when designing the recycling house. The digital systems in the recycling scale were not compatible with the systems in the rest of the building, and the interface that had been developed specifically for the project was not sufficiently user-friendly.
Residents can get real-time information about how much residual waste they deposited on a screen above the residual waste hatch. The hope was to let them monitor their residual waste on a monthly basis. But technical problems meant it was impossible to measure the amount of residual waste per household per month. There have not yet been any detailed analyses of the system which could shed light on how much source-separated waste is produced by residents in Greenhouse or how they separate it.
Lessons learned and a view to the future A survey of Greenhouse households at the end of 2017 showed that many liked the idea of being able to track their waste production over a month, and some had been frustrated over not being able to do this. This shows that people are interested in the ideas which underpin Greenhouse’s recycling system and how they combine convenience and personal feedback.
In Vallastaden (Linköping), the amount of un-sorted waste and un-sorted food waste a household produces, is individually measured and linked to the fees for waste management. A weight-based vacuum system creates financial incentives for the residents in apartment buildings. In this case, the
system combines weight-based fees with real-time feedback to households. There has not yet been a follow-up study of the system, but previous results have shown a 20% reduction in the amount of unseparated waste (Dahlén, 2009). Although such systems may be effective in some scenarios, they are normally impossible to install in existing areas.
The system would also require a degree of social control to avoid fly-tipping.
Continued investment to increase comfort, starting inside homes, is one of MKB’s focuses go-ing forward. It is also lookgo-ing at how to use peo-ple’s desire to replicate what others do:
• The source separation kit that was tested in Augustenborg has now become the standard in MKB’s new-build apartments and is also given as a moving-in gift to new tenants on handover. Security and visibility are keywords in the design of new recycling houses. This means, among other things, the buildings of-ten have two entrances/exits and large glass sections.
• By creating a sense that most residents handle their waste correctly, the chance of individ-ual households joining in increases. Special efforts are therefore made to model “good waste behaviour” by cleaning the houses fre-quently, and using the motto “whole, clean and tidy” in all of the waste areas.
Recycling houses –
Figure 2. Five suggested facade materials and designs that residents could choose for the recycling houses. From the winning proposal by Gisli Arkitektur AB.
The plan was to build ten recycling houses for MKB’s buildings, and to collect and remove the waste with electric vehicles. The recycling houses would be equipped with composters maintained by specially trained personnel.
This was estimated to provide six permanent long-term jobs in management of the system.
MKB was responsible for the waste project and for producing good and attractive recycling houses. To introduce a creative process into the design, the company organised an open architectural competition.
MKB has not archived the results of the competition, so there is no infor-mation about how the assignment was set, who participated or what the submissions were like. But the winner was architect Gisli Kristjansson from Gisli Arkitektur AB. Gisli Kristjansson was helped by landscape architect Pekka Kärpää to design the location and outdoor environment.
Gisli Kristjansson said the focus was on environment, environment, environ-ment. They simply gave it their all, which won the jury’s approval. Since many recycling houses were needed in the area, it was not possible to simply use one model, as needs and dimensions needed to be adapted to different loca-tions. All recycling houses were of the same height and had the same roofing materials. However, they were of different lengths and the facades were made
from different materials depending on where they were situated. Residents were also meant to have input into the facade materials that were used, and by extension how each house looked.
Figure 3. Gisli Arkitektur AB’s main proposal from the architectural design competition. The recycling houses were largely built to its specifications. The recycling houses were so well-done and welcomed that Gisli Kristjansson won the City of Malmö’s Urban Development Award in 2002.
However, in the end all the facades ended up looking the same. The reasons are unclear, but the facades were built with the same material. However, the sizes still vary based on how many residents each house was meant to serve.
Green roofs were a given in Gisli Arkitektur’s proposal. The green roofs, it was argued, were pleasant to look at, increased biological diversity, kept the temperature more constant inside the buildings and reduced noise, primarily from glass recycling. But they also knew that a key jury member was an aficio-nado of green roofs. The houses were to be built of wild Swedish wood that had not been tortured in monoculture plantations.
After winning the competition, Gisli Kristjansson and his office were selected to place, dimension and design the recycling houses. Gisli Arkitektur worked hard to find the best location and dimensions for the recycling houses to ensure the walk from homes to the recycling houses would be as short as possible. Ideally, the houses would be alongside the natural routes that people took to the bus, car park, etc. The sites also needed to be optimised for transporting the source-separated waste to the area’s common collection point. A group of residents were involved in the process which, among other things, went on a field trip to Göteborg to examine good waste management solutions. The big challenge, once the houses had been built, was making source separation work. Staff were on hand in all the houses to help residents with their recycling.
The houses were designed to accommodate composting machines which would treat organic waste. However, the machines did not make a finished product, instead post-composting was required before it was ready to be used for soil improvement, or ground cover. The transport from recycling house to the post-compost was meant to be handled by the contractor responsible for outdoor maintenance.
Together with competition organiser and client MKB, a brief for the design and function of the recycling houses was compiled. The process showed empathy with the daily problem residents encountered, in trying to put the right waste in the right place. The attempted solution was to make waste management meaningful and enjoyable. Location was naturally a key issue in optimising the solution and maintaining morale and commitment. The recy-cling houses had entrances at both ends to make it easier to use them when going from A to B. The extra exit also provided increased security if someone or something scared or threatened residents. The houses had windows in the wall and doors to improve safety and pleasant lighting during the evening and at night. Another important detail was to put a roof over the doorway, so residents did not have to leave their rubbish on the wet ground when they opened the door.
The compost machines were removed in 2008 and organic waste was instead collected to produce biogas at a central location, see page 219 about the usefulness and shortcomings of the compost machines.
Reporting on the recycling houses
Karin Lindén and Marina Botta published a compilation of the LIP projects in 2006 (Vidén, Sonja and Botta, 2006). They summarised how the new waste management scheme turned out:
“Waste management was improved by putting waste receptacles for source separation in all MKB’s 1,600 apartments. In 2000 the first recycling house to collect separated waste and composting was completed. Detailed information was given to the residents, through among other things, leaflets that were available in seven languages. A collaboration with the homecare service was launched to help the elderly whose mobility was impaired. In total 14 recycling houses were built, including one at the school, where rubbish was disposed of in well-marked containers. The separation has worked fairly well, but newcomers constantly need training. The design of the recycling houses fits into the area and provided the daylight, lighting sensors, easy-to-clean surfaces, etc. that residents had wanted. They were built with carefully selected materials and had sedum-covered roofs, which help absorb stormwater and provide greenery. The sorted waste is transported by electric vehicles to the area’s collection centre.”
A corresponding description can be found in another report written by Jenny Stenberg and Liane Thuvander in 2005 from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Stenberg and Thuvander, 2005):
“In the recycling houses, you can separate paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastic.
Furthermore, the organic waste is disposed of separately and pre-composted in local composting machines. It is then sent to a post-composting plant. Some of the com-post is used for vegetation in MKB’s area and by the residents for pots, balcony boxes and plantations. The Augustenborgsskolan school has also been able to compost and students have built a recycling house in clay and straw (cob). In 2002, a new system to collect electronic waste and environmentally hazardous waste from local companies was introduced. There are also plans to allow residents to separate bulky waste, textiles, electronics and environmentally hazardous waste at source. A swap shop is also in planning.”
Text: Bengt Persson
Figure 4. Bat boxes were to be integrated into the recycling houses to increase biological diversity.
Image by Gisli Arkitektur AB.
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The environmental sustainability of Swedish waste management depends on people and businesses correctly separating a large portion of their waste.
Sörbom (2003) found that Swedes generally are positive to separating waste at source. This is per-ceived to have environmental benefits and should be done where possible. Participation in source separation is not only dependent on this percep-tion, but also practical circumstances,
accessibil-ity, proximaccessibil-ity, convenience, having the required knowledge, and an ability to integrate it into daily routine (Ewert et al 2009; Henriksson et al 2010).
Therefore, conditions for sustainable waste man-agement are fairly good in Sweden, at least when measuring values and intentions. In Augustenborg conditions are especially good due the introduc-tion of a more comprehensive neighbourhood col-lection system at the turn of century, ahead of the standards at the time. Neighbourhood collection of waste was further developed in 2008.
Largely residential, Augustenborg was built be-tween 1948 and 1952. Today the area has around 1,800 apartments and 3,000 residents. Small by today’s standards, most apartments have one, two or three rooms. In 2008-2009, when empirical data was collected for this study, young adults aged between 18 and 40 were overrepresented in the area. 48% of tenants were born abroad. How-ever, earlier studies (Sörbom 2003) have shown no particular correlation between national origin and interest, or willingness, to separate waste at source.
As part of the Eco-city project in the early 2000s, when changes such as the open stormwa-ter system were put in place, property company MKB organised household source separation into metal, glass (coloured and clear), plastic, and pa-per packaging, newspapa-per, food waste (in compost machines) and residual waste. This was housed
Neighbourhood source separation of waste from the perspective of Augustenborg residents –
was it good and easy?
Anna Bernstad Saraiva, Susanne Ewert, Greger Henriksson, Lynn Åkesson
Anna Bernstad Saraiva, PhD, project manager in environ-mental development MKB Fastighets AB. Her thesis was on the environmental impact of household waste manage from a lifecycle perspective, using Augustenborg as a case study.
Susanne Ewert is a PhD student in ethnology at Lund University. She has, among other things, worked on a case study into waste issues in Augustenborg, which this article is based on.
Greger Henriksson is an environmental ethnologist and sen-ior lecturer at Division of Strategic Sustainability Studies, at the SEED department of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He researches environmental issues and pat-terns of action in everyday life, usually in collaboration with engineers, natural scientists, authorities and businesses.
Lynn Åkesson, professor of ethnology at Lund University.
Has researched waste issues. Was the project manager for the case study on waste issues in Augustenborg which this article is primarily based on.
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in 13 recycling houses. Each served 100 to 200 households which were given an electronic key to open their assigned recycling house.
Now, it is important to point out the level of novelty of this system. In the 1990s, the Agenda 21, signed at the UN high level meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, was implemented in Sweden through many local projects, founded by the Swedish EPA. The concept of waste reduction and recycling was recognized in several of these local projects. However, source-separation of house-hold waste close to the househouse-hold was still very un-common in Sweden. Although source-separa-tion of several packaging materials had been in-troduced as a part of the environmental legislation in 1998, the common approach that households were directed to public sorting hubs, placed rather randomly over the city. Thus, we argue that the system presented in Augustenborg was radical and in the development front in Sweden when introduced in the early 2000s. At the same time, it should be remembered that the habitants in Au-gustenborg had not chosen to live in this particu-lar area of the city due to the eco-profile. Several of the inhabitants had lived there since the construc-tion of the area in the 50s. Others had found a new home here after coming to Sweden as refugees in the 90s, as this was an area with many empty apartments at that time.
The compost machines, earlier installed in all recycling houses, were removed in 2008. Since then, residents instead collect food waste in paper bags which are placed in brown bins in the recy-cling building. The moisture-proof bags should be placed in an open and breathable container. Con-tainers and bags were distributed to households and new bags can be collected from the recycling houses. The food waste is then collected by the re-fuse collection vehicle and is used to produce bio- gas and bio-fertiliser. When the system changed, households in Augustenborg were given written and/or oral guidance how to separate food waste.
Removing the compost machines freed up space to separate hazardous and electrical waste.
Aim
This study describes how Augustenborg’s residents utilise and experience the waste management sys-tem introduced in 2008. It also explores how to introduce sustainable waste management systems based on the experience, utilisation and percep-tion of local waste management. The primary questions are:
• Which terminology and categories do res-idents use to discuss waste in everyday life?
How do these categories work in practice when waste is separated, and how do they be-come learnt behaviour and routine?
• How well does source separation work? How much is separated, and is it separated correctly?
• How do residents’ thoughts and actions on source separation function in a system de-signed by technical and professional actors?
How do we best describe the correlation and conflict between the system and its terminol-ogy, in relation to the categories and habits that the residents themselves have and use?
Theoretical and methodological starting points
An important starting point of our analysis is peo-ple’s perceptions of order/disorder; cleanliness/
dirtiness; and what should be saved/disposed of.
These rest on general, cultural values and dai-ly habits (Douglas 1966; Hawkins and Muecke 2003; Thompson 1979). The study examines how people view these and other concepts and their actions in daily waste management (Ling 2012;
Jiang 2010; Mayne & Murray 2001; Martin 2013;
Rathje and Murphy 2001). Studies of cultural at-trition (Åkesson 2006 a and b; Åkesson 2008), of cultural conditions for product longevity (Greg-son, Metcalf and Crewe 2007 ; Hetherington 2004; Åkesson 2012) and the role of habit and agency (Campbell 1996) are also important start-ing points for this analysis.
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The empirical evidence mainly consists of qualitative interviews and observations. Interview questions are based on everyday household waste management. In line with established qualitative methodology practice, interview subjects were regularly permitted to digress from the topic be-fore returning to the prepared questions. Digres-sions create a better understanding of the line of questioning and maintain individuality in each interview. The interviews therefore do not follow a strict formula, but each question was answered.
Quotes are direct quotes, but to aid readability, small words have been added or removed. Un-necessary repetition or slips of the tongue with no impact on meaning have also been excluded.
Interviews were recorded and lasted 30 to 60 min-utes. Field observations are another common part of a cultural analytical methodology. This study followed participants’ daily waste management.
Interview subjects in Augustenborg were chosen at random from a list of tenants with the aim that half should have non-Swedish backgrounds and include a diverse range of ages.
To compare information provided by house-holds to their daily separation practices, the
com-position of waste was analysed on four occasions.
The analysis was performed in the winter and autumn of 2008 and 2009, after organic waste separation was changed from composting to bag collection for biogas production. Analysing waste composition can provide detailed information on how households separate at source. It shows not only what proportion of waste is separated, but also the proportion of recyclables disposed as re-sidual waste, and information on the quality of the separated materials. By analysing waste composi-tion, it is possible to calculate the following key figures:
• Specific waste mass (kg/household and year)
• Separation levels (by percentage of weight), defined as the weight of separated recyclables over the total mass of recyclables (correctly separated, incorrectly separated, and unsepa-rated in residual waste)
• The proportion of incorrectly separated waste (by percentage), defined as the weight of the waste in one category (for instance plastic packaging) which does not belong there, over the weight of all waste in this category.
To provide information for a consistent evalu-ation, and in order to follow development over time, it is vital to use the same method to analyse the waste on each occasion. In all analyses for this study waste was chosen, treated and stored in the same way. The same sorting categories or subcate-gories have been used for all analyses.
Both relative and absolute criteria for the choice of analysis materials have been developed.
Petersen (2004) said 450 kg to 950 kg of mate-rial should be analysed. Nordtest (1995) recom-mends selecting at least 5% of the population in an area for analysis of detailed waste production, and 100-200 households to analyse waste compo-sition. However, conclusions are more reliable in some waste categories than others. If there are few objects in a category, each is more important to the assessment. Hazardous and electronic waste are examples of this as they are generated in small quantities.
Everyday language and its effect on separation behaviours
In interviews it was rare for the suffix ‘packaging’
to be mentioned when discussing the different categories of recyclables. Instead, as one interview subject put it, “I have one [container] for house-hold waste, one for plastics and one for metals.
And then I have a paper bag where I dispose paper waste, that is to say cardboard, and a basket on the floor for newspapers”. Everyday language deals with the material rather than the packaging. Many view plastic packaging as particularly complex.
“Yes, plastics are a little tricky … Because there are many plastic objects in our household. Bowls, tubs and toys - everything. And then you think this is plastic and should be recycled as such. However that is not the case, I know that. But I find my-self asking: What is this? Should it be recycled as plastic? And you have to wonder: Why should this plastic toy not be recycled? ... I think that is odd”.
One participant said he puts dishwashing brushes in the “residual waste” section, but when
we ask him why he becomes uncertain, observ-ing: “The bristles are also made of plastic”. As the whole brush is plastic the subject starts wondering if it is “to do with bacteria … germs”. In other words, the subject does not seem to be aware of, or consider, that household source separation is mainly focused on packaging. He takes the correct action but for the wrong reasons. Consequently, it is not the knowledge that the brush is not a pack-age which means it is sorted as residual waste. As the subject is unaware where to dispose the brush, it ends life - as all unknown objects - in residual waste, which just happens to be correct. The habit can therefore be described as both consequential and problematic.
The newspaper category may be considered simple, however many find the ban on envelopes illogical. “Yes, you’re not meant to put envelopes and stuff into the newspaper recycling. But it’s eas-ily done - I mean it is paper.” Another subject puts the odd envelope in the paper category. “You are meant to put it in residual waste, but that feels wrong.” Even though the subjects know envelopes should be put in residual waste, perceptions create different actions and envelopes end up in paper recycling.
One could imagine Swedish language knowl-edge would impact an individual’s ability to un-derstand instructions. From studying at least two households with members born abroad we cannot conclude that a non-Swedish mother tongue im-pacted comprehension or interest in recycling.
Nationality did, however, influence the amount of food waste a household produced. Those with a foreign background were more likely to create more food waste due to a habit of cooking from scratch, which creates more vegetable leftovers and other organic waste.
Household material hierarchy
Several interviews highlight that different materi-als and packaging are afforded different status in source separation. One subject says: “I’m some-times a little lazy. Never with paper, but somesome-times
Image by Susanne Ewert
The rainwater, that used to cause problems in the residential area, is now led into an sustainable urban drainage system with ponds and canals which also contribute to a beautiful outside environment.