collection is customised to suit the resident's capabilities and circumstances.
Service standardisation benefits the customer and the provider, but the service must be flexible enough to meet different needs.
Marco Mattiello, International Relations Manager, Contarina
The bins are presented in front of the property and wheeled to a side-loading compactor by a single operator, who inspects the contents of the bin before and after emptying it. This is an important activity. If there is a problem with the contents (i.e. contamination) they can leave a note for the resident asking them to improve their separating and sorting.
The contents are then taken to a Contarina processing facility. It can be transferred to a larger 'mother' truck (see the Contarina Youtube video link in the References below) in collection areas where small streets necessitate use of a small compacter.
Typical waste collection vehicle
Waste processing
Contarina has a mixed waste sorting plant that is able to accept comingled recycling and crushed bulky wastes (i.e. hard wastes). A single plant processes each waste separately to recover materials of value, which are baled before sending to secondary processors to recover specific materials. For example, plastic containers are not sorted by Contarina to separate HDPE , LDPE and PET. This happens elsewhere.
Source separated wastes and their treatment
Contarina also has a plant to process residual waste (i.e. garbage), which wasn't operating at the time of my visit because of the high price of electricity as a result of the war in Ukraine. This plant was primarily designed to process nappies. Residual waste is about 10% of the waste collected and is currently being sent for energy recovery to a waste to energy facility elsewhere.
The photograph below, that I took during my visit, shows the composition of the residual waste collected on the day I was there. It is mainly nappies and plastics from packaging. The calorific value of residual wastes has increased since my visit to waste facilities in Europe in 2018. It is starting to create problems for incinerators designed for the lower calorific value wastes collected before effective removal of food and green organics. The calorific value of waste refers to the amount of heat generated when waste is incinerated, with higher values for waste with more combustible materials like plastics, and lower values for waste with high moisture content like food scraps. The CO2 emissions from incineration of high calorific value wastes are also higher because they contain more fossil carbon.
Residual waste collected on the day of my visit to Contarina
Contarina has a green waste processing facility that composts garden and food wastes. At the time of my visit they were commencing construction of an anaerobic digestor next to their waste sorting plant to process food and garden wastes to produce electricity to supplement existing solar panels in powering the plant.
In addition to kerbside bin collections, Contarina offers several other ways for residents to dispose of wastes. There are 49 transfer stations - known as Ecocentres - distributed throughout the collection area. That is one Ecocentre for every 12,000 residents. These are open 6 days a week, free at the point of use, and they accept a wide range of wastes, including hazardous materials.
Ecocentre locations
They also offer Ecobuses and Ecostops in Treviso to provide neighbourhood-based collections for those households with wastes that are unsuitable for MGBs and who are unable to get to an Ecoentre.
Ecobus and Ecostop routes and features
Contarina employs around 750 people. Around 600 of them are involved in waste collection. Processing and disposal. The remaining 150 are involved in education and administration of the service.
This is an important point and a key element of the service design. More on this later.
Service performance
The headlines for Contarina are impressive - in 2022 there was 403kg of waste produced per resident; 89.9% was collected in separate collections (up from 27% in 2000); and the average cost per household was €203 (compared to average costs across Italy of €325). For those who are interested, this was about $320 AUD at the time.
At the same time, they collect 110 tonnes of dumped rubbish per annum (i.e. 0.00005% of the waste generated by the community). Clearly, the collection and disposal system is working for residents.
Their targets are even more impressive than their results. Contarina is aiming for 280kg of waste per resident and 96.7% of waste collected in separate collections.
I now had a second question - how can they recover such high rates of materials at such a low cost?
The answer is service design.
Service design
At the heart of the Contarina service design is the philosophy that the creation and disposal of waste is an individual responsibility, and that responsibility is created by knowledge. This is shown in the diagram below. A lot of effort goes into reinforcing this point.
The basis of the Contarina service design
A significant difference to many other places in Italy is the emphasis on separation and collection from the home instead of communal collections systems in streets or neighbourhoods. Experience has shown that when people know they are not accountable for their waste disposal actions, they fail to sort and separate. Individual responsibility is critical in separating and sorting waste for collection. Once waste is collected, the benefits of collective action and investment are evident in lower transport and processing costs.
The fee for services, and the way households sign on to receive services, are key factors driving the behaviour change necessary to reduce waste volumes and increase household separation and sorting. Pricing includes a fixed fee component (i.e. a service access fee) for access to the service and a variable fee component based on the estimated service needed based on household size (i.e. a consumption fee). There are additional charges for greater consumption of services. It is the 'pay as you throw' (PAYT) or, perhaps better described as the 'save when you don't throw' approach that has seen the greatest increase in materials recovery.
Change in amount of materials recovered from waste collections, 2000 to 2022
When the occupants of households want to receive waste services they attend one of the many neighbourhood or town-based 'Ecosportelli' (local administration offices), where they sign up for the service that suits their needs. This is where the 150 staff involved in administration and education become important to set people up for success in the Contarina system.
Ecsportelli locations
In selecting services, the home location determines the service stream, the family size and number of bin collections determines the fee, and family needs determine the actual services taken.
For example, if a family lives in an urban or suburban area, they will receive the standard MGB service (the top line in The selection of bins available for residents for each collection) and pay for one more residual waste collection than the number of household occupants (i.e. if there are 2 occupants, they would pay for 3 collections a year - which is the average number of collections made by Contarina). The bin can be presented any fortnight of the year for collection (i.e. 26 collections are made each year) and if the bin is presented for collection more often than the number of pre-paid collections, a fee of €22 applies.
Underpinning all services is comprehensive educational and administrative support. The emphasis on residents having knowledge in order to be responsible is not rhetoric for Contarina. They have properly resourced measurement and reporting on performance, awareness raising and education of the community, and analysis and planning for services.
Why have they have been successful?
Contarina highlight 7 reasons for their success in diverting waste from landfill, incineration and the environment through materials recovery. I provide their reasons with my explanation.
Great separation at source
They provide effective household systems for waste containment and collection, and have led behaviour change across the community to carefully separate and sort wastes. This involves a combination of standardised collection and processing methods with customised household containers and collection frequencies (and Ecocentre, Ecobus and Ecostop services).
Waste reduction incentives
A fixed and variable payment system that reflects the amount of waste produced by each household, with financial incentives for separation and sorting of targeted wastes. For example, households composting food and garden organics receive a 30% discount.
Pay as you throw
This is the critical element of the variable payment system because it charges for the actual amount of residual waste produced and the collection and disposal service required by each household. All other wastes separated and sorted in the household are free to put out for collection and processing. When it was introduced, it resulted in a significant increase in materials recovery (see 'Change in materials recovered from waste collections, 2000 to 2022' above)
Transparency and efficiency (i.e. citizens and stakeholders have a clear picture of how the system works)
This has been fundamental to households accepting responsibility for their wastes and putting in the effort to carefully separate and sort wastes . Community education and extensive communication about results has reinforced support for materials recovery. About 150 of the 700 employees works in administration, analysis and reporting, and education to support achievement of objectives.
Services provided to support household separation and sorting
Political will and commitment
Of the 50 councils who formed Contarina, 49 remain involved. They continue to provide the political and community support necessary for large-scale change.
Continuous improvement of the system
The employees involved in analysis and reporting provide the data necessary for continuous improvement. The focus on costs and benefits of changes to services means improvement is evidence-based and effective.
Integrated waste management system
The realisation that costs are almost equally split between collection and processing or disposal, has resulted in an integrated system. Unlike Victorian councils, where collection of waste is dealt with separately from the processing or disposal of those wastes, and strategy and planning is separated from operations, Contarina has successfully brought them all together.
In comparison to Contarina, where do I think we have failed in Victoria?
This is a question I asked myself after visiting Contarina and considering all the information they had provided to me (and the learnings I had after visiting Europe in 2018). Here is my short-version answer.
We haven't provided individualised services to meet the needs and expectations of each household, as determined by the people who live there. Instead, councils have limited services they offer to those they think they can afford or that the State government is telling them to provide.
This means that council waste services are not demand responsive. The service design is 'inside-out' and based on what officers or legislators think the community needs, not what people in the community are saying they need.
Councils have focused on collection services and costs at one point in time, and processing or disposal costs at another point int time, and then failed to join the dots. As a result they do not provide integrated collection and treatment.
Councils in Victoria have under invested in building community capacity for source separation and sorting. The handful of council officers working on community education have been ineffective (as evidenced by the low materials recovery rates and high cross-contamination rates) and their work has not been integrated with the design of waste collection services.
Councils have not collected the data necessary to inform decision making to optimise the costs and benefits in service design or improvement. Councils seem to be waiting for the State government to tell them what to do. Few councils have implemented RFID to manage their bin assets (most have done it for their much less valuable library book assets) or to provide the data needed to implement new pricing models.
Councils have avoided pricing models that allocate costs more fairly and would provide incentives for reduction, separation and sorting. For example, they have failed to embrace consumption pricing for waste services. It is an understandably sensitive political issue, but as Professor Joseph Drew has pointed out , one of the major financial improvements councils could make in the face of when subject to rate capping is to adopt waste charge based on an access fee (i.e. fixed charge) to receive a waste service to cover set up costs, and a consumption fee (i.e. variable charge) to cover the amount of waste generated and requiring transport, processing or disposal. This would be true cost recovery and fairer allocation of costs to the community.
Finally, councils in Victoria don't accept all wastes or provide convenient access to places where wastes unsuitable for kerbside collections can be taken. For example, I have to drive 30 minutes to the nearest disposal point for e-waste, cardboard or polystyrene. Councils also don't provide regular mobile skip or truck collection service. I get one collection each year of a short-list of materials from my home. The provision of these ‘top-up’ services are a key reason that Contarina recovers almost 90% of materials from wastes, and only has 110 tonnes of dumped rubbish annually.
What can Victorian councils do to improve results?
This is my quick list.
Understand demands for waste services in terms of customer/community needs and expectations, as expressed from their point of view.
Design waste collection services around their high volume and predictable demands.
Ensure that the service design accommodates variety in types of demand, and variation in levels of demand.
Ask people to sign up for their services, don't just put them on a list, and create a ‘social contract’ covering what they will do as well as what the council will do.
Provide staff to talk to customers/community about their services, and how well they are working for them, to learn and inform service improvement.
Integrate waste collection and processing/disposal to ensure all benefits are received and that costs are minimised and correctly allocated.
Finally, get organics out of residual waste to clean up the residual waste to make sorting it a more affordable option.
References
Contarina website (select English!)
Thanks to Marco Mattiello, International Relations Manager, Contarina Spa.
Update June 2025
Anvarta has released a webinar series made with Marco Mattiello.
Most people try to do the right thing. They understand the social contract to do so.
Yet waste services in Melbourne do not always meet their needs. Especiall6 with regard to needing xtra hard waste services.
Pay as you throw is a compelling concept that people would love. My household generates small amounts of rubish. I tell the neighbors to use my bins, rather than let the magpies trash the tops of their overflowing ones and spread it around the area.
Watching a neighbor downsizing after 30 years has been interesting. Two garage sales, trips to the opp shop, rubish in the bin. But she can't give much of her stuff away. It's out dated but well cared for. Her family is helping but she will exceed her hard waste amount easily.
A lot of people give up and just leave it on the nature strip when they go. Council will collect it after the fact if we report this. But it doesn't really solve the problem.
But we are doing better than we used to. And giving 10c for bottles has helped separate more waste.
But yes, the integration of collection and disposal services is needed.
Karen Smith
Fascinating insights Stephen. I think the lessons of FostPlus in Belgium are also worth considering and an Extended Producer Responsibilty (ERP) model that funds Councils and not just the industry players and their capital needs.