By Brielle Finney (Sutherland Shire and Hurstville), Dean Gallagher (Wollongong), Lauren Bleasdale (Sydney and

Sutherland Shire), Jacqui King (Campbelltown) and Robert Stanford (General Research and Quantitative Analysis)

Research QuestionA comparative study of different Sydney councils’ and communities response to e-waste

AbstractOur research project involves 5 local councils and how they deal with current e-waste issues in the area. Through interviews with council members, and surveys with members of the community, we will compare the actions (or inaction) and initiatives in these councils. Our focus is to understand the process of how the council evaluates the problem of e-waste. These councils include the Campbelltown City Council, the City of Sydney, the Sutherland Shire Council, Hurstville Council and the Wollongong City council. We will use results from the survey to question Council members about the public perception and knowledge of e-waste in their respective areas and why that is so. Hopefully we will find why there is such a varied response to e-waste form council to council.

MethodologiesA survey will be used to get a quick response from people living in the area of the targeted councils. As Hansen stated, ‘surveys provide basic information on existing or changing patterns of behaviour’ (1998, p225). So it is very effective for the purposes of this research.Sample size and number of questions are the first questions faced when designing a survey. It takes at least 1000 people before generalisations can be made about the population of an entire country (Hansen 1998, p229-30), so 10 per council area should be enough in the short time-frame. The purpose of a survey is to be quick, easy and efficient. The number of questions is crucial, too many and the survey becomes too long, too few and you don’t get all the relevant information. This is why 10 closed answer questions will suffice. These 10 questions provide quantitative data which can be easily analysed to find trends. The use of random-quote sampling allowed quick and easy way to get the amount of responses needed.

The surveys were conducted face-to-face to make sure people who did not know what e-waste was could not quickly search the term and thus skew our results. As expected there was a lot of confusion in the process as many people were confused about what e-waste was and were thrown straight away. There were also a few questions which proved troublesome after the surveys had been done and calculated. This could be done to misunderstanding about what the question asked, or simply questions became loaded simply by the order in which they appeared on the survey. This could have been overcome by using pre-tests (Hansen 1998, p246-7). Pre-testing is when you try the questions out on a small group of people to see how the questions are responded to and if they need changes.

Face-to-face interviews also played a crucial role in researching this question. There are many aspects to consider when conducting interviews which are just as important as the questions asked. A structured interview, as defined by Fontana and Frey is when ‘the interviewer asks all respondents the same series of pre-established questions with a limited set of response categories’ (2000, p649). This only half fulfils the outcomes needed so semi-structured interviews were decided upon. Questions needed to be flexible with each interviewee as trends found from surveys conducted earlier were to be talked about. Background research on each person being interviewed was done as ‘the use of specific terms is important in creating a “sharedness of meaning” in which both interviewer and respondent understand the contextual nature of specific referents’ (Fontana and Frey 2000, p660) It was important that the person being interviewed understood what the questions were referring too, so an expert in waste management or e-waste was found.

There will also be some use of observation, as we attend e-waste recycling days as well as keep track of any e-waste that has been improperly disposed of in the area (i.e. dumped). This will be combined with general research as well as analysis of body language of interviewees when possible.

ResearchTo begin with, everyone was given the task of going to the chosen council areas and getting 10 surveys completed before any interviews or things of that nature were set up.

Quantitative Analysis

A quick analysis of the survey was used to find public knowledge of the issue of e-waste. Some results of questions such as, “do you know the rules regarding the disposal of e-waste” seemed to have been skewed by the survey itself, as the mistake was constant over all surveyed areas. It doesn’t seem impossible that a higher percentage of people can know the rules about discarding e-waste than those who know what e-waste is. Below is a graph displaying all council areas together, to show a slice of what people between Sydney and Wollongong know. Statistics were taken from each area and were to be used in interview questions.

yes no0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Know what e-waste isKnow of issues relating to e-wasteKnow of council Initiatives relat-ing to e-wasteAware of rules regarding disposal of e-wasteHave visited Council website for helpWill change their attitude after this survey

Campbelltown CityThe first step in the research was scouring the Campbelltown City Council website. After spending some time searching through pages of the website, no information on the topic of e-waste in any respect was found. However several council contact numbers and emails were found so setting up an interview could be done.

Several council members were emailed a set of simple questions. Only one email was received from the Mayor Aaron Rule on the 11th May 2010, stating that someone with more knowledge on the topic would be in contact. Lauren Williams replied on behalf Paul McDonald, Manager of Waste and Recycling Services, on the 14th May 2010 via email. It was quite long and explained many things, but it failed to have direct answers to the set of questions that were sent.

Dear Robert

Thank you for your email regarding e-waste recycling. The issue of e-waste recycling is one that is becoming more prevalent within the community, and the response from different levels of government has been varied, partly due to the complexity of the issue. Campbelltown City Council doesn't currently offer an e-waste recycling service to residents, and the reasons for this are explained below.

For some years Local Government has lobbied both State and Federal Governments to implement 'Product Stewardship' or 'Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)' schemes for certain types of wastes, including tyres, paints and other chemicals, and e-waste. These schemes involve either a voluntary or compulsory take-back program by the manufacturers of these items. Some industries have moved more slowly than others. In respect of e-waste, some computer companies have introduced free take-back of their own products, (e.g. Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell). However, with no formal product stewardship arrangement in place, many manufacturers continue to leave the onus on the consumer when it comes time to dispose of an outdated product. This, in turn, has led many consumers to put pressure on their local councils to provide some kind of recycling service for e-waste.

In response to this pressure, many councils have opted to provide a 'free' drop off service to residents. Such events have proved to be very successful, with many tonnes of e-waste diverted from landfill - but the decision to provide such a service to residents was not without controversy. While residents are not charged for disposal on the day of the event, the concept of the events being 'free' to residents in a misnomer. Drop off events are paid for from the annual domestic waste charge (which forms part of the annual rates charged to residents) and while ever councils opted to provide these drop off events, ratepayers were collectively continuing to foot the bill for the recycling of e-waste, reducing pressure on the industry to take responsibility for their end of life products. Thankfully, this is now set to change, with the introduction of the National Waste Policy in late 2009.

The Federal and State Environment Ministers, through the Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC), met in November 2009 to discuss a range of environmental issues, including EPR. At this meeting, the EPHC agreed to a National Waste Policy, which identifies actions to be taken over the next 10 years to deal with waste and increase resource recovery. More recently, the Federal Government committed $23 million over the next five years to implement the National Waste Policy, and part of this policy includes the introduction of a national industry-run scheme for television and computer recycling, which is due to commence in 2011.

A copy of the National Waste Policy can be found at: http://www.ephc.gov.au/taxonomy/term/86

Details of this scheme have not yet been released, and depending on what shape the scheme takes, it may still be necessary for councils to play some part in e-waste recycling. For example, if the scheme only applies to e-waste purchased after a certain time, there may be an argument for a drop off service to be provided to deal with e-waste not covered by the scheme. However, more details of the scheme will need to be released before councils can determine what action, if any, is required from them.

Aside from the issue of who should pay for the service, there are other important issues regarding e-waste recycling. The percentage of e-waste recycled may vary between companies, depending on the recycling method used. In general, the higher the percentage recycled, the higher the cost is likely to be. In addition, recently there have been media reports of some companies shipping e-waste in bulk to third world countries, where people are employed to dismantle products in very hazardous conditions. During investigation into this issue, Council staff have seen film footage of young children melting down circuit boards, inhaling toxic fumes in the process, and the un-recyclable residual waste being dumped into nearby creek beds. Should Council engage in any e-waste recycling initiatives, it will be important that these issues are taken into consideration, and that we closely scrutinise recycling methodologies.

I hope this information provides some useful information about the complex issues that Council and ratepayers face in respect of e-waste disposal. Please do not hesitate to contact Council's Waste and Recycling Services section on 4645 4645 if you require any further information or would like to discuss this matter further.

Kind regards

Paul Macdonald Manager Waste and Recycling Services

The final step in determining what the Campbelltown Council does in terms of disposing and recycling e-waste was to conduct an interview. No face-to-face interviews could be set up due to unresponsive councillors so a very short and informal phone-interview was decided upon. From calling the Campbelltown City Council contact number, I was put through to a woman who was quite happy to answer my questions. A quick scribe of the main points that were talked about is as shown:

Jacqui - interview (over the phone) with an education officer of Campbelltown Council.Waste and Recycling Service - 02 4645 4603

1. Do you see e-waste as an emerging problem?"Yes definitely. It is something we wish to deal with in the near future."

2. What is the current level of involvement of the Campbelltown Council in disposing of e-waste?"We don't actually offer a free drop-off service. It is a complicated issue, as there has to be some sort of fee associated with it. We don't want to spend the ratepayers’ money to make it free if it doesn't show any benefit. There is a National Waste Policy that is being finalised, so we will see what happens with that."

3. What do you think is the most responsible and professional way of disposing or recycling after collection?"The most responsible and professional way to dispose of e-waste is to recycle it. The issue we have is to make sure that the e-waste is going to a credited and reliable recycling company. We want to avoid it being sent off to third world countries, and we don't want to make it someone else's problem. We want to ensure that it will be recycled in the safest and most environmentally friendly way."

4. How do you feel your council compares to other councils in disposing of e-waste. "There are many councils that are doing things in the meantime about e-waste but we will wait until the National Waste Policy is finalised for us to plot our next actions. These councils take pressure off the National Government. We think that the manufacturers of the electronic devices should be looking at things they are doing when appliances get old, and how they are going to recycle it."

5. What happens to old TV’s and computers when they get dumped at the local tip?"They get land filled"

Both the email and interview came to the same conclusion: the Campbelltown City Council does not offer any e-waste service. As mentioned in both the email and interview, a National Waste Policy that is in the works will lead them in the direction they wish to take in the future. The members of the Campbelltown Council also believe that the manufacturers of such products should be

responsible for when their products become trash. They were aware of the growing issues and problems of e-waste surrounding people’s health and to the environment, but have yet to act on it.

City of SydneyThe initial thing to do was to fill out the general enquiries form on City of Sydney’s homepage (City of Sydney 2010) and received a reply which directed to Mr. Michael Neville, the education coordinator for the City of Sydney. Mr Neville was contacted on the 11th of May via email to organize a face to face interview (Neville, M 2010, email, 11.05.2010).

Mr Neville provided slides from a presentation he gave on e-waste which helped me prepare for my interview (Neville, M 2010). From this presentation a semi structured interview was prepared. The purpose of the interview was explained, permission to record the interview on the voice memo application on an iPhone and video camera as requested and granted. The semi structured interview worked well as follow up questions and responses to his answers were easily added.

Transcript of interview: (L=Lauren M=Michael)

L: “I read your presentation and first of all you mention a twenty thousand dollar price tag per collection. How much do you spend on things like marketing?”

M: “Well marketing, I reckon that marketing probably makes up about 25% of that. So the recycling and transport costs about 10 to 12 thousand then the staffing costs and contractor costs another three or four thousand and marketing is about four to five thousand”

L:”OK, because what I found in my survey was that 60% of interviewees knew what e-waste was, and 90% are not aware of any council initiatives”

M: “well that’s ok cause it’s new, relatively new it’s only been going for, well since November 08, so a year and a half, but actually an amazing amount of money has been spent on the marketing side of it, but still, a new initiative takes time to get through to people, plus we have a really highly transient population so probably 50% of the residents in this LGA change each year, and you know, you’d have to talk to the marketing people about the marketing channels they use, I mean, I don’t control that, we control what we do with the education stuff and the actual collection services. But we’re at capacity of the amount of people we can take on any given day”

L: “so you have a limit on capacity? Why is that?”

M: well we do from say 9 to 3 o’clock and the last collection we had 320 individual cars, so that’s a car something like every 45 seconds, so we’ve got a team of like 10 people there unloading the car, loading it into crates, surveying the people, moving them on and sometimes getting them going and getting them done, so it’s, there’s no, it’s completely constant, we couldn’t do more cars than we do in the given time frame. And even then the site doesn’t lend itself to more cars so we try to do them regularly and efficiently rather than just annually.

L: “I was wondering where you send the collected waste to get recycled and reused”

M: “yep, it gets sent to a company called PGN refiners which is based in Narre Warren in Victoria and they guarantee, they have a recycling rate of about 95% of all of the materials, and they also claim to recycle it in Australia whereas other companies have to send stuff offshore”

L: “have you ever thought of using Villawood’s recycling plant?”

M: “that the SIMS facility?”

L: “yeah”

M: “ah yeah, SIMS took the first, we used SIMS for the first two collections but then we wanted to try other contractors as well and at the moment we’ll have to, we’ll have to make a decision, probably go out to tender or something eventually where you get the quotes from a whole different lots of companies and choose one supplier for a year or two or whatever.”

L: “were they particularly expensive?”

M: “yeah, look, I think they were similar, the costs are about 50cents a kilo and the transport’s more to get it to Victoria than to Villawood so it impacts more on carbon emissions and stuff is higher, but yeah, it’s something that needs to be reviewed by us, and I mean, there’s no reason why we wouldn’t use SIMS again”

L: “I’ve noticed Waverley council has just organized a new clean up and was wondering if you do collaborate or would consider collaborating with another council?”

M: “yeah we looked at it, we work with Marrickville council and other local and regional councils on lots of other projects, yeah so there’s no reason in the future why we wouldn’t collaborate with other councils, but it has to be agreed, it has to go through a process of agreeing it. We tend to work with Marrickville council, so would more likely be with Marrickville council or Leichhardt council”

Hurstville City

An interview was conducted with Hurstville City Council’s Waste Projects Coordinator Ms Marguax Park. Ms Park is seen as a key leader in the area of recycling within the Sydney Metropolitan Area. Ms Park didn’t wish to participate in a face to face interview however, she did comply with the option of sending questions via email and then responding in her own time. This interview technique proved quiet difficult. In a normal interviewing situation, you have the ability to prepare questions and also expand on the participant’s response to a particular question. In this situation answers had to be predicted, so following questions did not become irrelevant. To help overcome this, after the first interview further questions were sent to ask her about her initial responses. She was very thorough which made the research into Hurstville go quick and easily.

Sutherland ShireTo find contact details for the council the first step was to visit their corresponding

websites. The main contact email address stated “enquires” yet not one specifically for the environmental sector of the council. This saw the email passed along a line of departments finally ending up at “Reference and Information Service at Sutherland Library.”

Email 1: Sutherland Shire Council-main email enquires address, ssc@ssc.nsw.gov.au, date contacted: 28th April 2010

Received 2 weeks later

Ms Kristin Ovidi’s assistance throughout the communication process and her genuine interest in helping satisfy any information that was required helped the process immensely. She gave the contact details of Ms Dee Topic, the education coordinator for Sutherland Shire council, who agreed to a telephone interview. The questions were emailed prior to the phone conversation at Ms Topic’s request so the process would be quick and efficient and she had time to look over them before answering.

Transcript of phone interview with Ms. Dee Topic

Consent for recording was given during the initial phone call on the 18th of May 2010 and interview was conducted on the 21st of May 2010 at 11.30am

(L=Lauren D=Dee)

D: “do you want me to answer number one first?”

L:”um, yes please”

D:”Ah, OK, reasons for Sutherland not having, well we do have information on the website, um you need to go into um resource recovery and if you look in there it says that, you can put out e-waste as part of our clean up for collection, you can also take it down to Pioneer waste management free of charge and they’ll take it off your hands and they do recover the metal components of the e-waste.

“For the second one, we don’t have e-waste collection days for two reasons. Um one, the costs involved are astronomical, two, and the main reason being, this council is a consortium of the southern Sydney councils which mean, which are all the councils from the bridge, the harbor bridge down to us and we’ve taken a stance that the federal government should be responsible for e-waste as it’s such a big problem and the federal government should be the ones tackling that problem from a manufacturers stand point. It shouldn’t be something that is tackled by local, at the local level, so ah if you actually go to the Australian government department of environment, water and heritage and arts you’ll see the national waste policy and they address e-waste on that website. That website shows that there will be a national scheme by 2011 so for us to start investing money in e-waste collection, that would cost us around 60 000 dollars probably to collect all the things that we have and it doesn’t actually address the problem, it just looks at the problem at the end and that’s not what’s happening, so have a read of the national waste policy and where it addresses the e-waste and um and that should answer some of your questions on that.”

L: “OK, in relation to that have you ever considered doing just one [collection], cause city of Sydney said their e-waste collection has a price tag of about twenty thousand dollars... (was then spoken over, but attempted to finish the question with “would you do one just to raise awareness”)”

D: “yeah, well that depends, different sections will recover different amounts so it all depends, the price will go up if they actually recover more and it will be less if they recover less. It all comes down to labour costs and all that and actually doing the collection. If we, as a response to not having an e-waste collection and not having addressed this up until the time that the federal government are going to do something, ah if there is a backlash from the community and we see an increase in illegal dumping of e-waste in particular. If it’s saturated to the point that we need to do something and it becomes problematic it’s something that we’d look at again, yes, it would be considered but I can’t say that’s the path that’s we’d go, we’d have to do some investigations before we can make that decision.”

“the councils that have um been holding an e-waste collection, I personally held one in the Illawarra area, the Wollongong area last year we did so as a result, again the Wollongong council is of the same opinion as southern regional councils, that it should not be our responsibility to deal with such a big issue, you know, original, councils were never set up to deal with such types of waste, the only reason Wollongong did it was cause they got external funding to do that through the state government and that could be an option as well, if we got funding from another source to fund that yes it would be a consideration. You’d have to find out as well if Sydney is forking out that money or if it’s being funded through a grant or something like that.”

L: “he said it’s the rate payers’ money”

D: “OK well then, again, it is the rate payers that are paying it, that may also cause a backlash. People may not want their money to be going towards that.”

D:”what steps are being taken. Well I think I’ve answered that too. We are looking at it closely, we are monitoring our illegal dumping, we are, we do have a service that prevents illegal dumping, you can take it down to the pioneer plant free of charge so people aren’t forced to throw it away or even pay for the disposal of e-waste so um and we are waiting to see the position paper of the federal government scheme is as well.”

Wollongong City- A Field Study of E-waste Collection

Brief:Initially the group plan was for Dean’s council investigation to be similar to the other councils. However, a lucky twist of fate landed the opportunity for a first hand observation of an Electrical waste collection on the 23rd May. This was beneficial due to Wollongong council’s lack of responding to emails, phone calls and queries.

The plan was for Dean, to drive to Kembla Grange, and observe, interview and collect evidence of the collection. As Mr Moore had mentioned, it would have been even greater for participation insofar as delivering my own waste, but apparently my mum wasn’t quite ready to part with the old CRT in the basement. Sorry Chris!

Main objectives: Written observations of the site. Photographs and video of the site Interviews

Main Notes and observations:“Free electronic waste collection”, Sunday 23rd of May, 9am-3.30pm. Wollongong Local Government area only.

Pre Arrival - until 1.30pm (drive time of 30 mins): Review of other councils reactions, from my group’s interviews, to judge my own and draft interview questions. I had expected that since the event was a positive council initiative there would a moderately enthused group of people, or at least a couple of spirited supervisors who would gladly answer an aspiring, nicely dressed UOW student such as myself, since I had prepared myself to look somewhat academic and professional. I might have been wrong in these utopian presumptions...

Draft script of questions on paper and vocal rehearsal en route. Questions surrounded 3 main ideas.

1. What was the motivation?

2. What is your respective Involvement?

3. What was their opinion of Wollongong council and other councils regarding Electrical waste?

Arrival at Kembla Grange Racecourse Car park @2pm:. End of the day was logical to fully appreciate the large piles of E-waste gathered and interview potentials.

Step 1: Quick observation and assessment of pickup.

How many people were there on site, how many supervising?

-20-30 Workers unloading cars. Very few supervisors.

What were my possible opportunities for gathering data?

-Needed to park so I could film/ photograph the pile which was also in proximity to the workers and outflow/inflow of civilian cars.

Step 2: Request permission to film on site.

Pulled up to the checkpoint where I introduced myself quickly and asked if I could park somewhere so I could take a couple of quick pictures. I was initially told to leave the site, as it was too busy.

“Sorry not today.”, Fiona Netting, Council worker at the front gate.

My car was funnelled through the Electrical waste collection zone, where grizzly council workers pointed and directed me through the maze of Electrical waste, barriers and pedestrians.

“I’m just trying to turn around so I could park”, I said to the men anticipating my E-waste, “Sorry, I’m just going to drive through”.

To which they politely replied, “We’ll why the f*** are you here?!”

Step 3: Try to talk with some of the workers on site. Find a supervisor.

Parked behind their catering tent. I approached the first person I saw that wasn’t wearing a bright yellow vest, and queried about a supervisor. Difficult locating supervisor, but eventually was directed to Mike McKean.

Mike McKean who was unfortunately was unable to answer any more questions. I said, “would you be able at 3.30” when I assumed shutdown would afford me the time for some questions. He strongly agreed, but failed to spend much time at the site,

Mike McKean- Rise and Shine “Sustainable environment” [on the side of his car]

Busied himself with coming and going every 20 minutes. From my observations, didn’t seem to be doing much.

Observations from my car- The only two females at the site were tasked with checking that cars were from the Wollongong Council area. I did not witness anyone get turned away, for breaching this.

The trucks: Size of regular tip/garbage trucks. Came, reduced the piles, and trucked off.

The men unloaded and dumped the waste onto piles.

The women ushered cars and checked ID.

Tally/Observation of type of people in the civilian cars: Most cars were sedans, but, some chose trailers out of obvious need for large and numerous items.

Tallied survey of 50 cars @2.30pm: Lone Male Drivers: 34 (68%)

Lone Female Drivers: 8 (16%)

Couples: 8 (16%)

Between 3 and 3.30, when the car flow stopped, I made a second attempt to interview workers. Most of the packers had left at 3 quickly in a minivan. The rest seemed to find my presence amusing or perplexing.

Short Interview: “Fiona Netting”, Woman checking/ ushering cars. She had offered me her pictures at the gate in an attempt to make my presence there superfluous. I queried about getting these pictures, and she seemed quite reluctant, saying she wasn’t planning on publishing them.

As it turns out, she was not allowed to talk to “journalists”. “Not even anyone from the uni.”

However I lightly pressed for some basic personal remark on the success of the collection pickup.

She noted that 12700 (approximate) cars had passed through the gates. All the waste was bound for the Sims waste site in Villawood. Also, Sims (Villawood) is not allowed to release waste figures to me. All my other questions had to be directed to “Ashley, of the media relations in Wollongong council.”

The workers at the site were apparently a mix of people doing Community service, Council workers, and some volunteers.

In my subsequent post-collection research, I could not identify the Ashley of Wollongong Media relations.

Conclusions and final thought:

My expectations did not match reality. Workers were hard to approach, Civilians were impossible to interview due to the traffic conditions. Supervisors were scarce. The rubbish was trucked to a place in Sydney for scrapping- I had assumed it to be sorted or reused in some way. My presence was largely unwelcome. My ability to operate the camera and find good vantage points was made difficult through varying weather conditions, a small area with high traffic flow and the subsequent noise.

All in all, the experience was not a failure but an insight into the reality of E-waste disposal.

Captured Media:

Video: 10mins of overall video edited into 3 min. Published on Youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT3i69Js31A

Pictures:

Notes: Qualitative Analysis from each area

Campbelltown

City of Sydney

Hurstville City

Sutherland Shire

Wollongong

REFERENCES

City of Sydney 2010, accessed 04/05/2010. http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

Fontana, A and Frey, JH 2000, ‘The Interview: from structured questions to negotiated text’, in NK Denzin and YS Lincoln (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California, pp645-672

Hansen, A 1998, ‘Media Audiences: Survey Research’, in Anders Hansen Mass Communication Research Methods, New York Press, New York.

Lauren Williams 2010, email, 14th May 2010, lauren.williams@campbelltown.nsw.gov.au

Mayor Aaron Rule 2010, email, 11th May 2010, aaron.rule@campbelltown.nsw.gov.au

Neville, M 2010, email, 11th May 2010, mneville@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

Neville, M 2010, E-Waste, Presentation, E-Waste summit, City of Sydney Council, delivered April 2010. http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dg88njd5_0cwrw98f2&interval=5&loop=true