Reverse collection or reverse waste collection is a method of collecting and processing private waste. While in the regular system residual waste and organic waste can be delivered to the home and other waste must be removed by residents themselves, with reverse collection residual waste must be removed themselves.
What is reverse collection?
With the regular waste system, you can usually deliver organic waste and residual waste to your home, after which it will be collected. You usually have to dispose of other waste, such as glass, paper and textiles yourself. Reverse collection works differently: with this system, individual waste types such as organic waste, paper, textiles and plastic are collected at home. So you no longer have to take this away. However, residual waste must be taken to a container yourself. A combination with diftar is often chosen: people then have to pay when they dispose of residual waste. The exact rules differ per municipality.
Where does reverse collection come from?
Reverse collection is a term used by ROVA, a company that collects waste in the East of the Netherlands. They introduced the principle in 2009; In 2012, several municipalities started a trial. In 2020, more than 60 Dutch municipalities have already introduced the principle.
Why reverse collection?
The purpose of reverse collection is to encourage people to separate their waste better. A large part of the waste that now ends up as residual waste can be used as raw material for new materials. By making it easy for residents to separate waste and making it more unattractive to offer residual waste, the aim is to ensure that less reusable material ends up as residual waste.
Advantages of reverse collection
The purpose of reverse collection is to separate more reusable waste from residual waste. Many municipalities that use this waste system are positive about the separation percentages: after the introduction of the system, less residual waste was presented and more waste was separated.
Reverse collection can also result in cost savings. Although the costs of introducing the system are high (waste must be collected more often and more containers for residual waste must be placed), these costs can be covered by the proceeds from the separated waste. Optimal separation can lead to cost savings and therefore also to a lower waste tax for residents.
Disadvantages of reverse collection
Although separation percentages have improved and the amount of residual waste collected is decreasing in many cases, there is no consensus on this. Research into the positive effects of reverse collection is contradictory. It is therefore not guaranteed that this system will actually lead to better separation and less residual waste.
In addition, reverse collection means that residents have to take away their own residual waste. This is very difficult for residents who have difficulty walking or are unable to dispose of a garbage bag for other reasons. The containers for the different types of waste also take up a lot of space: not all households have enough space to collect their waste separately.
Finally, reverse collection only has positive financial effects when optimal separation takes place, because only in that case are the yields from the reusable material the greatest. If a lot of reusable material is still thrown away with the residual waste, the positive effects of reverse collection are small and the costs can be high.