From an economic perspective should my council do more to recycle a greater proportion of our waste

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         Tariq Aziz

From an economic perspective should my council do more to encourage my household to recycle a greater proportion of our waste?

For my economic coursework, I will attempt to answer to the question above. In order to do this, we need to explain various terminologies and need to carry out research by analysing collected data to be able to draw a conclusion. Prior to this, we need to answer the key question of: ‘What is recycling?’  Recycling is when a substance (usually waste) is passed through a process so the substance can be reused, for a different purpose or even the same.  So now the question of: ‘Where and what substances can be recycled locally?’Within the local council called Epsom and Ewell, there are facilities provided such as kerbside services, which are services available at the residents’ doorsteps. These include recycling of: food waste, white paper, glass, cans, textiles, household batteries, plastic bottles, cardboard, and garden waste. There are other services such as recycling centres, home composting, washable nappies, recycling of furniture and bulky items. My family consists of six people who all live in this household. My parents are the people in the household who manage the waste. Fundamental economic terms that I will use will now be explained as follows. Market failure occurs when productive, allocative and therefore economic and Pareto efficiency are not achieved. Private costs are the disadvantages of an economic activity to an individual whereas private benefits the advantages. Externalities are effects on people resulting from the production and consumption decisions of others. Negative externalities result in overproduction and so market failure; this happens when social costs exceed private costs. Positive externalities result in underproduction and so market failure, this happens when social benefits exceed private benefits. Social costs are the total costs to society of an economic decision whereas social benefits are the total benefits. Taxes are charges imposed by the government on people and firms, so supply decreases. The price rises as a result so that means less demand too. Subsidies are payments by the government to the producers and consumers. They reduce cost of supplying which means more is produced and sold at lower prices which also results in an increase in demand. A household is the group of people living in one house. The council (legislative)  is the local governing authority of a town or county. Waste is anything rejected as useless, worthless, or in excess of what is required. The method of my research will now be explained.

Methodology

As mentioned earlier, data will need to be collected and analysed in order to answer the question at the top of the page. To do this, firstly primary research will need to be carried out. For this, investigations will take place to produce data, which will be analysed. I will also ask key members (parents) of my household various questions to find out how committed they are to recycling, their attitudes towards it, and ideas of what could encourage them to recycle more if possible. I will also measure how much of household waste is recycled regularly and how much more can be recycled. The primary research will enable me to observe how much my household is recycling, which could be compared to figures locally and nationally. In addition, it will show what materials are being recycled and whether any other materials can be recycled. This will show whether the household is recycling to its full potential or if there is a lot of room for improvement. Furthermore, it will show whether the household members are recycling as much as they think they are and it could give suggestions, which could help me provide recommendations for the council to encourage recycling. To be able to compare between local, national, and my household’s figures I will need to carry out secondary research. This requires me to collect data that has already been produced by the third party. For the secondary research, I will be trying to find out how my local council is trying to promote recycling and how they fair compared to other councils (recycling facilities). I will also find out which materials save the most energy when recycled, so these will take priority in recycling and will show whether it is worth it. I will also investigate what proportions of the land fill waste consists of which materials. This will show how much more can be recycled collectively from a whole city or county. National and local figures will be collected for reasons explained earlier, comparing my household’s figures to the average local and national figures. I will also investigate how much waste is generated by households and how much by firms.  All this will also show if the council’s efforts are having an effect on people’s attitudes to recycling and if the council should improve their efforts to encourage recycling.

Primary Research

Analysis of Answers

The answers show my household recycles plastic bottles, paper and cardboard and only use kerbside services. This is explained by when my parents say they are to busy. This is expected as my father has to go to work while my mother has to look after my little sister at home, I also have a little brother and another sister. The answers also show my household has no particular pattern of when to recycle except for when the bags and boxes are emptied. This could mean if the recycling waste was collected more often, more waste will be recycled from my household. The research also shows my parents do visit recycling centres, which shows their commitment toward recycling is not very strong although they do know the basics of why we recycle. If they did know how much impact recycling has they could become more committed. The research also suggests taxes and subsidies would only work in large amounts. It also suggests a very good idea would be to make all materials recyclable using kerbside services or within close proximity to the household such as the closest road junction. All these suggestions will be analysed further later on.

I will now investigate how much of my household’s waste is recycled and how much more could be recycled. It will be done by weighing an empty bin after the waste is collected from the bin then it will be weighed again a week later before it is collected. The increase in weight will be the amount of waste that has not been recycled. The same will be done for the recycling bins which will show how much has been recycled. The total weight of waste will be calculated by adding the weight recycled and the weight of waste that has not been recycled. I will then work out percentages in order to present the data in a pie chart. This will be done by dividing the weight of waste recycled/ not recycled by the total weight. This new figure will then be multiplied by 100. This will result in the percentage of household waste recycled/not recycled.

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So: weight of recycled/ not recycled (kg)   x 100 = Percentage of waste recycled/ not recycled(%)

         weight of total waste (kg)

To figure out how much more can be recycled I will tell all members of my household to recycle as much as possible for the next week. I will also remind them what can be recycled and what cannot, incentives will be used too. I will then carry out the same measurements of finding the percentage of household waste that has been recycled. The expected rise in the percentage recycled will be the percentage ...

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