Measuring Waste Diversion Programs Using the Missed Opportunity Rate

Abstract

Waste management programs rely on diversion rates to understand the success of waste diversion programs. There are several problems with relying on diversion rates alone: (1) they can be misleading, such as when a waste reduction program is implemented; (2) the definition of diversion may vary in what may be considered diverted, such as diversion to waste-to-energy plants; and most importantly (3) diversion rates do not take into account whether materials they describe are actually diverted from landfill. Given these drawbacks to the diversion rate, it is a problem in the zero waste industry that there has been little to no innovation since the diversion rate became the de facto descriptor for a waste program's success. We propose a novel additional waste metric, the Missed Opportunity Rate, to evaluate total recycling and diversion program efficiency. The metric can be applied to programs that have access to the following additional data points: the amount of recyclables in the trash stream, amount of trash in the recycling stream, and amount of contaminated recyclables in the recycling stream. We compare missed opportunity rates to diversion rate measurements in four scenarios, including scenarios with high and low amounts of divertible waste. This new metric better accounts for the reality of recycling in programs and materials, including contaminated materials and missed opportunities, and thus provides better insight and guidance to program managers for programs performance, than the diversion rate alone.