Equalities Impact Assessment
Compost and Composting
Initiatives
Date: September 2007
Record of Equality Impact Assessment
1. Department/Service Area
The Department of Highways Transportation and Waste Management, Waste
Policy. Compost and Composting Initiatives
2. Equality Areas Assessed
Race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/faith, age were considered
as part of the initial assessment. Sexual orientation was not felt to be of
relevance to the facilities in question.
3. Timescale of the assessment
July 2007 to September 2007.
4. Who is involved in the EIA?
Campaigns Officer
Team Leader (Waste Policy)
Waste Policy Manager
WRAP Home Composting Advisor.
5. Policy, procedure, service assessed
Leicestershire County Council (LCC), as a member of the Leicestershire
Waste Management Partnership, has adopted a Municipal Waste
Management Strategy that sets out how the Partnership intends to manage
municipal waste up to 2020 and beyond. The Leicestershire Municipal Waste
Management Strategy 2006 is subject to a separate Equalities Impact
Assessment.
The strategy contains a number of core objectives, which set out the
partnerships principle aims and objectives. Core objective 1 relates to the
partnership’s intention to manage materials in accordance with the Waste
Management Hierarchy including composting. Core objective 9 is to work
closely with the community and community sector to educate residents in
waste related matters and encourage engagement with waste prevention and
reuse initiatives.
These strategy core objectives are reflected in the initiatives targeted for
delivery under the Waste Prevention Plan Action Point 1 – Deliver a suite of
activities to encourage home composting. This suite of activities include the
following:
 Maintain current arrangements with WRAP offering Leicestershire
residents subsidised composting containers
 Promote County-wide Rot-a-Lot composting club in partnership with
Leicester City
 Investigate the feasibility of developing a ‘Master Composter’ training
programme
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The composting services are delivered by the Waste Management
Department. As a department we are committed to working to reduce
disadvantages, discrimination and inequalities of opportunity, and promote
diversity in terms of the people we serve, our workforce, the partners we work
with and the services we deliver.
Home composting is a form of waste prevention and is therefore at the top of
the waste hierarchy. Promoting home composting can help lead to heightened
awareness of other waste related issues and increased recycling. Composting
reduces the amount of garden and kitchen waste being disposed of in landfill.
WRAP Home Compost Bin Scheme
Waste Resources Action Program offers Leicestershire residents the
opportunity to purchase subsidised compost bins. The compost bins can be
purchased online, by telephone or by post. Regular promotion of this scheme
is done by wrap through newspaper adverts and leaflet drops.
Rot-a-Lot Composting Club
The Rot-a-Lot Composting club was initially set-up as the Leicestershire
Rotters Club funded by Leicestershire County Council and operated by
Environ. In 2006 Leicestershire County Council took the club in-house and
renamed it the Rot-a-Lot Composting Club and began working with Leicester
City.
The club offers Leicestershire and Leicester City residents the following
benefits:
 Quarterly newsletter
 Kitchen caddy, biodegradable bags, guide to composting, Wrap
promotional leaflet
 To deliver 4 home composting workshops in different areas of the
County, to include 1 workshop in the Leicester City
 To provide 2 tours of Lount composting facility
The scheme is promoted in a number of different ways through library
bookmarks, postcards, newspaper advertising and press releases.
County Compost
County compost is made from the composted green waste collected from the
gardens of Leicestershire. The green waste is composted at Lount and
Kibworth composting facilities. Bagged County Compost is sold at
Leicestershire’s Recycling & Household Waste Sites as well as at major
garden centres.
The sale of compost is promoted through leaflets, press releases, newspaper
advertising and radio advertising.
6.
Data Collection and consultation
This service area and its actions are directly linked to the Leicestershire
Municipal Waste Management Strategy 2006.The Strategy is a revision of one
adopted in 2002. Local people were consulted during the development of the
original strategy and during the revision to produce the current Strategy there
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were a range of community and stakeholder involvement initiatives. A variety
of approaches were adopted to ensure that the development of the strategy
engaged the Leicestershire public as well as organisations with a particular
interest in the proposals. Detailed reports on Community Involvement are
available. These cover Public Consultation; the Stakeholder Group; Focus
Groups and the Community Panel. The priorities in this service area are
consistent with the findings of this broad consultation.
WRAP Compost Bin Scheme
Residents purchasing compost bins provide basic personal details for delivery
and follow up work purposes. Wrap also conducted a survey in June 2006
which asked customers for age, gender, social class, ethnicity, whether they
lived in an urban area or not and presence of garden. The survey was to
establish the requirements people had for their compost bin so didn’t draw any
conclusions about anything more than this.
Rot-a-Lot Composting Club
When people join the composting club they provide us with their basic
personal details to allow us to contact them. We therefore know how residents
are placed across the borough and whether there is a higher concentration of
members in any one area.
District
Membe
rs
Blaby
322
Charnwood
435
Harborough
179
Hinckley and Bosworth 288
Melton
79
Oadby and Wigston
131
North West
154
Leicestershire
Populati
on
82700
141806
67607
96201
45112
51547
80566
%
0.39
0.31
0.26
0.30
0.18
0.25
0.19
County Compost
We don’t currently hold any information as to who buys the compost.
Other Data Considered
As part of the assessment we considered a number of reports that gave us an
insight into the demographic make up of Leicestershire and previous
consultation with diversity groups. This information was analysed to see if it
would have a bearing on our assessment. The reports we considered were:
 Cohesive Communities in Leicestershire (2007 LCC)
 Ethnicity in Leicestershire – Results from the 2001 Census (LCC)
 Report on the Preparation, Facilitation and Verdict of the Citizens Jury
for Disabled People in Leicestershire. (Equal Ability 2004)
 BME Citizens Jury Action Plan (LCC 2005)
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 Sexuality Matters – Community Strategy – (Leics. Lesbian Gay and
Bisexual Centre 2004)
We also considered the following reports:
i.
May 2004 Recycling & Household Waste Site Survey (LCC)
In May 2004 an extensive survey was carried out in respect of Recycling &
Household Waste Sites was sent out to residents that had previously advised
they would be happy to take part in additional waste surveys or had requested
the survey after it was advertised in Leicestershire Matters. The survey was
open to all Leicestershire residents and the following information about the
people who replied was gained; age, district, ethnic background, gender and
disability.
A comparison was made between the survey and census results to evaluate
whether the demographic data was similar to that of the survey results. It was
found to be largely similar and for this reason no action was taken.
Two questions were incorporated into the survey relating to advertising of the
schemes operated by the Waste Management Section. In answer to one of
the questions asking where the respondent thought we should advertise our
services 11% of people ticked “other”. Further investigation into the results of
the survey would be required to establish whether these answers are linked to
matters of age, district, ethnic background, gender, disability. No changes
were made as a result of this survey.
Variations in the Composition of Household Waste – Feb 2005 (AEA
Technology.)
This report looks at Asian Ethnic Groups and Black Ethnic groups to establish
if there are any differences in how waste is made up in these different
sections of the community, compared to each other and to predominantly
white groups. The research was undertaken to establish how different
messages about recycling and composting may need to be delivered to
different groups.
ii.
Overall the assessment suggests that information about the scheme is made
available through a range of means which should help a wide range of
residents to hear about the scheme.
7.
Findings
WRAP Compost Bin Scheme
We are confident that Wrap monitors the take up of their scheme for equality
issues and they collect data on age, gender and ethnicity. No analysed results
are available to benefit this report.
Rot-a-Lot Composting Club
The information about the scheme is made available through newsletters, the
web site, Leicestershire Matters, community events and leaflets at libraries,
which should help a wide range of residents to hear about the scheme. It was
noted that we should always make efforts to distribute information to the
widest range of outlets that we can so that we continue to reach a broad
section of the community.
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The AEA Report found that there was no difference in the amount of waste
arising from Asian and black communities compared with predominantly white
households. The report did find that households in Asian communities
generate less waste per person than households in White or Black
communities.
From these reports it would seem that no particular community has a worse
problem with raw kitchen and garden waste than any other and so we don’t
need to single out a group for extra promotional work. If Asian communities
create less waste per head then it would make sense to focus on White and
Black Communities more to try and make a bigger impact here.
We mapped the membership across the county of the compost club and found
that it is fairly evenly spread. The only boroughs with slightly less take up are
North West Leicestershire and Melton. Considering that both of the boroughs
have low BME populations and that one of the boroughs is the wealthiest and
the other, one of the most deprived in the county we can’t draw any
conclusions from this result. We will however bear this in mind when planning
future publicity. The service is open to all however increased monitoring of our
rot a lot club can be put in place to see if any groups are under-represented.
County Compost
No details are recorded in terms of take up by different groups.
8. Conclusions
It is difficult to establish with the present information available whether the
current composting schemes are having any adverse impacts. A series of
consultation surveys will be required to establish the current uptake of
schemes and monitoring of the schemes in future will determine whether
adjustments to the ways the schemes are operated will be required.
Overall our conclusion is that whilst action will be taken to better understand
the make up of our service users, the impact of the service is relatively low in
terms of any potential disadvantage or adverse impact.
9. Actions
1. Rot-a-Lot Home Composting Club – We will conduct a survey sent out with
the newsletter to establish the Gender, Age, Ethnic Origin and whether
they have a disability. This data could then be compared with Census data
to see if there is any significant variation between the results. The survey
will also aim to identify any needs of different groups in reference to how
we communicate with people.
2. County Compost – It would be very difficult to carry out monitoring of the
uptake of the County Compost but a sample survey could be done in
conjunction with another issue to establish whether a broad range of
people have access to information about the Compost. This could be done
in conjunction with a RHWS user survey as there would be a correlation of
results. However we have considered how influential this would be in real
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service improvement terms and have made the judgement that a survey of
this proportion is not relative the impact of the service.
The results of the survey data will be used to establish whether there is a
significant variation to the key statistics of the Census and will highlight where
this variation if it exists is occurring. These areas can then be targeted to
mitigate against perceived negative impacts of the current schemes and to
help ensure all residents are aware of opportunities and are able to access
the schemes. Additional information requests can be incorporated into current
forms to enable continued monitoring of the services we offer to ensure that a
fair and unbiased approach is maintained.
As a result of the survey it is proposed to look into establishing a distribution
list for our communications information that is more widely representative than
our current one. This will ensure that we are actively spreading the information
we have as widely as possible and making it as easy as possible for people to
access.
We have also reviewed our promotional literature as part of the assessment.
On any leaflets we produce we include the corporate equalities statement and
an email address as well as phone number. As part of this process we have
established that we need to publicise the minicom service more widely and
look into staff training on this method of communication. The same applies for
the language line service that we offer, staff need to be trained to use this
service in the event of a resident ringing in whose first language is not English
and requires additional language facilities.
Actions proposed will assist in meeting the overarching equalities objectives
identified in the Department’s Equalities Action Plan.
10. Monitoring
Proposing to introduce monitoring by age, gender, disability and ethnic origin
relating to the Rot a Lot Club. This data will be requested from the current
members and anyone joining the group so that we can more closely monitor
take up.
We will plan to do a sample survey possibly in conjunction with another issue
to establish whether a broad range of people have access to information
about the compost. This could be done in conjunction with a RHWS user
survey as there would be a correlation of results.
Wrap carry out their own monitoring of their scheme.
11. Authorisation
Waste Policy Manager
12. Contact
Team Leader (Waste Policy)/Stuart Brown – Campaigns Officer
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