UK - WRAP reports on MRF quanlity benchmarks
UK Government agency WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) have published a report
MRF quality assessment, outlining a benchmark for contamination levels in MRF material and setting out to gauge acceptable levels across a wide range of recyclates.
Enviros were commissioned by WRAP to undertake a nationwide (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) assessment of the composition and quality of material currently being sent to MRFs and the associated quality of material then sent to reprocessors. In all 17 MRFs were included in the survey. A parallel project was commissioned, with Resource Futures, for Scotland which recruited 1 MRF. All numbers and analysis in this report cover all 18 sampled MRFs.
The aim of these projects was to provide robust data on the composition of input, output and residual waste material at MRFs to provide information on the quality of material processed at MRFs and inform the waste management industry on current material quality benchmark thresholds. A range (upper, lower and median) of contamination was identified for the input and each output material:
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lower level - 25th percentile bound, meaning that one quarter of the MRF contamination was at this level or below ie achieving this level of average contamination or better is very good in comparison to the rest of the sector
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middle level - 50 per cent (or half) of the average output from MRF samples were in this range ie achieving this level of contamination is on average comparable with the sector
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upper level - 75th percentile bound, meaning that one quarter of the MRF contamination was at this level or higher ie achieving this level of average contamination or higher is poor in comparison to the rest of the sector.
Basically, the MRFs with the lowest material contamination (is the best performances) are shown in the lower level range. The 18 MRFs consisted of 13 single-stream MRFs and 5 twin-stream MRFs.
The analysis of these ranges can be done from two perspectives; that of comparing all the 4,676 individual samples taken; or that of comparing the average results for each of the 18 MRFs. The use of the individual samples may skew the ranges by allowing more weight to unusually good or bad MRFs, whereas the comparison of overall MRF figures is perhaps more realistic for benchmarking.
For this report all analysis is carried out on MRF averages, with no data removed as sample sizes are low for some material streams.
The table given in the report gives a quick and easy-to-use benchmarking comparison for MRFs. More detail on these ranges is given in the main body of this report, in particular MRF type breakdowns are given for output materials.
Essentially, the level of contaminants among the best performing MRFs varies from <2.9 to 8.4 per cent, while the levels of recyclables found within the MRF's residual stream varies from less than 25 per cent to more than 70 per cent.
Copies of the report MRF quality assessment (0.5 MB) can be collected from WRAP's website at:
http://www.wrap.org.uk/downloads/MRF_Quality_Assessment_Study.bc2aab58.8307.pdf