Uploaded byNottingham Trent University
Ciwm r bull 2013
The document discusses research on public attitudes toward waste and best practices for engagement. Key findings from research show that waste behavior is influenced by contextual factors like availability of recycling and that specific waste behaviors should be studied separately. The document also provides an example of best practice in engagement by Veolia, who ran a community group to understand local views on a waste facility. Finally, the document argues that effective public engagement requires involvement from citizens, businesses, and governments and can provide technical and knowledge benefits as well as depoliticize waste issues.
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Ciwm r bull 2013
- 1. What research shows aboutpublic attitudes to waste and best practice i n e n g a g e m e n t D r . R i c h a r d B u l l
- 2. Public attitudes towaste (1): Academic Research Two key points from research… 1. Waste behaviour is influenced by context as well as psychology. – availability of kerbside recycling – charges on weight of bin collections – proximity of recycling facilities to people’s homes Each factor influences how easy or costly specific behaviours are. 2. Specific waste behaviours best studied as separate phenomena; each with different explanatory variables. – Researchers concluded that “recycling is fundamentally a different form of behaviour from reduction and re-use”. Lesson 4.1
- 3. Public attitudes towaste (2): Proportion of people engaging in environmentally friendly behaviours Defra 2007
- 4. Public attitudes towaste (3): The figures
- 5. An example ofbest practice in engagement Veolia have a track record of running community group to understands and responds to the views of the local community re. siting of EfW facilities . . . • Dealt with fears and concerns • Affected traffic routes and design • Raised awareness of the waste problem . . . • Sense of ownership ‘our dome’!
- 6. Innovative partnerships, underpinnedby engagement
- 7. The benefits ofengagement The solution to the ‘household waste management’ crisis requires not just the involvement of business and governments, but individual citizens, i.e., those who create the waste in the first place. • Technical benefits to management of waste • Transfer of knowledge • De-politicised waste • Healthy context/environment for engagement and behaviour change (at both individual and organisational level)
- 8.
- 9. Further reading: • Bull,R., J. Petts, et al. (2008). "Social Learning from Public Engagement: Dreaming the impossible?" Journal of Environmental Management and Planning 51(5): 703- 718. • Bull, R. J & J. Petts et al (2010) – The importance of context for effective public engagement: Learning from the governance of waste. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 53 (8): 991-1009 • Bull, R. (2013 – in press) Governance, sustainability and deliberation: Reflections from a UK case study of sustainable waste management at Routledge- Politics and International Studies in Sustainable Development and Governance in Europe: the evolution of the Discourse on Sustainability. Editors: Pamela M. Barnes and Thomas C. Hoerber (editors). Published by Routledge in the Routledge Advances in European Politics series, 2013. ISBN:978-0-415-63007-8 email: [email protected] twitter: @richbull
Editor's Notes
- #2 Welcome from DMU, I’m standing in for PaulClose and longstanding relationship with the city, from 1990 and Leicester Environment to cityOngoing relationship through the Leicester Partnership, Expert Reference Groups and Paul advising the mayor.
- #6 The rise in household waste is, in part, a consequence of both increasing consumerism and a ‘throw-away’ society.The issues of waste brings the thinking on ‘One Planet Living’ into sharp focus – that is the resources of the world are finite, just as space for the disposal of waste is limited. Solutions to the problem must involve more efficient methods of production, less consumption, and sustainable long-term means of disposal, i.e. less waste to landfill.Household waste is a ‘multi-actor’ process. Business, citizens and government (local and national), are inextricably involved through the manufacture and marketing of products, the consumption, collection and disposal of goods. The solution to the ‘household waste management’ crisis requires not just the involvement of business and governments, but individual citizens, i.e., those who create the waste in the first place. INTRODUCE CASE – HAMPSHIRE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AROUND WASTE STRATEGY 1ST AND THEN SITING OF EFWS, NOTABLY A partnership approach was taken as I shall expand on. See next slide re. continued relevance.
- #7 ‘Local authorities’ refers to a complex web of relationships established with the purpose of mediating state power and policy through agencies, procedures, and departments. In England, local authorities can be two-tier authorities where the County has a set of defined responsibilities, for example, as a Waste Planning Authority (WPA) and Waste Disposal Authority (WDA), and the district authorities (such as Lewes District Council) have the responsibility for collecting household waste (Waste Collection Authority – WCA). Alternatively there are Unitary Authorities, for example, Brighton and Hove, or Southampton and Portsmouth City Councils that combine all of the waste collection, disposal and planning functions. There are also local Parish Councils, which, although having relatively ‘minor’ responsibilities (in comparison to District, City and County Councils) such as maintaining local facilities, do have local significance and power in that they are closest to a community. Local authorities also mediate Central Government policy which, with regards to waste policy at least, with its emphasis on sustainable waste management and community involvement, has changed dramatically.‘Business’ refers to private sector organisations like Veolia that operate differently to local authorities and are subject to different pressures. For example, there are greater profit and economic motives and constant pressure (from shareholders for example) to remain competitive. However, a common theme running through all organisations is that they are all “social structures created by individuals to support the pursuit of collective goals” (Scott 1992: 10). Just as public sector institutions are not ‘monolithic’, neither are businesses. Buildings and offices may exist – in the case of Veolia, these are multi-site - but these do not convey what Senge refers to as the ‘heart of the organisation’ (Fulmer and Keys 1998). Here, ‘citizens’ are the individuals who participate in a Contact Group or CAFs and are able to share their views, to interact and engage and (hopefully) learn. As individual participants, they each bring a unique and different perspective underpinned by their personal knowledge (both tacit and explicit) to the process. They will also be members of households who participate in the waste recycling schemes and send their waste for disposal, the ‘social’ role of waste management. In the case of the Contact Group processes they are also the people who live near the facilities once built. Bringing together such a diverse group of individuals and giving them a ‘voice’ is central to the learning process, and the wider democratic role, with the potential to call to account those who make decisions on ‘their behalf’, be they local authorities, or increasingly, business.