Zero Waste Training Handbook

ZERO WASTE
TRAINING
HANDBOOK
Authors: Kadri Kalle, Grete Arro, Mait Kriipsalu, Jack McQuibban, Jaka Kranjc, Žaklina Žnajder, Kadi Kenk.
Editor-in-chief: Kadri Kalle
Suggested reference: Zero Waste Training Handbook, Kalle K., Arro G., Kriipsalu M., McQuibban J., Kranjc J.,
Žnajder Ž., Kenk K., the BEZWA project, 2022
The BEZWA project (Building a European Zero Waste Academy) was an Erasmus+ funded collaboration between
five organisations with the main aim to create a strong educational framework in support of the zero waste cities
movement in Europe.
Let’s Do It Foundation is a social enterprise that consults, trains

and mentors public and private organisations to help scale
societal change and innovation for successful implementation
of zero waste and circular economy principles. LDIF also directly
advocates and promotes policies and develops tools to create
new solutions.
Tallinn University is a modern and dynamic research university

in Estonia with a leading role in promoting an intelligent lifestyle
through education, research, and a unique collaboration across
disciplines. We view an intelligent lifestyle as making research-
based decisions in order to improve society in general and the
well-being of its citizens.
Estonian University of Life Sciences has priorities in academic

and research activities, which provide the sustainable
development of natural resources necessary for the existence
of Man as well as the preservation of heritage and habitat.
Research is carried out in three institutes: Institute of Forestry
and Engineering, Institute of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences, and Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Animal
Sciences. We are the first in Estonia to provide education about
waste management.
Društvo Ekologi brez meja is one of the leading Slovenian NGOs

dedicated to improving the state of our environment – focusing
on efficient resource use and active citizenship. Most of their
activities deal with waste at its source and they also run the
Slovenian network of zero waste municipalities.
Zero Waste Europe is the European network of communities,

local leaders, experts, and change agents working towards the
elimination of waste in our society. We advocate for sustainable
systems and the redesign of our relationship with resources, to
accelerate a just transition towards zero waste for the benefit of
people and the planet.
The European Commission’s support for the production of this

publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents,
which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHING ZERO WASTE 5
Zero waste, wellbeing and values 6
Metacognition aka keeping track of your own learning 11
RESOURCES FOR ZERO WASTE TRAINERS 24

Main principles of teaching aka how the brain works 25
Learning motivation aka how to get everyone on board on environmental issues? 38
Misconceptions aka how to help people deconstruct their false thinking (on waste) 52
Why are questions important? 66
Learning assessment aka how do you know that learning happened 73
How to manage your teaching time aka “There’s no time for this today” 82
Training video guide for Zero Waste Trainers 87
Trainer’s checklist 89
Teaching mini-sessions 94
RESOURCES FOR ZERO WASTE AMBASSADORS 96

Zero waste basics 97
The Zero Waste Cities model 105
Waste data basics 116
Waste collection 124
Waste treatment methods 135
Waste policy and advocacy 150
Communication and storytelling 165
Training video guide for Zero Waste Ambassadors 177
Zero Waste City role play game 179
INTRODUCTION
“Once we adopt a new view of the world (or any part of it), we immediately lose
much of our ability to recall what we used to believe before our mind changed.“
Daniel Kahneman
This quote by Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman can be understood in two ways,
at least. One is that by expanding our knowledge and understanding, these new views become
an integral part of us. This gives us hope that once we adopt the zero waste mindset, it becomes
hard for us to imagine a different way of managing resources. But the second side of it is that the
more we become experts in something, paradoxically the harder it becomes for us to teach and
explain it to those who don’t yet understand it. Our system of knowledge (known also as mental
models) becomes more and more complex, and at the same time it becomes compact, packed
like a ZIP file, where details that are important for the beginner to make sense of things are faded
in the background. The steps in our thinking process flow so smoothly that we ourselves do not
notice it anymore. As experts we need to unpack our way of thinking in order to help beginners
become experts more easily. We have attempted this when creating this handbook and the Zero
Waste Ambassador and Trainer curricula.
The aim of this handbook is to support the implementation of the Zero Waste Ambassador and
Trainer curricula, with the overall goal to strengthen and spread zero waste competences among
changemakers across Europe, helping to empower them to support and drive their communities
towards long term systemic change. Whereas the curricula describe the set up, structure and
reasons for selecting certain topics and competences into the training courses, this handbook
goes deeper into the topics themselves and offers some exercises and materials to anyone
wanting to train Zero Waste Ambassadors and/or Trainers.
Since the teaching principles described in this handbook are quite universal, then this handbook
can be useful also to anyone wishing to improve their teaching, especially in complex problems
such as many environmental issues.
1
HOW TO USE THIS HANDBOOK
This handbook has two main parts: resources for the Zero Waste Ambassador curriculum and for
the Zero Waste Trainer curriculum. In the beginning we have also added two chapters on more
general principles that are important to both curricula. These chapters focus on the connection
between values, wellbeing and zero waste, and on metacognition – the ability to analyse and
plan one’s learning process.
Although we consider the Zero Waste Ambassador training course as the first level and the Zero
Waste Trainer as more advanced – from understanding zero waste to being able to teach it, we
have put the Zero Waste Trainer chapters first. This is to give the educators a better understanding
of what are the main principles when creating training courses or workshops and how to shape
learning activities. The Zero Waste Ambassador chapters provide a more in-depth view into the
(zero) waste topics themselves. Whereas the Zero Waste Trainer chapters provide the “How?”,
the Zero Waste Ambassador chapters provide the “What?”. It is important to note that not all the
topics from both curricula are represented in this handbook – we have selected some of the most
important ones and those which can serve as background or additional reading to the training
course content. All the chapters can be seen as examples for creating similar documents on other
zero waste topics for your own purposes.
The handbook can be read through from the first to the last chapter, or simply by focusing on
specific topics. Each chapter is also available as a separate file, to make it easier to share in case
there is a need to work with just one topic at a time. Here are some options how to use the chapters:
• Read them, answer the questions, do the exercises to learn more about
the topic.
• Use the content (the questions and exercises) to set up your teaching sessions
on the topic.
• Give them as basic/additional reading material to learners in your own Zero
Waste Ambassador or Trainer training courses.
The chapters have been designed so they could also be used as training tools (e.g. home reading
assignments). There are different types of questions in the chapters:
• Opening questions – to tune the reader’s thinking on the topic at hand and
think about the existing pre-knowledge.
• Ending questions – what could be done with the information from the
chapter, what to do next.
• Questions within the text – to pause and think about the possible answers,
to maintain active thinking in providing their own answers before reading them
from the text.
• Frequently asked questions – a collection of questions that are often raised by the
audience when speaking about this topic.
2
Why we focus so much on asking questions can be read from the chapter Why are questions
important?. We recommend taking the questions seriously, pause to think about them, even
write them down, as this is the best way to maintain active thinking and focus on the material.
Our aim is also not to give answers to all the questions we pose, but to cultivate the habit of
asking questions, of trying to find answers, of thinking about things more deeply, of self-testing
how much do we actually know about things and sometimes also realising we do not have the
answers yet.
We do not have the answers to all the questions and this handbook can therefore also be seen
as a way for setting goals for future research and discovery for the readers. If you do find some
answers, do let us know as well.
AUTHORS AND THE CREATION OF THIS HANDBOOK

This handbook has been created as part of the Erasmus+ funded project “Building a European Zero
Waste Academy”. The authors are from five organisations, bringing together necessary experience
and expertise in the field:
• Zero Waste Europe: the main umbrella organisation in Europe for zero waste related work
and research
• Ekologi brez meja: civil society organisation with long experience in national and local zero
waste work and advocacy
• Let’s Do It Foundation: civil society organisation with experience in active citizenship
projects, environmental awareness and non-formal education
• Estonian University of Life Sciences, chair of rural building and water management: long
term experience in teaching waste management and treatment
• Tallinn University, school of educational sciences: scientific knowledge of educational
psychology
The back-bone for the structure and topics of the handbook were developed in parallel with the
creation of the both Zero Waste Ambassador and Trainer curricula. The main ideas expressed
in the handbook are based on the latest research done in the field of waste management and
educational psychology. Additional input for the handbook was collected from the two pilot
training courses in 2021. The feedback and questions from the test groups helped to form the
focal questions for the handbook chapters. Some of the chapters were also tested in early 2022
as learning material in an online course and adjusted based on that. Altogether, the handbook has
been shaped based on the feedback and thoughts of 45 people in the test groups, in addition to
the authors.
3
DEFINITIONS
To avoid any confusion, this section includes definitions of key terms related to the
process and design of the training courses. Topic-specific terminology is explained in
respective chapters.
A training course is the implementation of a curriculum.
A learner is a participant of the training course (a person who is participating in the learning
process) or a person who is in the situation of acquiring new knowledge.
An educator is a trainer or facilitator (a person who teaches, trains or facilitates people to help
learners to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue).
Zero waste is the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption,
reuse and recovery of products, packaging and materials without burning, and with no discharges
to land, water or air that threaten the environment or human health. This is the definition of Zero
Waste as adopted by the Zero Waste International Alliance.
A Zero Waste Ambassador is a person who can argue, convince, advise local decision makers on
zero waste policies and business models, with at least a medium level of zero waste expertise.
A Zero Waste Trainer is a person who can effectively develop and execute educational sessions
(training, workshop) on different zero waste topics by taking into account the needs of the learners.
Competences are a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes. As described in “Key

competences for lifelong learning” by the European Commission:1
Knowledge is composed of the concepts, facts and figures, ideas and theories which are already
established, and support the understanding of a certain area or subject.
Skills are defined as the ability to carry out processes and use the existing knowledge to
achieve results.
Attitudes are the disposition and mindset to act or react to ideas, persons or situations.
1
Key competences for lifelong learning, European Commission (2019)
4
UNDERLYING
PRINCIPLES FOR
TEACHING ZERO
WASTE
ZERO WASTE, WELLBEING
AND VALUES
Opening questions for the reader before reading:
• Why do you dedicate your time to zero waste or other

environmental issues?
• What do you value the most in life?
• What kind of connections do you see between your core
values and zero waste?
• What are the reasons why people get interested in zero
waste?
• How can zero waste solutions make our lives happier?
Main ideas in this chapter are based on the self-determination theory by E.L. Deci & R. M. Ryan1
For people working in zero waste and in environmental topics in general, it’s quite obvious that
zero waste helps us to preserve natural resources and serves to protect the environment, which
is often the main reason why we are working in it. We value nature and a clean environment. But
there are also other connections between zero waste, wellbeing and values which are maybe not
that obvious right away.
Values and attitudes are part of human nature and influence everything we do. There are also
certain attitudes that are part of both the Zero Waste Ambassador and Trainer competences but
they are of course something we cannot just teach in one training course; and they are maybe not
directly teachable. What we can do at our training courses is to strengthen the already existing
values and open the discussion on their importance. We have not included any specific sessions
on values or attitudes into neither of the example training formats as this could be seen as a sort
of horizontal topic and embedded into different activities, in the form of discussion topic, group
or individual exercise. But of course it could be included also as a separate session.
Values are tricky. We can agree that all of us have certain values and we act based on them,
especially in difficult situations. At the same time values are very difficult to change, as they
start developing from early childhood and take a long time to form, and it’s not always clear what
shapes our values.
One theory dealing with values is the life aspirations theory.2
First, let’s look at the types of life aspirations or goals people have. Take a look at some
statements below. What 2-3 options would you pick from this list as important life goals
for you?
1. To have many nice things

2. To be able to grow as a person
3. To be known by many people
4. To contribute to making the world a better place somehow
5. To have power and influence over people
6. To have close relationships with friends/family
1
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness.
2
Life aspirations theory, officially goal contents theory, is part of the bigger motivational theory called the self-
determination theory, developed by Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L.
7
There has been a lot of research3 on life aspirations and in broad terms two types can be
distinguished. The options 1, 3 and 5 are what we call extrinsic goals and options 2, 4 and 6 are
intrinsic goals, sometimes also referred to as hedonic and eudaimonic aspirations, respectively. It
is likely that you selected the sentences from one type, not both. And if you are reading this and
interested in zero waste education, it’s likely that you picked from the intrinsic values’ type.
Overview of the two types of values:
Intrinsic life goals (eudaimonia) Extrinsic life goals (hedonia)

Happiness from knowing you are doing the Happiness from seeking positive emotions and
right thing avoiding negative emotions
Main goal types: Main goal types:

∙ Creating and keeping close relationships ∙ Economic success, having material wealth
∙ Personal growth ∙ Fame, being popular
∙ Contributing to your community ∙ Image, looking attractive
While we may want to look beautiful and value our family at the same time, on the level of life
goals and what we find most important in life, people either have intrinsic or extrinsic value sets,
and not a mix of both4. One of the value types always has a higher importance.
And now the interesting part:

Guess which group has less anxiety, depression and unhappiness, as well as a
smaller ecological footprint?
It’s the group with intrinsic values. So valuing community, relationships and work for the bigger
cause (like environment) also actually means living a happier life. Why? Because intrinsic aspirations
satisfy better our three psychological needs – relatedness, autonomy and competence,5 whereas
extrinsic aspirations are based on comparisons with others, which make us more controllable and
controlled by others. Same results have been found in many studies all over the world, across
different cultures.6
So already working for zero waste solutions and improving our living environment is good
for our mental wellbeing.
3
Kasser, T., & Ryan, R. M. (1993). A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life
aspiration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(2), 410–422.
4
Grouzet, F. M. E., Kasser, T., Ahuvia, A., Dols, J. M. F., Kim, Y., Lau, S., et al. (2005). The structure of goal contents across 15
cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(5), 800– 816.
5
More about that in the Learning motivation chapter.
6
Just to name a few: Grouzet, F. M. E., Kasser, T., Ahuvia, A., Dols, J. M. F., Kim, Y., Lau, S., et al. (2005). The structure of
goal contents across 15 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(5), 800– 816; Williams, G. C., Hedberg,
V. A., Cox, E. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Extrinsic life goals and health-risk behaviors in adolescents. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 30(8), 1756–1771; Utvær, B. K. S., Hammervold, R., & Haugan, G. (2014). Aspiration Index in vocational students:
Dimensionality, reliability, and construct validity. Education Inquiry, 5(3), 359–383.
8
What about people with extrinsic values? Could they also move towards intrinsic values?
The question perhaps is: what influences our values?
There are of course many elements in influencing values; childhood and upbringing have a big role
here. But there are also some elements in our general surroundings that could have some effect
in time. Some of the elements that influence our values are:
• What the people that surround us

(family, friends, co-workers, teachers…) value:
• which is emphasised more: cooperation or competition
• which is more important: fast results or taking time to learn deeply
• pleasing external parties or finding inner meaning
• The culture, political regime, tone and style of journalism:

• how restrictive laws and rules are
• what is considered acceptable and non-acceptable in society
• what is praised as good behaviour in society
• level of freedom of expression
• The words we use everyday:

• do we talk more about extrinsic or intrinsic values, for example calling
people consumers or citizens7
• do we talk more about money itself or how we can invest into human
wellbeing
• Our everyday environment.
How does our living environment (our cities) influence our values and nudge them?
What kind of role could zero waste solutions play in there?
Of course it starts already with city planning: what means of transport and movement are easier
(walking and cycling vs cars), what are the options for how to spend your time (shopping malls
or cultural spaces and green areas), how much is participatory human interaction supported by
these choices and so on. And waste management is also part of that: starting with the basics of
how clean and tidy the city space is (how much is common space valued and taken care of) but
also showing how we treat resources that we ourselves no longer need.
7
There can actually be differences in people’s behaviour depending on whether they are addressed as consumers or as
citizens: Consumerism and its antisocial effects can be turned on-or off, Association for Psychological Science (2012)
9
If we think about what the most important ideas we promote with zero waste are - waste
reduction, reuse and repair centres, community composting and gardens, food sharing - then it’s
not only about environmental protection and cutting costs, but also about social bonds between
people, developing new skills and keeping old (repair) skills alive, being creative and mindful with
our things. Zero waste is about more connections between people, more meaningful jobs, it’s
about prioritising wellbeing over consumerism. Zero waste supports intrinsic values.
A quote by Carl Jung on values and human interaction as further thought in the topic:
“Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from
being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.”
You can read more about values, communication and getting people on board with environmental
issues, in the Communications and storytelling chapter and Learning motivation chapter.
Ending questions for the reader to reflect upon:
• In what other ways could we support intrinsic values?

• How much do you think we can influence the values
of others?
• How do you usually communicate the importance of zero
waste to others?
10
METACOGNITION aka
KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR
OWN LEARNING
• Do you analyse your own thinking process or ways of

learning? Why? If yes, how?
• Do you assess or keep track of how well you know the
topics that you learn? Why? If yes, how?
First we need to introduce a somewhat strange word called metacognition.
Metacognition can be defined as:

• Awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking processes.1
• Planning, monitoring and evaluating your own learning, reflecting on your
own performance.2
A very simple example: making notes in a lesson is cognitive strategy (to remember the lesson),
deciding that you need to make notes in order to remember the lesson is a metacognitive
strategy.3 Metacognition is thinking about your learning, not learning itself, for example, what
helps you to remember; but also the knowledge of good strategies to learn and think in order to
become better at something.
Metacognition is an essential part of self-development and learning. It has been said that we might
learn more from reflecting on our experiences than from the actual experiences themselves.4 The
human brain is a very complex organ, which brings both many possibilities and struggles with it.
It’s been well studied5 that we have many biases that distort the way we process information
and we can make “shortcuts” in our thinking that can bring mental flaws into our logic. Becoming
better at thinking and learning can often be counter-intuitive and requires practice and effort.
It’s important to note that metacognition is a rather complex topic and we are only very briefly
touching upon it here. Good metacognition means being able to assess if we are learning
effectively or ineffectively and how we should change our learning strategies. It’s a whole
process of mindfully planning, monitoring and then evaluating our learning.
1
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
2
National Research Council (NRC) (1996). National Science Education Standards, Washington, DC: National Academies Press
3
Jacobse, A. E., & Harskamp, E. G. (2012). Towards efficient measurement of metacognition in mathematical problem
solving. Metacognition and Learning, 7(2), 133-149.
4
Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process.
5
variety of examples in: Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow.
12
Some examples of metacognitive questions that a learner could ask him/herself in each of these
stages:
METACOGNITIVE
KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge of:
myself
the task
staregies
3. Evaluation
1. Planning
TASK OR
COURSE • How did the
• What is important
information relate to
for me to learn in this
my previous knowledge
course?
about this topic?
• What do I want to be
• What advice would I
able to do by the end of
give to a friend on how
this course?
2. Monitoring to learn best in this
• What could be the best
course?
strategies for me to
• How is the teaching in • What would I still
use to learn well in this
this course supporting remember in a year
course?
my learning? after this course?
• How is this information
relevant to me? How
can I make it relevant?
• How can I distinguish
main concepts from
details?
Source: Tanner (2012)6, Quigley et al (2018)7
Developing metacognitive skills is a long process and not something our training courses can
teach people to master. But there are some elements which we have included in order to help
learners to assess their learning process better and practice metacognitive skills. That’s why
we have included the ability to self-assess their own skill level and direct their learning more
effectively as a part of the Zero Waste Ambassador’s competences. Similarly, one of the Zero
Waste Trainer’s competences is to critically evaluate their own teaching and welcome failure as
part of the learning process. Teaching is always also a learning process.
6
Tanner, K.D. (2012). Promoting Student Metacognition. CBE - Life Sciences Education, 11, 113–120.
7
Quigley, A., Muijs, D., & Stringer, E. (2018). Metacognition and self-regulated learning. Guidance Report, Education
Endowment Foundation.
13
For each of our chapters in the handbook we have added opening and ending questions which
help to think about what we already know about the topic, what we can do with this knowledge
and what we want to do next. This is similar to what we recommend to do during training events:
1. In the beginning thinking about what learners already know about the topic;
2. In the evenings having reflection exercises: ideally learners could write down the most
important learning moments and how to use them in the future.
We encourage learners to be confused and to struggle. And perhaps most importantly to notice
that deliberate confusion can also be a metacognitive skill - to consciously understand what we
don’t yet understand and what is difficult.
Reflecting on our own learning only based on how it FEELS effective to us is not
enough. Why is it so?
It is well studied8 that the majority of what we believe about our own learning is not correct.
For example, if learning feels hard and confusing, we tend to think that we are not good at the
topic and the learning process is ill-designed, although the truth is likely the opposite. In order
to become a ninja in metacognition, a crucial aspect is to integrate everything you learn about
learning into your self-reflection. This is mainly in the Main principles of teaching chapter but also
the Learning motivation chapter of the Zero Waste Trainer section of the handbook.
In this chapter we offer two exercises for Zero Waste Ambassadors and Trainers. One of them
is the self-assessment questionnaire where different Zero Waste Ambassador and Trainer
competences can be rated and reflected on what kind of proof there is for the presence or lack of
those competences. The second is a self-test – three real life situations where either Zero Waste
Ambassador or Trainer knowledge needs to be applied. It is meant to help assess the gap that we
can have between what we think we know about the topic and what we actually know.
Additional metacognitive questions after these exercises could be:
• How easy or difficult was it for you to assess yourself? Why was it so?
• How similar or different were your answers in the self test from that of an expert? What
could be the reasons for that?
• In what ways could you plan, monitor and evaluate your learning in the future?
8
Soderstrom, N. C., & Bjork, R. A. (2015). Learning versus performance: An integrative review. Perspectives on Psychological
Science, 10(2), 176-199.
14
ZERO WASTE AMBASSADOR SELF-ASSESSMENT
QUESTIONNAIRE
These questions could help you to map your strengths and struggles. They have been grouped
by more broader topics but can also be assessed in more detail. It’s important to reflect on the
reasoning and proof that you add to your assessments.
This questionnaire can be filled before reading any of the handbook chapters, and then checked
again after reading and the self-test.
Technical competences
Knowledge of zero waste basics:
• What is zero waste, what is it now, why is it important

• What is a Zero Waste City
• Preferred waste management, reduction and treatment options
How competent do you feel in it, on the scale of 1-10? Based on what do you think so?
(1- not at all competent, 10 - very competent)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ability to work with data, knowing the importance of data

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Policy, advocacy competences
Importance of waste prevention and reduction policies

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
15
Ability to apply the zero waste principles to different practical contexts
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ability to advocate for zero waste and convince different stakeholders

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Soft skills/competences
Knowledge of different zero waste stakeholders and ability to communicate between them
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
General soft skills: Empathy, positivity, patience, confidence

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
16
ZERO WASTE AMBASSADOR SELF-TEST
One of the best ways to test our knowledge of something is to put it into practice, into real-life
situations. Here are three scenarios. Read them and first think through how you would respond
without looking at any written material. You could even write down your answers and only then
compare them with some of the ideas from experts on page 22.
1. A municipality is looking to reduce its organic waste and comes to you seeking advice.
Currently it offers a separate collection of organics but it is not mandatory – citizens
can buy the bags themselves if they want, which will be collected if left out on the street
ahead of the designated collection day. There is very little home-composting done
because not many households or businesses have gardens. The rest of the organics are
sent 100 km away to an anaerobic digestion site. What are your first thoughts: what
additional info would you need, who would you want to talk to, what could be your
first steps?
2. Your local municipality has landfilled all of its non-recycled waste in the past. Yet the
landfill is now almost full. The municipality is deciding which disposal option to consider
– whether to extend the landfill site, build an incineration plant, or decide on a separate/
alternative option. What are your first thoughts: what additional info would you need,
who would you want to talk to, what could be your first steps?
3. Your municipality wants to reduce its carbon footprint, and it has identified the waste
and resource sector as one area where GhG emissions could be much lower. It wants
to reduce GhG emissions across the city by 50% within the next 10 years and wants the
waste sector to play a leading role in this transition. Municipal officials come to you for
policy advice and guidance. What are your first thoughts: what additional info would you
need, who would you want to talk to, what could be your first steps?
17
ZERO WASTE TRAINER SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE
These questions could help you to map your strengths and struggles. They have been grouped
by more broader topics but can also be assessed in more detail. It’s important to reflect on the
reasoning and proof that you add to your assessments.
This questionnaire can be filled before reading any of the handbook chapters, and then checked
after reading and the self-test.
Educational psychology competences
Ability to create motivating learning environments, by supporting the three basic psychological
needs of learners
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ability to support long-term learning instead of short-term performance

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ability to assess the learning outcomes of planned educational activity

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
18
Topical (zero waste) competences
Knowledge of zero waste principles and practices in different contexts

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Understanding of why and how misconceptions occur and how to overcome them, knowledge of
the main zero waste misconceptions and how to work with them
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ability to transform zero waste skills and knowledge into educational activities
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Soft skills/competences
Confidence to perform in public, ability to adapt to the changes in learning setting,

ability to improvise
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
19
Patience, empathy, open and warm curiosity towards oneself and towards the learners’
perspective, especially in moments of stress/misunderstandings
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ability to critically evaluate your own teaching and welcome failure as part of the learning process
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
20
ZERO WASTE TRAINER SELF-TEST
One of the best ways to test our knowledge of something is to put it into practice, into real-life
situations. Here are three scenarios. Read them and first think through how you would respond
without looking at any written material. You could even write down your answers and only then
compare them with some of the ideas from experts on page 23.
1. You are at a conference. During lunch break you start chatting with a company owner,
who proudly tells you that they are also moving towards circular economy, for example
all their waste is used to create energy. What are your first thoughts on how to respond
to her/him?
2. You are asked to give a 2h training session to a bank on zero waste – what they can do
at the office, in their events, in everyday life. Describe your first thoughts on how would
you prepare and set up this session.
3. You were invited by the environment officer to give a 1.5 h session at a municipality,
with the aim to educate all the municipality staff on zero waste. You know that some
people are quite enthusiastic about the topic, while there are also some old school
skeptics. What are your initial thoughts on how to start your session and what to try to
keep in mind during the session while communicating with your audience?
21
EXPERT THOUGHTS ABOUT AMBASSADOR TEST SCENARIOS
Besides comparing your answers with the ones from an expert, you can go through different Zero
Waste Ambassador chapters to see if you can find out why we have responded this way here.
1. Since the goal is a reduction of organic waste amounts, enabling and encouraging home,
community and/or business composting is a sure way to get it done. Making separate
collection mandatory would shift the waste from the residual stream to a separate one,
may reduce the amounts through evaporation if collected in permeable bags, and enable
giving more economic incentives to residents to choose home/community composting
instead. An increased organic waste stream will make transporting the waste economically
inefficient, while making a new local composting or Anaerobic Digestion facility more
viable. For reduction at source the municipality could implement awareness raising and
educational campaigns, challenges, research, good practices from elsewhere and provide
funding for action/innovation.
2. First the time scale needs to be clarified – how much time is remaining until the landfill
is full? If it’s a matter of months, then there’s no choice but to find some other existing
disposal option first, and then think of other measures. Otherwise the Zero Waste
Hierarchy should be followed, preferring extending/replacing the landfill over incineration,
while at the same time launching work on waste prevention and residual minimization.
Depending on the capacities, timelines and ambition, costs for a new disposal site might
be avoided.
3. First think of how the GhG inventory is being done. If it’s just the default, where the
waste sector is represented only through methane emissions from landfills, all the
effort should go towards banning landfilling of unstabilized waste and reducing organic
content, which is easier when you have separate collection of organic waste. If they are
looking at it holistically, then all possible waste prevention measures are candidates for
implementation and priority should be given to those with largest potential gains. This
will largely depend on the current waste generation and management systems, level of
awareness and engagement of the residents and the wider regional or national frame.
22
EXPERT THOUGHTS ABOUT TRAINER TEST SCENARIOS
Besides comparing your answers with the ones from an expert, you can go through different Zero
Waste Trainer chapters to see if you can find out why we have responded this way here.
1. It seems the owner has a misconception about waste-to-energy being a good solution.
Delay your wish to explain why it’s not a good idea. First give some recognition of his/
her wish and attempt to be more circular. Then try to get more information about what
specific solution they are actually using and why does he/she think it’s circular and if they
have also seen some other solutions. Try to get him/her to question the misconception
through questions instead of explaining and maybe get him/her interested in wanting to
know more about it.
2. Ask for a possibility to do two shorter trainings instead of one, to get the chance to meet
the people at least twice, so there could be a possibility to do retrieval and strengthen
their learning, and explain why you suggest that. Try to get to know their pre-knowledge
before the training or at least in the beginning of the session. Start the session with some
questions or a task to activate their thinking, ask what they are already doing, what do they
consider as zero waste practices, if and why is it important to them. Build on questions
and let them do most of the talking, offer your suggestions and thoughts only after their
own ideas. Point out similarities and differences in their and your (the expert) views as well
as their reasons, that is why some ideas are effective from zero waste perspective and
why some are not. Try to get them thinking about the bigger environmental impact of the
bank like their funding and loan principles.
3. It’s important to support the three psychological basic needs of all of them. Start by
creating relatedness, ask for their ideas and interest. If some say they don’t think zero
waste works, show genuine open curiosity and ask why they think so? You can give
examples of places where zero waste has been implemented and what it has changed in
the bigger picture and ask why they think it worked there? Give enough explanations, and
include everyone into a common discussion. Accept the emotions of the skeptics, show
respect to their thoughts and discuss all their ideas equally. If they express ideas that are
not correct, say why they are not true and definitely support those ideas that are true.
23
RESOURCES FOR
ZERO WASTE
TRAINERS
MAIN PRINCIPLES OF
TEACHING aka HOW THE
BRAIN WORKS
• How would you define learning? What is it?

• What feelings do you associate with learning?
• Which learning/teaching methods are effective and which
are not? Why?
• Can we use the same methods in schools as in a business
setting? Why or why not?
• How have you studied and taught in your life? Do you think
you have done it effectively? Do you think you have been
taught to do it effectively? How do you know?
• What are some good ways to make information stick to
our brain permanently?
This chapter is largely based on the work done by many educational psychologists, see references in the footnote1,2
Our brain is a wonderful organ – one of it’s amazing characteristics is its neuroplasticity. This
means that we can actually change our brains by learning new things. But there are also many
illusions about how effective learning happens. This means our intuition about learning is not
always telling the truth.
WHEN DOES LEARNING HAPPEN?
From the list below which conditions/activities do you think are vital for learning, which
are nice to have but not necessary, and which are not helpful and why?
• Giving rewards (grades, bonuses, free days from school/work…)

• Making mistakes
• Learners being out of their comfort zone
• Giving safe space
• Only theory
• Only practice (solving a problem)
• Theory first, then practice (solving a problem)
• Practice first (solving a problem), then theory
• The topic is relevant to the learner, they see the benefit and connection with their
work
• Gamification, edutainment
• Making sure the tasks are not too difficult
• Making sure the tasks are not too easy
• Lots of visual and video support
• Making jokes during the lesson
• Strict rules set by the educator
• Free flow of discussion
• Structure and rules given by the educator in the beginning of the lesson
• Using majority of the lesson just to discuss with learners, with little time to present
the theory and slides
Make your choices, some of them are indeed quite tricky and can depend on several
things. See if you get the answers from the rest of the text.
1
Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual review of
psychology, 64, 417-444.
2
Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick.
26
Should learning be easy and fun?
There is so much focus on games and entertainment in education nowadays, making us believe
this is how learning should be. Learning can be fun, but this should not be the only aim. The true
feeling of learning something new is in fact the feeling of being confused, feeling stuck, not
being sure what to do, and putting in effort to get your head around the material or solving the
problem – this is the starting point of learning! When things come too easily for us, it means we
are not really learning – maybe we are doing things we already know how to do; or maybe we get
the concept too superficially or have “beginner’s luck”. Learning means effort for the brain – new
connections (synapses) are formed between neurons and some connections can be changed, and
that does not come easily. We can imagine that learning is like building new roads between places
where there were no roads before – it’s a lot of work! And in the same way, making this newly
acquired knowledge permanent in the brain means that these roads need to be used again and
again (retrieving/recalling the knowledge time after time).
If we only focus on the games, jokes and flashy visuals, without thinking through how they
serve the purpose of your lesson, and without asking, who does the deep and thorough thinking,
learners or educator, then they may simply be a distraction and can create an illusion for you as
an educator, because you might mistake the learners’ enjoyment of the session for learning.
There is a quite famous graph about the comfort, stretch and panic zone, which shows in what
state learning happens:
Learning
Stretch Zone
Comfort (challenges,
Zone success, Panic Zone
(boredom, risk, new (fear, stress,
rest) experiences) overwhelmed)
Mental effort
Source: Karl Rohnke; Yerkes-Dodson Law
At the same time it’s also important to remember that a stressed brain cannot learn anything,
especially complex stuff, as it goes into survival mode and the part of the brain which supports
the complex thinking, switches off.3 This means that there must be a sense of emotional security
and comfort in the learning setting, while creating mental effort and stretching.
3
Hohnen, B., & Murphy, T. (2016). The optimum context for learning; drawing on neuroscience to inform best practice in the
classroom. Educational & Child Psychology, 33(1), 75-90
27
Learning needs:
∙ Mental stretching (thinking)
Tasks that make you think just hard enough, when answers don’t come right away
∙ Emotional comfort (feeling)
Not fearing the teacher or fellow-students, feeling it’s ok to make mistakes
How do we create mental effort?

Mental effort can most easily be created by having to solve a problem. There are many different
ways how problem-solving can be structured in a lesson.
We offer here two different approaches:
1. Direct instruction design – learners are first presented with the instructions and
then given a problem to solve. This is often the traditional way we are being taught.
2. Productive failure design (with delayed instruction) – learners are first asked to solve
a problem without giving them instructions how to solve it. After trying, activating
what they already know, experimenting and perhaps failing once or several times, the
instructions are introduced, discussed and reflected upon.
Which one is more effective?
As stated above the learners have to struggle a bit before they are presented with the answers
and right ways to solve the problem. They have to:
• First realise themselves that they don’t know how to solve the problem,
• Acknowledge that they are missing this knowledge/skill and
• Understand that they want to get this new information to be able to solve
the problem better.
So the productive failure design4 is more effective. This is one example of what is called a
desirable difficulty – something learners can overcome through increased effort, and what will
be helpful to master that specific skill or knowledge.5 Desirable difficulty is the effort we need in
the learning situation.
4
Jacobson, M. J., Markauskaite, L., Portolese, A., Kapur, M., Lai, P. K., & Roberts, G. (2017). Designs for learning about climate
change as a complex system. Learning and instruction, 52, 1-14.
5
28
Why are mistakes important?
First of all, it’s important to recognise that we as humans are often (a)shamed of our mistakes,
because we think it’s considered a weakness. Unfortunately, this is often transmitted into
learning-teaching situations as well. You can simply think of yourself the last time you made a
mistake and how it made you feel.
But mistakes are one of the most valuable tools of learning – the moment of analysing and
processing the mistakes is the moment when we actually learn the most. Mistakes are where we
get feedback on what works and what doesn’t and where we need to practice more. In fact learning
cannot happen without trial and error. Nobody can know the right answer right away; most of
the world’s complexity we cannot figure out ourselves anyway. Shaming or hiding mistakes can
actually lead to only shallow learning, misconceptions and all other troubles. Instead we should
welcome mistakes as gifts of useful information – both our learners’ and our own mistakes.
But most important to remember is that the mistakes need to be reflected upon, analysed,
processed, studied – only then will the mistake be repaired and deep learning occurs.
MEMORY
Getting things to stick in our memory is a big part of learning. And obviously we want the zero
waste knowledge to stay in our learners’ memory for a longer time, not just for a week. In order
to do that, we need to know how lasting memory traces are created.
Consider this real life story:
“I wanted to teach about the environmental impacts of food.

I showed the students images of 2 food items: beef and avocado
and asked which has a bigger impact and why. Most of them said
avocado, because it comes from far away and has a big impact
from transport. I then showed them a graph, which illustrates how
small the impact from transport is (6%) and that the main impact
comes from how the food is farmed (land use, use of pesticides etc). Everybody looked
surprised and it felt like a good wow-moment for me.
A month later, when I asked them to assess the environmental impact of different food
items and how to lower that, many of them still focused on transport and even after
showing the graph again, they still needed several questions/nudges from me to think
about the land use impact.”
What does it tell us about memory and how learning happens?

What could the educator have done differently?
29
First of all, the brain is not a voice recorder or camera that stores all the information that it
hears or sees. Instead, it is a living and constantly changing network of interacting neurons that
represent the memories we have. Our brains pick up information from everywhere, and each of
us has a unique set of knowledge, opinions and understandings collected into our minds. And
the way new information can find its way to our memory is when we attach it to already existing
bits of information – our pre-knowledge. We only remember things that we have been able to
connect to with something already in our memory. And we store this new information in terms
of its meaning to us, as defined by its relationships and semantic associations to pre-knowledge.6
A comparison could be networks between people. How do you form new friendships? How do
people find themselves into your network of friends? There is usually something that connects
that person with you that makes it worth building a longer and stronger bond. It is similar to new
knowledge finding its place in our brains.
A good knowledge or skill is described as (and what we want zero waste knowledge/skills to be):7
Durable – remembering things also months or years after last using the knowledge.
Flexible – being able to put the knowledge into different contexts, being able to see the
same mechanisms and principles in new situations and applying them there.
The process of creating a knowledge or skill happens roughly in three stages:8

1. Encoding – connecting the info with existing knowledge in the learner’s brain, making
it meaningful for the learner – this should happen during the learning activity, so there
should be time for that (meaning we cannot fill our sessions only with our own talk
and presentations).
2. Consolidating – securing the new information in the learner’s brain. This can happen
after the learning activity, where learners can fully connect the new info with their
pre-knowledge, organise those connections, fill in the blanks – but this means the
learner will actively think about the content of the lesson after it has finished.
3. Retrieval – this should happen after there has been time to forget the lesson. Retrieval
is essentially training the memory trace to that information – the more times (with
forgetting breaks in between) we retrieve the information, the stronger the memory
trace becomes. Reflection is also a form of retrieval.
What does this mean to us as educators? What does it mean to learners?

What do we need to include into our teaching?
6
Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual
review of psychology, 64, 417-444
7
Soderstrom, N. C., & Bjork, R. A. (2015). Learning versus performance: An integrative review. Perspectives on
Psychological Science, 10(2), 176-199.
8
Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick..
30
Choose which retrieval strategies you think are the most effective:
• Massed practice – practicing for long hours

• Self-testing – trying to retrieve information from memory
• Interleaved practice – mixing up, changing between learning different topics
and subjects
• Rereading
• Rewriting – making verbatim notes based on materials
• Conceptual mapping – making mind maps from the main ideas
• Testing (without grading)
• Rephrasing information in your own words
• Spaced, distributed practice – learning the same thing with pauses
• Variability of practice – learning the same concept in different contexts/situations
• Highlighting important parts of the material
• Relating the material with own experience or other subjects/topics
• Elaborative interrogation – asking yourself, how things work and then answering
(more about what it is can be read from this blog post)
For answers, you can check out this TED talk and check our list at the end of this chapter.
Why is forgetting and retrieving important?

In real life situations we don’t know when we might need the learned information. A pilot will
never know when they need to cope with a failing engine and emergency workers will not know
what kind of aid they will need to give on a particular day. But that knowledge and skill has to be
ready for use, even when it hasn’t been used since finishing the training. It means we need to
practice retrieving it. And we can only retrieve what we have (somewhat) forgotten.
The more we need to put in effort to retrieve (or relearn) something, the better we learn it.
The more you’ve forgotten about a topic, the more effective relearning will be in shaping your
permanent knowledge.9
LAST NOTE: TEACHING ABOUT LEARNING

Several things in this chapter might be different from what we are used to in teaching-training
situations, meaning that many people have illusions about how learning should happen and they
are often expecting something quite classical from training sessions. So when we start to put
into practice different methods given in this chapter, it might make our learners (or clients who
have paid for the training) grumpy and unhappy. And that’s not the kind of confusion we want to
have in our sessions.
9
31
This means that parallel to teaching people zero waste, we also need to explicitly explain what
effective learning means, so that people would be more open to participate. It can be as simple
as asking in the beginning of your session what learners themselves think how they could learn
best in your session and even giving them a short list of options to choose from. For example:
A. Listening to a lecture
B. Listening to a lecture and making notes
C. Discussion on questions connected to the topic
D. Solving practical cases connected to the topic
This small exercise can be followed by a short intro how the session is built up and how it supports
learning best.
SUMMARY
There are many things we need to take into account when planning and facilitating learning. It can
be quite overwhelming when our own experience of learning has been often quite the opposite.
So here’s a small check-list to keep in mind:
Main things that need to be present in order for learning to happen

1. Learner’s brain is active – only reading or listening is not enough!
2. Learner’s thinking is made visible – there is interaction with the educator and
between the learners.
3. Learner constructs new knowledge themselves – solves a problem, proposes
solutions and predictions.
4. There are tasks where learner makes mistakes, so s/he can analyse them.
5. The tasks require effort in the brain – new connections are starting to form in the brain.
6. Learner gets feedback on their work and tasks from the educator – mistakes are
reflected upon and corrected.
7. There is no emotional stress, tension or anxiety – brain can focus on learning.
The one who thinks and speaks (constructs knowledge) the most, learns the most.
Should it be the educator or the learner? :)
32
Here are few of our practical tips for teaching zero waste and circular economy:
• Try to get as much info as possible about learners’ understanding of the topic
beforehand. Ideally it would be before the learning session, but you can also use
the first part of your session asking what they know of the topic already or let
them solve a problem connected to the topic. Then you can see where they lack
knowledge and skills and adjust your session to their level of expertise.
• Don’t show the Zero Waste Hierarchy or circular economy “butterfly” (or any other
scheme, graph of a complicated system) – ask people to first draw it themselves or
give pieces of the graph that they need to put together themselves – this way they are
constructing the knowledge themselves. Afterwards you can show the official version and
ask them to find differences and similarities with their versions. Same can be done for
asking people to define the terms (circular economy, reuse, recycle…) themselves, before
presenting the official terms. It’s often that people think they know what these things are,
but once they are asked to talk about them, they can realise they don’t know it that well
after all.
• Present them first with a problem: what would be the best management option for
biowaste? How to improve recycling rates? Let them come up with their ideas and solutions,
then discuss it with them, ask additional questions and only then show your solutions.
• Wait before giving your answers or solutions. First ask them questions that make them
think about different aspects of their proposal and that finally could lead to your solution.
Ideal would be if they can reach the same solution that you as an expert would propose,
themselves. A well-phrased question always teaches better than a well-phrased
expert answer.
• A practical way to delay your expert answers is to add an extra empty slide in your
presentation. Copy your original slide with information and then delete the main content,
just leaving the title/main question. Ask the learners what they think should be there?
After their ideas and discussion show your original slide with your thoughts.
Can you think of any other good examples? Let us know if you do :)
33
Here’s the list of the retrieval practices grouped based on their effectiveness.10
Useful practices and why?
Useful practices are:

• Self-testing, retrieval practice
• Interleaved practice
• Spaced, distributed practice
• Variability of practice
• Rephrasing with your own words (but preferably after a pause; actually it is more a
consolidation strategy)
• Relating the material with own experience or other subject/topics
• Elaborative interrogation
These practices are effective because they demand effort and an active reconstruction of the
learned material. They assume activation of the material – information is to be retrieved from
long-term memory, almost like giving the brain the signal that this information may be needed
also in the future. They may be more effective when done in written form, because we are more
precise in our words then and it’s easier to notice if some information is still vague or unclear.
Not so useful practices and why?
Not so useful practices are:

• Massed practice, practicing for a long time
• Rereading
• Rewriting
They are not very useful, because they demand little effort, and tend to create the illusion of
knowing/mastering the material, as it keeps circulating between our short term memory and our
active processing “workspace” (which is called working memory, which is actually not a space,
but a process). As the material is not retrieved, that is, activated from the long-term memory, the
brain does not learn how to find this information from memory.
So-so usefulness and why?
So-so practices are:

• Conceptual mapping – could be useful as encoding strategy, which is done
quite often in the beginning of learning;
• Highlighting important parts of the material – demands little effort, creates the illusion of
learning; can be useful for sophisticated learners or short-time learning goals though.
10
Soderstrom, N. C., & Bjork, R. A. (2015). Learning versus performance: An integrative review. Perspectives on
Psychological Science, 10(2), 176-199.
34
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Before reading the answers, think for yourself: how would you answer them?
1. But I’ve heard everyone is prone to one learning style (auditive, visual, reading/writing,
kinesthetic), shouldn’t we take that into account when designing teaching activities?
2. I feel I’m learning better when focusing on the topic for hours and studying it all day
(called massed practice). Can it be different for different people?
3. What methods are best to teach different age groups and use in different settings
(business meeting, volunteer training etc)?
4. It seems this way of approaching teaching takes much more time. Sometimes we are
asked to get a specific topic across, which also requires actually giving quite a lot of
info from our side (like explaining reuse policies or separate collection). How can we
accommodate all this into the short time we are given?
5. Do images and visuals help people learn faster and remember longer the topics we
are teaching?
1. But I’ve heard everyone is prone to one learning style (auditive, visual, reading/writing,
kinesthetic), shouldn’t we take that into account when designing teaching activities?
Learning styles is a very common learning myth. This means we can have our preferences
on how we like to learn, but it doesn’t mean we learn more effectively like this. The best
summary of this topic is a TED talk by Tesia Marshik.
2. I feel I’m learning better when focusing on the topic for hours and studying it all day
(called massed practice). Can it be different for different people?
This is also a common learning illusion that we have. The brain and memory work more or
less the same way for everybody, it’s like the lungs function the same way for everybody. The
information starts to feel familiar and clear, because it keeps circulating between our working
memory and our short term memory. What we actually want is for this knowledge to stay in
our long term memory also perhaps in critical moments in a few years from now, when we
haven’t used it for some time. This means that we need to practice forgetting and recalling
it again. This means learning should also incorporate this pattern and it’s better to learn in
shorter periods of time, with breaks in between (called spaced practice), where we are doing
other things, so that we can forget it for a while.
35
3. What methods are best to teach different age groups and to use in different settings
(business meeting, volunteer training etc)?
We should not be focusing so much on methods as they can also distract us from the main
purpose of our teaching. The main question would be, in which situation the learner thinks
the deepest (with deep thinking we mean that new information will be connected to various
previously known material and, when lucky, even organized meaningfully), is the most actively
cognitively engaged to the material and discussion, and this may sometimes mean confusion
and even a little frustration – in case the learner does not know that entertaining and passive
listening is not optimum context for their learning. Thus, a simple question and answer session
can deliver a better result than a session full of videos and images, if it’s well connected to
the session’s goal. The main thing is to think about what is happening in the brains of the
learners. It’s about following these principles: activating learners’ pre-knowledge, making
their thinking visible to you, creating effort and allowing mistakes to happen, delaying your
own expert opinion and giving it only after learners have struggled to find it themselves first.
And these principles should be put to use in all different settings, regardless of the age or
the background of the learners. If you need some more concrete guidance, you can check the
Trainer’s checklist of this handbook.
4. It seems this way of approaching teaching takes much more time. Sometimes we are
asked to get a specific topic across, which also requires actually giving quite a lot of
info from our side (like explaining reuse policies or separate collection). How can we
accommodate all this into the short time we are given?
We cannot change the brain into learning more and faster than it does, this is just something
that we need to accept. And it can be difficult to get this idea across to people who have hired
us to give the training or workshop. We should still try to explain what is in reality doable in
short sessions, if we indeed want people to learn, and give our best explanations for that. It
could change our clients’ minds :) Of course it is not always accepted and we are still asked
to give lectures. In these cases we can at least create micro-discussions in the session, start
with questions, leave little pauses for people to think, give them small tasks (which option is
better: A or B? Why?) and so on.
5. Do images and visuals help people learn faster and remember the topics we are teaching
for longer?
It is true that getting information from different senses (talk, text, visuals) can help learning
– it allows us to link one and the same information unit in our memory with different stimuli.
But images alone may not activate deeper (and often more abstract and complex) thinking;
they are probably not enough on their own. Second, sometimes we want to use pictures that
have great emotional load (which is often done in environmental communications) – shock,
disgust, horror, fear etc. While it’s true that they draw attention, negative images could also
suppress people’s need for autonomy (one of the basic psychological human needs), as they
can create a sense of pressure, guilt and control, a sense of being pushed to do something.
36
But of course, they may help to enhance meaning, if creating empathy – but this impact, when
activated solely through emotion, may be short-term. What we need is to activate people’s
pre-knowledge and support constructing new knowledge, and help them find their own
meaning in the topic. So the images need to be combined with activities that do that.
• What parts in this chapter were most confusing or difficult

for you to understand? Why do you think it was so?
• How does it relate to your own learning and teaching
experience?
• Have you taught differently than recommended in this
chapter? How does it make you feel?
• What do you want to take with you from this chapter?
• If and what next steps do you want to take in your work
regarding this topic?
• What do you want to know more about?
37
LEARNING MOTIVATION aka
HOW TO GET EVERYONE ON
BOARD ON ENVIRONMENTAL
ISSUES?
• Why aren’t some people on board already? Your ideas?

• Do you think it is important to focus on (learning)
motivation in your work? Why?
• What do you think is needed to create/support
learning motivation?
• Does the learning motivation depend on the learner or
the teacher?
This chapter is based on the self-determination theory by E.L. Deci & R. M. Ryan1
Motivation is essential for learning – or anything – to happen. Although we can for short term
manipulate, force or inspire others, motivation itself is a very internal process. What we can do,
however, is to create conditions for motivation to emerge.2 So the good news is that we can
actually significantly support the motivation of other people, by actively creating those conditions.
What could these conditions be?
First, we must separate between two types of motivation: trash (controlled) and quality
(autonomous) motivation. And then there is amotivation – the state when there is no motivation
at all.
Characteristics of trash motivation and quality motivation:
Characteristics Trash motivation Quality motivation

Time Can be created fast, starts to work Usually can take time to build up, but
fast, but also lasts for a short time lasts for a longer time
How it is Fear, pressure, control, Support, open curiosity, giving a choice

created punishments and prizes, and voice, helping to find a meaning in
competing, creating guilt the topic, enabling to think, enabling to
and shame, expressing offer ideas and solutions
disappointment, giving ready–
made solutions
Strength Doesn’t hold in new and Can persist even in challenging

challenging situations as other situations when there is need to make
deeper motivations will difficult choices
start to prevail
Examples ∙ Giving a monetary prize for ∙ Having reflective discussions, that help
environmentally friendly to find deeper personal meaning for
behaviour (money prevails over environmentally friendly behaviour
the motivation to do the right ∙ Participatory process and explanations
thing for the environment) on why certain rules are needed
∙ Opposing strict rules on how to ∙ Giving possibility to discuss, define
behave the problem, find and test solutions,
∙ Competitions analyse them
1
This chapter is largely based on the work by Ryan & Deci in self-determination theory (Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-
determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness.)
2
a concept developed by prof. dr. Johnmarshall Reeve
39
When speaking about environmental issues, there is often a prevailing sense of urgency and need
for things to change fast. However, we must realise that forcing people to change rapidly/in a
short-time, is trash motivation and will only create new problems later on. Covid-restrictions
are a good example here: if the deeper understanding of the rules is not embedded in people,
they will only be following them for a short time. Therefore, when it comes to adopting more
environmentally friendly practices and behaviors, we need to support quality motivation as this
will create the long-term change we want.
HOW DO WE SUPPORT QUALITY MOTIVATION?

According to the Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the leading theory in motivational science,
the foundation for creating quality motivation are the three basic psychological needs that
are universal for everyone. Supporting these needs helps to create the environment where
motivation can emerge and learning (and behavioural change) can happen. A basic psychological
need is defined as a psychological nutrient that is essential for individuals’ adjustment, integrity,
and growth.3
Exercise: Look at these small situation descriptions, where the educator/zero waste
activist is actually suppressing the basic psychological needs of his/her learners/
stakeholders. Can you guess the needs which are not being met?
First exercise:
• During the lesson, someone trolls the educator. The educator just ignores them.
• During the lesson, someone trolls the educator. The educator makes an elegant and
sarcastic joke about the troll to “discipline” them.
• The educator starts the lesson with clearly stating the goals of the lesson and then
continues with the content.
• In order to get the municipality to do more on zero waste, a zero waste activist
tells the municipality officer in the beginning of a meeting: “It’s because of the
municipality’s wrong decisions that we are creating so much waste, you need to do
more!”
What one basic need of the learners/stakeholders is not being met in all these examples?
3
Ryan, R. M. (1995). Psychological Needs and the Facilitation of Integrative Processes. Journal of Personality, 63, 397-427
40
Second exercise:
• The educator gives a task for the learners during the lesson. Then some of the
learners find the answer and say it out loud. “Thank you, this is right!”, says the
educator and goes on with the lesson.
• During the lesson, the learner asks, “Why doesn’t this plastic bag biodegrade?” The
educator answers: “Because this is oxo-degradable”.
• The educator does not explain why the homework is given.
• Learner asks a question during the lesson and the educator answers: “Thanks for the
question, but this is not important in this context”, and continues.
What one basic need of the learner is not being met in all these examples?
Third exercise:
• The educator spends most of the lesson speaking about his/her view on the topic.
• As the time for the lesson is limited, the educator pushes the learners to hurry up with
thinking so that the tasks will remain unfinished and not reflected upon.
• In order to motivate learners, the educator clearly states the goal of the lesson.
• A NGO organises a competition between schools on who can reduce their food waste
most, with prizes for the student groups who track their food waste most and report
the smallest waste amounts.
• A zero waste activist is having a discussion with a person about waste sorting. The
person says: ”But I don’t want to sort, it’s yacky!” The zero waste activist replies:
”C’mon, you are overreacting, it’s not that bad!”
• And this one :)
What one basic need of the learner is not being met in all these examples?
Write down your guesses and also how you would act instead. To check out our ideas on how you
can act in these situations, you can check out page 45. Alternatively, continue from the next page.
41
THE THREE BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS4
The first need is the feeling of relatedness

(opposite: coldness)
This is often the first need that we have to meet, but it also can be the
easiest to meet. It can simply be asking the names of the people, looking
them in the eye and smiling genuinely, showing warm and open curiosity
towards their thoughts and ideas (even if you think they are silly). Even in
times when it gets challenging to meet the other two basic needs, this is the
one that should always be present, as it talks to the more primal need in us.
Relatedness is feeling:
• Socially connected
• Cared for by others
• Significant among others
• Being part of social organisations beyond oneself
• Giving or contributing to others.
It’s not about making your learners like you, it’s more about them feeling that you as the educator
like them. It’s about allowing them to feel welcome, creating a warm environment where they can
learn, ask questions and provide insight. And it should be authentic, humans can easily realise if
another person is not genuine.
The second need is the feeling of competence

(opposite: chaos)
The need for competence means the need for mastery, to be able to operate
effectively within your important fields of life. For learners, this does not
relate so much to the skills and knowledge that they have, but rather, that
they are able to understand what is being asked from them in the learning
activity, what they need to do and feeling that (with some effort) they can
handle that.
Feeling competent usually means also having helpful structures in place. For example, knowing
why it’s important to collect biowaste separately, knowing what to put and what not to put in
your biowaste bin, being able to get the most suitable bin, and having access to the service/
infrastructure that supports your biowaste collection.
4
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness.
42
Competence is feeling and knowing:
• How to do things, solve problems
• What is expected from me
• From where and how to get help when I need it
• The tasks are not too difficult and not too easy for solving
• The choices given are not too few and not too many (suitable for the learner’s level, for
example small child probably needs less choices than an adult, beginner less choices than
the expert)
Competence can mean different feelings, from scientific curiosity towards the world to wanting
to get better at a game or skill.
The third need is the feeling of autonomy

(opposite: control)
Autonomy means acting with free will upon things that are important to
you. It’s not quite the same as independence or self-reliance, which are more
connected to not relying on others. Autonomy means that we can willingly
turn to others for help or guidance. You can be autonomously/willingly
independent or dependent. The same way you can be autonomously/
willingly individualistic or collectivistic.
Autonomy is feeling that:

• You choose your own actions
• You actions are aligned with your values
• Your actions are valuable and meaningful for you
• Your way of thinking, your actions and values are also valued/respected by others.
Giving autonomy to people does not mean anarchy and lack of rules. On the contrary, structure
is a precondition of autonomy. This can mean that rules can be created jointly by the educator
and learners, or that learners feel that they have a say in what are the boundaries of the learning
activity and they understand the need of boundaries. Autonomy means that learners find the
learning activity and its goal meaningful and/or valuable for them; it also can be interesting, but
does not have to. In practical terms, it can mean small things like giving learners enough time to
think at their own pace, letting them solve problems instead of having ready-made solutions,
asking what they find important in the topic, respecting those meanings etc.
On the next page there are some recommendations on how to support the basic needs. It’s
important to point out though that sometimes we might be pseudo-meeting the need – thinking
we support them, but actually might be suppressing them. Some examples are shown in the
exercise answers.
43
Table on examples of supporting and suppressing the basic needs in learning situation5
Relatedness Competence Autonomy

Supporting the ∙ Warmth, open curiosity, even ∙ Make them explicitly feel that you are ∙ Help them to understand why the
need in learning if somebody “trolls” – it is not there to help them; that you and them are activities are valuable to them
situation about you, it’s probably their in the same boat ∙ Give meaning to every activity from their
own struggle with something ∙ Be explicit in what you expect from them perspective
∙ Look at every situation from and how to achieve that; and from where ∙ Let them think, to come out with their
their perspective to get help and support if they need it ideas and solutions
∙ Nobody should ever feel that ∙ Give tasks that help them to get better ∙ Follow patiently their pace and rhythm of
they are left out from the “herd” step by step learning
∙ Find ways for everybody to feel ∙ Follow the rules that you have agreed ∙ Accept and welcome negative emotions
significant and valuable jointly; from time to time check whether
∙ If possible, give meaningful choices
∙ Make them genuinely feel that all the rules are still relevant
(meaningful from their perspective)
they and their contribution is ∙ After action review – reflect (collectively)
∙ Take their “I”, their personality into
wanted by you after every task you do – how did we think
account, if possible – e.g., if somebody
∙ Make them feel that they are and act; why did it work or did not work?
have some skill that might be useful,
respected ∙ Give informative feedback, that says what involve them
they should try next
Suppressing the ∙ Make them feel as units, not ∙ Do not say what you expect from them or ∙ Compare, make social comparisons, create
need in learning individuals do it in a way that they do not understand rivalry!
situation ∙ Make them feel incompetent ∙ Threaten with failure, make them anxious ∙ Do not let them think, think for them, give
and shamed – preferably in ∙ Provide little or no help and support solutions
public! ∙ Force your pace upon them
∙ Keep rules inconsistent
∙ Bully or let others bully ∙ Do not explain,why an activity is needed
∙ Be not present, when help is required
∙ If someone acts wrongly, let ∙ Ignore or diminish their negative feelings
∙ Give comparative or judgmental feedback
them feel that they are no
or say something about the performance,
longer part of the group
not process
5
adopted from a lecture by prof. Maarten Vansteenkiste
44
Second part of the exercise:
The first need is relatedness
How to act instead:
• During the lesson, someone trolls the lecturer. The educator expresses open curiosity
towards the learner in order to understand what need of the learner is not being met.
• The educator starts the lesson with creating a warm relationship with the audience
(looking people in the eye, asking their names and interests in the topic). Then s/he
first tries to understand what could be the goal from the learners’ perspective and
unites it with her/his own ideas.
• In order to get the municipality to do more on zero waste and therefore first start to
think about it, the zero waste activist starts the meeting with the municipality officer
by asking: “How is our municipality doing? What are you proud of and what would you
wish would be different?”, then after the response asks: “And how are we doing in
waste management in your opinion?” and then leads the discussion on anything they
need help with.
! Pseudo-meeting the needs:

• The educator asks for learners’ names and their interest for the topics, but looks at
his/her notes, computer and/or phone while the learners are speaking.
• In order to get the municipality to do more on zero waste, the zero waste activist tells
the municipality officer in the beginning of the meeting: “We see that our municipality
is having problems with waste management, we are here to help you!”
The second need is competence
How to act instead:
• The educator gives a task for the learners during the lesson. Then some of the
learners find the answer and say it out loud. The educator thanks them in a warm
manner and also asks for some other ideas. When no new ideas appear, the educator
starts the discussion, why this answer is right and what else could be right and why
some other option would be wrong.
• During the lesson, the learner asks: “Why doesn’t this plastic bag biodegrade?”
The educator notes that it is a damn good question and turns the question back to
the audience, asking, does anyone know the answer; either way they end up with
discussion, that leads to the understanding of the topic (in this case, the composition
of the oxo-degradable material and why this material does
not biodegrade).
45
• The educator helps the learners to see how the homework helps to develop the skills
they expressed are important to them. This might take some time.
• Learner asks a question during the lesson and the educator answers: “Thanks for the
question, but this is not important in this context”, and explains why, and from where
the learner could get additional information, before s/he continues.

• The educator only asks after the presentation: does anyone have any questions?
The third need is autonomy
How to act instead:
• The educator first asks for the learners’ views and thoughts on the topic, listens to
them and then integrates his/her views into the discussion, asking for additions and
feedback.
• Although the time for the lesson is limited, the educator never pushes the learners
to hurry up with thinking. So there may be less topics, but every one will be worked
through deeply.
• In order to motivate learners, the educator tries to see the perspective of the learners
and link the lesson’s goal to their meaningful and valuable goals.
• A NGO creates a collaborative project between schools, where students get to know
how food is produced, they can investigate, discuss and build their own understanding
on the value of food and the importance of not wasting it
• A zero waste activist is having a discussion with a person on
waste sorting. The person says: ”But I don’t want to sort, it’s
yacky!” The zero waste activist replies: ”Yes, I know sometimes
waste can seem quite yacky and many people have had a
similar feeling first, myself included. Then I discovered that its
possible to do it in a quite clean way.”
• And new design for the bag:

• The educator asks for learners’ expectations for the lesson, but then carries on with
her/his content without connecting the gathered input with his/her plan and ideas.
46
Before reading the answers, think to yourself: how would you answer them?
1. Why are these needs so important for learning? What happens when they are not met?
2. Is it even possible to meet all these needs all the time?
3. What about trolls and interrupters who make it hard to relate to?
4. But what if I try to meet the needs of one learner and with that suppress the needs of
several other learners?
5. How can I avoid chaos in the learning activity without suppressing the basic needs?
6. How do I support the basic needs of different age groups or settings (formal, not formal,
children, elderly…)?
7. What about the psychological basic needs of the educator?
8. What about the environmental regulations in terms of these basic needs? There has
been a lot of improvements on environmental work in general and we cannot imagine
having discussions with everyone on the need of those regulations.
9. The learning motivation theory says that competitions are part of the trash motivation.
But competitions are used quite a lot in environmental education activities, for example
between schools, as it gets students involved. Does this mean we shouldn’t do
competitions? It’s quite hard to stop doing them…
1. Why are these needs so important for learning? What happens when they are not met?
In order to learn, people need to feel psychologically safe. If there is fear of not feeling accepted,
the brain can switch to survival mode, and learning, which happens in the “higher parts” of the
brain, cannot happen. Also, as humans we cannot truly thrive and contribute to our community
if our psychological needs are not met.
2. Is it even possible to meet all these needs all the time?
It is not always easy and it takes practice to even start noticing when we might be suppressing
these needs for learners. There are situations when not all of them can be met, for example
when a child wants to run on the busy street, then we need to suppress his/her need for
autonomy, just to protect him/her. But while doing so we can still keep the relatedness with
the child, hugging him/her, explaining warmly why she/he cannot run to the street. So what
we should aim for is that even if we struggle to meet all the three needs, we should always, at
the least, keep the relatedness. This can be difficult when we ourselves feel attacked by the
learner, are irritated by them or we are meeting with them only for a very short time. Although
deep learning cannot be achieved in a short-term period, a simple one-hour meeting can also
47
support motivation, by showing curiosity towards the thoughts and ideas of our listeners/
learners, therefore, already supporting their need for competence and autonomy.
3. What about trolls and interrupters who make it hard to relate to?
Zero waste and circular economy, like many other complex issues, come with their critics –
people who have contra arguments. Sometimes these arguments make sense, sometimes
they have no solid logic behind them. A troll is a person who is troubled with something, and
feels that their identity is somehow “attacked” by our teaching, or perhaps they feel lonely
and rejected by other people.
Trolling and interruptions are usually a symptom of some need not being met in that person.
If our aim is to teach people, then somehow, we need to get the trolls on board as well. If their
troubles run deeper, we of course cannot be their therapists, but we can show that we care
about them as humans and we treat them as thinking beings. Experience has shown that
people who at first are hostile and interruptive, can shift to contribute to the discussion in
a meaningful way, if the educator keeps the relatedness with them. This means welcoming
their thoughts, politely correcting those ideas which are false, explaining why they are false
and pointing out positively those ideas which are correct.
4. But what if I try to meet the needs of one learner and with that suppress the needs of
several other learners?
This is also why structure and some rules are needed. If one person starts to take too much
space, then the educator can suggest that perhaps there is a need to create a rule for how
much time each person takes for talking. This can be done while still keeping a warm attitude
towards the person talking too much.
5. How can I avoid chaos in the learning activity without suppressing the basic needs?
Supporting relatedness, competence and autonomy does not mean there is no structure or
rules. In fact, they should be present in order to support the three basic needs. Structure gives
a feeling of safety, the educator can give choices and freedom within this structure, and rules
on how to act can be agreed upon together with learners. If the discussion starts to go off topic,
the educator can point out that this is not the topic for today, give an explanation on why it is
not so and give either a source or some other option when and how to tackle the other topic.
6. How do I support the basic needs of different age groups or settings (formal, not formal,
children, elderly…)?
The three basic needs are universal and the same for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you
are a 3rd grade student or an adult politician – both have the same needs of relatedness,
competence and autonomy. It’s just the words and teaching tasks we use that can be different.
48
The competence level of a child is different from that of an adult expert. But we still need
to adopt ourselves to their level of competence. Therefore getting to know the pre-existing
knowledge and skill level of our learners is very important. You can read more about that from
the Main principles of teaching chapter. But showing relatedness by being warm, looking people
in the eye, smiling and being interested in their thoughts works the same for all the people in
all ages and all settings.
7. What about the psychological basic needs of the educator?
This is a valid question and concern. It can happen that as educators we suppress our own
needs in order to meet the needs of our learners. But we have to remember that once we
are aware of the needs of our learners, we can consciously choose to put our needs aside
for a short while, because learners are probably suppressing our basic needs subconsciously
and often not on purpose. Of course we cannot ignore our needs in the long term and have
to strive towards creating learning environments where we also feel safe, competent and
autonomous, but for the learners, deep learning will not happen without us as educators
supporting their needs.
In addition, when we talk about respecting and accepting all the different emotions and
opinions of our learners in order to support their basic needs, it doesn’t mean that we will
just let them “run over us”. We can (and should) still keep structure and boundaries in place.
When people are starting to feel over-emotional or aggressive, then we can still respond to
them kindly that we see there is something hurtful going on for them and it’s better for them
to step away from the current activity, and we can try to address it privately later. In the end
there are things in our learners’ lives that we cannot help them with and it’s also not our job.
We as educators should support our learners’ basic needs by acknowledging them as feeling
and thinking human beings, but we are not their therapists. We are also allowed to say if the
situation becomes uncomfortable for us.
8. What about the environmental regulations in terms of these basic needs? There has been
a lot of improvements on environmental work in general and we cannot imagine having
discussions with everyone on the need of those regulations.
Of course we need rules and structures in our society. With some regulations people probably
don’t even notice that they are in place (like regulating harmful substances in products). We
also need to realise that debating on every rule and regulation can go against the need for
competence, as people are not experts in these fields. It’s more about having the meaning
of environmental laws and rules in general internalised for people. Of course for those who
the regulation or law impacts directly, they should be explained and with a possibility to ask
additional questions, which in turn will be given to them at their competence level.
49
9. The learning motivation theory says that competitions are part of the trash motivation.
But competitions are used quite a lot in environmental education activities, for
example between schools, as it gets students involved. Does this mean we shouldn’t do
competitions? It’s quite hard to stop doing them…
Competitions are tricky in the sense that yes, it’s easy to get people to participate, if you offer
them prizes or fame. But then that will be the essence of their motivation, not the topic you want
them to know or care about. They will have much less (if any) attentional capacity for the more
complex questions and issues of the topic that might need deep thinking in order to internalize
the behavior for a longer time. The enjoyment of the prize or fame goes away fast. In human
psychology, once the competition element is added, that will prevail over other motivations.
There’s a real life story of competition for kids who would collect the most aluminum tea candle
holders (because collecting them separately is the easiest way to send them to recycling), which
ended up with kids asking their parents to buy more and more tea candles, just so they could
win the competition. In this case, therefore, the initial purpose was hindered.
Competition is suitable, if there are skillful people wanting to get better at their skill level
and test themselves, because then it’s connected to their need for competence. But in other
cases, competition works against the need for autonomy, because it’s a form of control. So
in the end the question is how much do we actually want long term change or short term
excitement. If it’s the first, then yes, we should stop doing competitions.
50

• If and where have you noticed your basic needs being
supported or suppressed?
• If and where have you noticed supporting or suppressing
others’ basic needs?
• What do you think are the best ways to get better at
supporting others’ basic needs?
51
MISCONCEPTIONS aka
HOW TO HELP PEOPLE
DECONSTRUCT THEIR FALSE
THINKING (ON WASTE)
• Have you had situations when you, talking to someone

about zero waste, notice that you do not come through?
Have you ended up with the discovery that they have
totally different basic understanding (misconception)
about it?
• How do you usually deal with people’s misconceptions?
• How do you recognize that you have effectively corrected
people’s misconceptions?
• What does it take and how long does it take to correct
someone’s misconceptions?
• How have you found out about your own misconceptions
and how did they get corrected?
• How do you feel when someone points out that you
are wrong about something and tries to correct that
misconception (which they think that you have)?
This chapter is based on the work done by many educational psychologists, see references in the footnote1,2
Misconceptions (or alternative conceptions or intuitive theories) –

• Understandings of certain phenomena based on experience, observation and/
or incorrect information that conflict with currently accepted concepts and
scientific findings.1
What do you think is more effective when talking to someone who has a (zero waste)
misconception?
A. Tell them why their idea is wrong and what is the right way.
B. Ask them why they think so, and through questions, slowly get them to question
their own ideas and wanting to find more information.
This can also be illustrated by an internet-joke:

Someone told me: “People change their minds if you show them the facts.”
I responded with links to different studies: “Actually here are some studies showing that
this is not true.”
The person responded: “Well, I still think it works.”
What does it tell us about the way we often act when our statements are being
corrected?
Option A is for sure quicker in terms of passing on the information you want them to have, but if
you have read other chapters on learning, you will probably know that it’s option B that has more
chances of making a change in the way the other person thinks about this issue.
Each of us probably has misconceptions in most of the fields where we are not experts in. We
form misconceptions based on our everyday life, from what our friends and family tell us, what
things happen to us, what we see happening to others etc. So, misconceptions are actually totally
normal; yet they do not help us with the complexity of the world. An important characteristic for
misconceptions is that they rely on perceptual information, but the mistakes in the logic cannot
be found through our senses and perception.
As a very basic example, thinking that the Earth is flat is based on observing the horizon being
flat. The knowledge of Earth being round comes from scientific inquiry and, in a way, goes against
our first-hand experience of the world. Similarly we cannot know only by observation, what
1
Verkade, H., Mulhern, T. D, Lodge, J. M., Elliott, K., Cropper, S., Rubinstein, B., Horton, A., Elliott, C., Espiñosa, A., Dooley, L.,
Frankland, S., Mulder, R., and Livett, M. (2017). Misconceptions as a trigger for enhancing student learning in higher education: A
handbook for educators.
2
Lucariello, J., & Naff, D. (2013). How do I get my students over their alternative conceptions (misconceptions) for learning.
53
phenomenon is lightning – a theory needs to be developed and tested step by step, as well
as scientific method needs to be applied to understand that it is electricity. We know that we
should wash our hands with soap to kill unwanted germs based on scientific knowledge, as we
cannot see germs with a naked eye. So misconceptions form around information, which is hard
to understand without higher conceptual thinking, and without empirically tested theory. For
example, people can have difficulties understanding why incineration is not a good idea. To them
it seems that the waste disappears, the problem goes away and energy is created – this seems
like a good thing.
DEVELOPING EXPERT THINKING

One of the keys for correcting misconceptions is practicing thinking like an expert. This
means understanding all the steps and details that experts consider when approaching an idea
or statement.
For example, you can watch this video and write down your thoughts in two
different roles:
A. Yourself as a zero waste expert,
B. As a regular person, who is not familiar with waste management.
Questions to consider:
• What do you notice in the difference between these notes? How does expert
thinking differ from that of a non-expert?
• As an educator, how would you talk to the regular person about their thoughts and
opinions? How could we get the regular person closer to thinking like an expert?
Some characteristics of an expert thinking:

• Knows, what are the key defining – but often invisible – features of the phenomenon; that
is, knows more precisely, what is the essence of the phenomenon,
• Applies formal logic and checks their assumptions,
• Thinks about two things – about the subject matter and about how they think – so there
is critical metacognitive reflection about one’s thinking,
• Is able to inhibit in themselves the urge to make conclusions based on how things
“seem to be”.
The road towards expert thinking takes time and we need to realise that others might think about
zero waste a lot differently than we as the experts. Here one way to get closer to expert thinking
and making learners aware of their misconceptions is the productive failure design approach
introduced in our Main principles of teaching. There is a very nice TED talk on that and expert thinking.
54
Correcting misconceptions is called conceptual change. It’s important to know that in most cases
we cannot replace misconception with correct conception by simply stating it to the learner
(although in some easier cases it can be that simple). Also we cannot make others change their
misconceptions – the willingness to correct them must come from the learners themselves.
Before we can start correcting misconceptions we need to understand what they are in their
core. Are they all similar or different?
Exercise:
Look at these five misconceptions – what are the reasons why such misconceptions
appear? In what sense are these misconceptions different?
• Cigarette butts biodegrade

• Burning is a solution for the waste problem
• Tuna is a smaller fish than the whale
• Biodegradable dishes are a solution to single-use plastic
• Some children are just not interested in learning as they
are so passive in lessons
How could we help to modify them to more correct

conceptions? Do we need the same or different strategies?
TYPES OF MISCONCEPTIONS
Not all misconceptions are created equal. As the roots and reasons why they form can be different,
so can their essence and therefore approaches how to correct them, be different.3
Inaccurate misconception type – it is incorrect in comparison to the accepted concept, but is in

the same ‘dimension’ or quality.
E.g. all separately collected plastic gets recycled (reality: only a small amount of separately
collected plastic gets recycled). The same dimension is the process of recycling.
Incommensurate misconception type – the information relates to a different, incorrect

‘dimension’ or quality.
E.g. incineration is a form of recycling (reality: in incineration materials are lost and not put
back into use like in recycling). The processes are of different “dimensions” in their essence.
3
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Inaccurate misconceptions have two subtypes:
1. False beliefs – misconception about a single idea that can usually be expressed in one
sentence.
Thinking that all plastic gets recycled vs that only a small amount actually is recycled is an
example of a false belief.
2. Flawed mental models – one or several flawed ideas or assumptions that are internally
consistent with one another, but contradict the assumptions of the correct model. Because
of this internal apparent consistency, flawed mental models can be quite difficult to correct.
Believing that the solution to the plastic problem is better collection and recycling could be a
flawed mental model, because it mainly consists of the elements of plastic and recyclability,
which are internally consistent. Therefore believing that if we improve recyclability and
collection, our problem gets solved, but the element of oil extraction and plastic production
is not included into the model, which makes it inaccurate in the end.
Incommensurate misconceptions also have two subtypes:
1. Category mistakes – when a thing or concept is placed in the wrong category, and thereby
inherits the characteristics of that category.
Incineration and recycling are both waste treatment methods, which is their common bigger
category. However placing incineration in the same category as recycling would mean that
they are both considered to keep resources in circulation, which is not true in the case of
incineration.
2. Missing schema – putting something into the wrong category, because the right category
is not represented in the person’s mind. This type of misconception could be especially
difficult to correct, as besides identifying that the misconception comes from the person
having it in the wrong category in their mind, the right category must be first introduced,
with its characteristics, before the misconceived information can be corrected.
For example thinking that bioplastics are a good solution, because they are of natural origin
and biodegrade in nature. A whole schema of differences between biobased, biodegradable
and compostable plastics is missing, including differences in their composition, production,
collection and treatment methods. Another example connected to this is thinking that
organic matter will become compost in every condition – there is a missing schema on
differences between aerobic and anaerobic decomposition processes and what is actually
needed for organic matter to become compost.
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Here is a flowchart on the types of misconceptions and their ease or difficulty of correction:
Definiton of four types of misconceptions, adapted from Chi
Misconceptions
Innacurate Incommensurate
Existing Flawed
knowledge or False mental Category Missing
Misconception beliefs models mistakes schema
Relative ease Straight- Can be Depends on Missing

of correction forward complex distance between schema must
categories be introduced
Graph: Misconceptions model from Chi4, adapted by Verkade et al5
CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS
While false beliefs can be corrected quite easily by explaining the right data, other misconceptions
are more difficult to tackle. So if the misconception is actually something other than simple false
belief, then only showing our correct data won’t do much to change the misconception.
The steps for correcting misconceptions are5, 6:

1. Us as educators identifying the misconception.
2. The learners recognising their misconception.
3. The learners constructing a new model.
4. The learners using the new model.
1. Identifying the misconception

This can be done by asking open-ended questions. For example, asking to define words “redesign”,
“reuse”, “recycle”, “upcycle”, “downcycle” and asking for examples from real life. People tend to
think they know these terms, but when asked to define them, it often turns out they can be
4
Chi, M. T. H. (2013). Two kinds and four sub-types of misconceived knowledge, ways to change it, and the learning outcomes, in S.
Vosniadou, (ed.), International handbook of research on conceptual change.
5
6
Lucariello, J., & Naff, D. (2013). How do I get my students over their alternative conceptions (misconceptions) for learning.
57
quite mixed up. It is always worth asking your participants/listeners even what common terms
mean, just to see if everybody actually understands what is being talked about. Any other
approach, where learners have to demonstrate their thought process, can also help to unveil the
misconceptions.
2. Helping to recognise the misconception

The learners themselves must notice that maybe there is a gap in their knowledge, maybe their
understanding is different from the scientific understanding. Questions are good in this stage too:
asking to explain their reasons for the misconception, why do they think that way? Comparisons
are also a good tool in this stage, asking for example people to compare “their” data with the
correct one.
3. Constructing a new model

This means finding a better and more sense-making model that can explain the observed facts
and which can replace the misconception. The new model should be:7
1. Intelligible – learner can understand how it works, we can use analogies, models or
directly showing the mechanism.
2. Plausible – it feels true and believable, learners must see how the new conception
(theory) is consistent with other knowledge and a good explanation of the data.
3. High quality – besides good quality in scientific standards, the new theory should
feel of better quality to the learner and not contradicting their other unidentified
misconceptions.
4. Fruitful/generative – useful to the learner, they can put it into practice, we can illustrate
the application of the new concept/theory to a range of problems.
4. Using the new model

Since misconceptions tend to be quite sticky in our heads, there should also be opportunities to
put the new conceptions into practice – learn different cases, see where this new info is useful
and can be applied. There could be a slightly different problem presented where using this new
model is needed in order to solve it. This could also help to assess whether the misconception
was indeed corrected.
7
Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W., & Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a scientific conception:
Toward a theory of conceptual change. Science education, 66(2), 211-227.
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SOME METHODS FOR CORRECTING MISCONCEPTIONS
General recommendations:
• Explore and activate preconceptions – for example ask some questions
beforehand, to get a sense of learners’ understanding of the topic(s) and adjust
teaching to that.
• Some of preconceptions may be correct – use them as a bridge of examples to
the new conceptions.
• If you present new concepts, then in a way that learners see these as plausible, high-
quality, intelligible and generative.
• Help them to become aware of their own misconceptions.
• Help them “self-repair” their misconceptions – ask questions!
• Once they got over their misconceptions, allow them to use their new knowledge, e.g. in
debates, to strengthen them.
• Throughout the process: don’t rush to tell your own expert knowledge, always ask
questions from learners first and allow them to construct their conceptions as
independently as possible.
Here are some methods and ideas how different zero waste misconceptions could be addressed.
Bridging analogies
Bridging analogy is the approach of using the learner’s already existing correct belief or conception
(called “anchoring conception”) by “bridging” it to the new conception (“target conception”) where
the learner has a misconception.
An example in zero waste could be:
Misconception: biowaste and compost are the same, just piling up biowaste is already composting.
Questions to get to the bridging analogy:
What is the end result of composting?

How does the biowaste turn into nutrient-rich soil? What could we compare this process with?
Perhaps another example of turning organic matter into “a product” like making pancakes.
1. Anchor example: in order to make pancakes you need to mix the right ingredients (and only
food ingredients) and heat them on the stove. You wouldn’t add the plastic food package
into the pancake dough, and you wouldn’t expect pancakes to cook if you haven’t turned on
the stove.
2. Bridging example 1: compost needs to be “cooked” (prepared) the same way as we use food
ingredients to make meals. Biowaste itself is not compost yet.
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3. Bridging example 2: in order to make a specific meal, we choose the right ingredients in
right proportion and prepare them in the right way (we mix flour, eggs, milk before pouring
onto to the pan), the same way for compost, we need to mix food waste with bulky
wooden materials to adjust nutrients, moisture and air flow in the compost, which allows
microorganisms to do their work, which is needed to get good compost.
4. Target example: in order to make compost, you need to collect it separately, so that you only
have organic waste and you need to use the proper technology to degrade it in the way that
it makes good compost.
Diverse instruction
Misconceptions can often be a collection of more than one wrong belief, for example a whole
missing schema. Diverse instruction means addressing several of them at once. Studies8 have
shown that conceptual change is more likely to happen if we give less examples, but about several
wrong assumptions rather than many examples of only one wrong assumption.
Misconception: biodegradable plastic is better than regular plastic. It composes of several missing
schemas:
• It is made from biomass/plants so it’s better than regular plastic (right conception:
regardless of the material, single use is still a waste of resources).
• It simply degrades in the environment (right conception: biodegradable plastic has to be
collected together with food waste, transferred to composting facility and composted by
skilled personnel to fully degrade).
• It’s just as good for compost as biowaste (right conception: biodegradable plastic is still
plastic and doesn’t add value to the compost).
For example: a takeaway food restaurant owner tells you proudly that they are now plastic free –
all their dishes and cutlery are from biodegradable plastic. How do you respond?
At first we could express that it is great/makes us happy to hear that they are trying to improve and
make steps towards better solutions. And then continue with these questions in a warm manner:
• Why did you decide to make a switch from plastic? Why do you think plastic is a problem?
• Why did you choose this solution?
• Why and how is it better/best solution?
• What is this material (biodegradable plastic) made of?
• What do you think, what will happen to it if thrown away?
• How can we be sure?
• Would you put it into your own garden compost? Why or why not?
• What happens to it in the compost?
8
Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental models of the earth: A study of conceptual change in childhood.
Cognitive Psychology, 24, 535-585.
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Predict-observe-explain model
In this method, an experiment is made to correct a misconception. The experiment doesn’t have
to be hands-on, it can also be a video or thought experiment.
The first step is for learners to predict what they think would happen. Then the experiment would
be done and learners can compare their prediction with the actual result and explain why it is so,
why they differ, if they do. This allows learners to become aware of their own thinking and logic.
One version of this method is the predict-explain-observe-explain model, introduced briefly in

this short video.
Misconception: there is no room in my flat to source separate waste, I don’t have room for 3-4
different bins.
Question to be predicted: how much more room do you need if you sorted your mixed waste by
fractions?
Experiment: taking that mixed waste (or clean “mock up” waste) and sorting it by fractions, and
then putting it into separate bins, which are all just smaller than one big mixed waste bin, showing
that because the waste amount is the same, you don’t actually need more space, just more but
smaller waste bins.
Discussion and explanations.
Cognitive conflict
This means offering the learners new experiences that don’t match with their current conceptions,
which can lead to conceptual change. Ways to create this:
• Present data to learners that doesn’t match their existing conceptions (anomalous data).
The anomalous data should be credible and ideally somewhat known from their everyday
experience. If possible, illustrate the data with experiments. Use this as a basis for
discussion.
• Present texts that introduce a common misconception and then overturn it, and offer the
new conception/theory. This would again be the basis of discussion where learners could
support their views with the evidence from the text.
Misconception: the amount of waste entering a waste treatment facility is the same you can
recycle, eg. 100 t of biowaste means you get 100 t of compost, 100 t of packaging waste means
you can recycle 100 t of materials.
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Presenting data:
100 t of biowaste enters the composting facility, 40 t is sold as compost.
100 t of packaging waste enters the recycling facility, 90 t is sold for recycling.
Basis for the discussion: what happens to the missing 60 t / 10 t?
Biowaste is largely water that goes away during the composting process. Packages are never
totally empty, bottles also have liquids inside – liquids are pressed out during the process. Input
waste can be wet from poor storage conditions as well, increasing its water content.
Socratic method
Socratic method is one of the oldest forms of learning through discussion. It focuses on revealing
the preconceptions of the learner and asking questions designed to prompt the learner to
challenge their own assumed prior knowledge. It is a four-stage process that involves:
A. Bringing out preconceptions/misconceptions;

B. Asking clarifying questions to pinpoint the nature of these preconceptions and lead the
learner to form their hypothesis or prediction;
C. Testing these hypotheses through further questioning, fact-checking, counter-arguments,
identifying contradictions etc. which require the learner to critically evaluate their
preconceptions;
D. Reassessing their thinking and deciding whether to accept or reject their preconceptions,
predictions and any new information.
The socratic method can be found also from surprising places like pop-culture
(for example “Pulp Fiction”).
1. Bringing out the misconception: “In our city we have a new environmentally friendly
way to treat waste: we have an incinerator that burns the waste completely and
creates energy.”
2. Clarify: Can you explain why burning waste is good? / How burning the waste relates
to the issue of shortage of (basically all) materials we use?
3. Testing:
• How much waste does the incinerator need in order to produce that energy? What if
we don’t create that much waste anymore (do more reducing, reusing, recycling)? Can
the incinerator still operate then?
• What types of waste are being burned in the incinerator? How much of it is left at the end?
• What about the energy that was needed to produce those materials, which are now
lost in the burning process?
• Is incineration helping or stopping us to get closer to a circular economy, where
materials are kept in circulation and waste amounts are reduced?
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4. After these questions the learner can decide whether to accept or reject their original
misconception.
Can you find any common traits or characteristics of all these methods?

1. In zero waste work we often have only very little time to meet with people (one
business meeting etc), where we don’t have time to go through these exercises. What
can we do there?
2. We both have one-to-one meetings and larger group presentations/sessions in zero
waste work. It can be harder to work with misconceptions when you have a big group
of people, each of them with different misconceptions. How can we deal with this
multitude of misconceptions?
3. In zero waste there are not many misconceptions, or they are actually quite easily
corrected with the right data. Shouldn’t we focus more on giving people the correct
knowledge on zero waste?
1. In zero waste work we often have only very little time to meet with people (one business
meeting etc), where we don’t have time to go through these exercises. What can we do
there?
The hard reality is that we cannot speed up the way the brain functions/processes new
information, even when we would like it to and have little time and want to get more done in
that short period of time. Correcting misconceptions does take time and when we are given
only short time, what we can do is at least get a better understanding ourselves of the kind
of misconceptions people have, pose some open questions to them and make them wonder if
there is perhaps more to discover/know, so that they would be interested in meeting you again
and/or digging into the topic themselves more. That’s why it’s good if we already have done
some pre-communication with them and gotten to know what exactly their misconceptions
are, so that in the meeting we can already go to building new conceptions. In every situation
we can decide to ask questions instead of telling the right answer (which is something that
often comes almost automatically to us as zero waste experts) – while it could make us feel
better that we shared our wisdom (and could listen to our beautifully organized knowledge),
a question will help the other person much closer to discovering that truth themselves – as
building and organizing the correct knowledge in their own mind is actual learning. But this
also means not appearing or sounding passive-agressive and attacking, but rather curious
questions with the sense of how we can solve this contradiction of views together.
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2. We both have one-to-one meetings and larger group presentations/sessions in zero
waste work. It can be harder to work with misconceptions when you have a big group of
people, each of them with different misconceptions. How can we deal with this multitude
of misconceptions?
Misconceptions tend to be quite common, meaning people often have similar misconceptions
in one broader topic (like zero waste). So even if you think only some people have one particular
misconception, it could easily be that others also have it, they just haven’t expressed it verbally
or haven’t even realised that they think the same way. So picking one misconception to tackle
could still benefit many people in the audience.
When you can identify several different misconceptions among the people, then one possibility
is to tackle them together, if they are similar in their logic. For example, thinking that the
washing process of reusable dishes takes a lot of energy and thinking that biodegradable
plastic dishes are a solution are part of the same misconception where people don’t realise
the environmental impact of the whole lifecycle of the product. So it would be a possibility
to group some misconceptions and focus on their common trait and address that to your
audience.
3. In zero waste there are not many misconceptions, or they are actually quite easily
corrected with the right data. Shouldn’t we focus more on giving people the correct
knowledge on zero waste?
It could be true that some zero waste misconceptions can be easily corrected by showing the
data. But what might for some be a missing piece of data (not knowing the actual recycling
rate) could be a whole missing schema to the other (not understanding what recycling even is).
Without getting to know exactly what it is that the person doesn’t know or has misconception
on, we cannot approach it the right way. The main question is perhaps, how do we know that
we corrected someone’s misconceptions? If we cannot check if people actually changed their
minds after we told them the right info, then how do we know that they accepted our facts?
Maybe sometimes people’s inactivity towards zero waste could be not because of not wanting
to act but that in the end they have deep hidden misconceptions about it?
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• Can you think of any examples how to implement these
practices in zero waste work?
• Do you think it’s worth approaching people’s zero waste
misconceptions the way described in this chapter? Why or
why not?
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WHY ARE QUESTIONS
IMPORTANT?
• What do you think happens in your brain when you ask

a question?
• What do you think happens in your brain when you hear
an answer?
• What do you think happens in your brain when you hear an
answer that you didn’t ask for?
• How do you know when the solution/statement/opinion
you are giving is wanted/needed?
• How often do you ask questions in your teaching sessions?
What kind of questions do you ask?
• Why do you think we have created a chapter
about questions?
Historically teachers have often been viewed as the people who provided correct answers
and trained students to know those right answers. The contemporary view of education has
(hopefully) evolved from this idea and we now know that in most things in the world, there is no
one simple fixed answer. Much depends on the context and our scientific understanding of the
world changes over time.
Of course in a given specific situation there can be distinctions between right and wrong solutions,
but even these cannot be taught in a top-down approach to masses of students, because we
cannot prepare people for all the specific situations they might face in life. So the essence of
education becomes the ability to find the right answers yourself and adapt those answers
when changing situations call for it. This means that the skill that people need to learn is how to
look for answers – that means knowing what questions to ask. And this in turn means that we
should also teach through questions.
What happens when we ask questions

When asking questions, our thinking is more active than simply listening to someone talk. We
have realised there is something we don’t know and we want this missing information. It could
also be that we want the person from whom we are asking a question to start thinking about a
certain topic. So questions also help to activate the thinking of those around us.
But not all questions are created equal. How many times have we heard at the end of
a lecture:
“Does anyone have any questions?”
• How often is it followed by a lively debate between the lecturer and listeners?
• How eager are people usually to ask questions at that point?
• How long is usually the time when the questions can be asked and how quickly does
the lecturer move on and/or close the lecture?
There are of course exceptions, but quite often in these cases this question almost feels like a
compulsory element that has to be said and after a very short moment of silence everybody
moves on. Why is that so?
It could be that from the lecturer’s side there is no skill of discussing the questions of learners,
there is even a fear of it or there is no understanding of the importance of questions. Also the
lecture might have been set up in a way that the learners were passive during the whole lecture
and therefore were not able or wanting to ask good questions in the end. For the latter there could
be many reasons which can be found in other chapters of this handbook, but it also may mean
that the question itself was wrong, asked at a wrong time and probably in a wrong way.
Thus, when designing training courses, the crucial part is not only asking questions but also
what kind of questions are being asked, how they are presented and when they are being asked.
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When should the questions be asked?
The answer could be found in another question: when do you want your learners to start
thinking about your topic?
Probably you want them to be focused on your topic from the beginning. So this is also the
moment when to start with the questions. Questions could be asked throughout the learning
activity, almost every topic could be formed into a question and discussion instead of a statement
made by the educator. Of course there is information that we want to pass on to our learners,
they are just more likely to grasp it if they discover it themselves through the questions. When we
are engaged in a discussion, our thinking is much more active than when simply listening.
Who should be asking the questions?

Is it important that the educator asks questions from learners or that learners ask questions
from the educator? Why one or the other?
Although there can be very active learners who already have many questions in the beginning of
the session, questions are a tool for the educator to direct the flow of the session and learners’
thinking. So while learners can have their questions “all over the place”, the educator could give
them a direction with his/her own questions in the beginning of the session.
The trick of teaching is to get the learners themselves to say out the things you would want
them to know. So while it is much faster to just say it to them ourselves, in terms of learning, it
is more effective if they get there themselves. In the end it’s important to ask, who do we want
to be answering the questions? For effective learning we want the learners to come up with
the answers first and the educator is there to add on, correct and help to analyse the answers.
Educators can guide the process with their questions, and direct the learners’ questions back to
them. If someone has a question, we can ask the whole group how they would answer that and
then the educator’s answer would be the last one.
What kind of questions should the educator ask?

The art of teaching is in fact the skill of coming up with such questions that would lead the
learners to want our answers. A good question to your learners is the one whose answer is the
main topic of your session. And it’s not easy to create questions like this. One indicator for the
educator here can even be: how much time from your preparation did you spend on developing
good and deep questions?
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Questions in their structure can be very different in terms of what kind of thinking processes
they evoke. They can be divided into types based on the complexity of thinking that is involved
in answering them. Not all questions in a learning session have to be around conceptual change,
actually it can be good to have a mix of different types of questions. Just to keep in mind that at
least a few of them should be more complex. Here are few examples of the types:1
Question type Example

Lower order: Explanation – asking to explain a How is organic waste different from other
process or phenomenon waste?
Higher order: Analysis – asking to explain the What are the differences between separating
elements of the topic, taking a concept into organics from other waste at home and at a
parts, comparison questions waste facility?
What makes organics collection effective?
Conceptual change: Application – asking to put What is needed to put in place an effective
information into concrete situations separate collection of organics in your
municipality?
Questions can also be longer than just one sentence. For example, when we want to
teach about productive failure design (read more about it from the Main principles of
teaching chapter), then instead of first explaining what it is and only asking “What are
good teaching methods?”, we could open the session with this kind of example:
Two teachers have different teaching strategies for teaching complex systems, like circular
economy. Which teacher has an effective strategy? Why? Which one has an ineffective
strategy? Why?
A: Teacher X starts with giving a complex problem to the students (how to make a specific
sector more circular)
• Students then have to find different solutions for the problem

• After that and hand-in-hand with discussing the solutions of students, teacher X gives direct
instruction and offers expert knowledge of the topic
B: Teacher Y starts with introducing and explaining the topic (circular economy)
• Then students will be presented the complex problem and asked to solve it
Instead of introducing the topic of different teaching methods, the topic is presented as real
life situations and learners are asked to give their opinion about them.
What is the most important element of this exercise?
1
Yip, D. Y. (2004) Questioning skills for conceptual change in science instruction, Journal of Biological Education,
38:2, 76-83.
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There are of course several important elements, but perhaps the most important is the question
“Why?”, because this gives us information about the reasoning behind the answers and this is what
we want to know. Sometimes the answers might be correct just by chance and the logic behind
it incorrect. Also the reasoning process is where the learner is actually constructing knowledge
him/herself and can discover his/her knowledge gaps and this is where the discussion starts. So
it’s the why-element that should be part of all learning sessions, asking questions starting with
“How?” can also be good.
In general the questions should initiate a deeper thinking in the learner’s brain. So also
the questions should be more than just with yes-no answers, open rather than closed.
For example, a question like “Isn’t landfilling all the waste the most expensive option?”
is closed, leaving only yes or no answer and implying what answer is expected. Instead
it could be “Why are the waste management costs high?” or “How could the costs from waste
management be lowered?”
On how to create learning evaluation questions, check the Learning assessment chapter.
What kind of questions should the learners ask?

As educators we should direct our learners towards starting to ask questions, if they don’t have
that habit to do so. We would want the learners to start thinking deeply about the topic at hand,
so we should direct the questions towards the underlying principles, not just the superficial details
which might distract both the educator and the learners. It’s ok to also say if some questions are
not relevant, but then there should also be an explanation why.
One important aspect is also the learners’ self-reflection of their level of understanding of the
issues, their knowledge gaps and what they would need to learn more about. This is connected to
the skill of metacognition, which is tackled briefly in the Metacognition chapter.
Are questions more important than answers aka the expert knowledge?
When we as experts are presented with problems (or new solutions) in our field, we start asking
detailed questions in our head, in order to get a better understanding of how to form our expert
opinion around it. This is actually how the expert knowledge is activated – beginners either don’t
have any questions to ask or their questions are much less detailed. So again the art of becoming
an expert is the skill of asking the right questions. When we teach through our questions it also
makes our expert thinking visible to the learners and can help them to start asking more detailed
questions as well.
So in the end, yes, the expert knowledge is also important, but it’s the questions that make people
want and understand our expert knowledge.
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1. What if the learners don’t want to answer my questions and there is this
awkward silence?
2. Isn’t there a risk of getting lost in learners’ questions and don’t we have to finally also
give our information in the lesson?
3. Is it possible to over-do it with questions?
1. What if the learners don’t want to answer my questions and there is this awkward silence?
First – your time as educator runs in our subjective perception much faster than theirs – when
they might just start to get their head around “What was just asked from us?”, you already feel
the inner panic (“They probably roll their eyes and think it is stupid/obvious/obscure question!”).
The awkward silence can happen and it’s also something that we as educators should get
comfortable with. The reason for the silence is usually not that people don’t have any answers in
their head, there is always some pre-knowledge, mostly it’s the case that people are not used to
being active in learning situtions or they fear of sounding stupid, or they simply need time to truly
think about it. After a certain point someone will break the silence and answer, or as educators
we can also ask specific people to answer. You can also count to 10 in your head to pass the time
before breaking the silence. In the end we need them to be the ones speaking, so this is also
something that can be already communicated before the session or at least at the start of it, that
the educator will be asking questions and the session will involve discussion.
2. Isn’t there a risk of getting lost in learners’ questions and don’t we have to finally also
give our information in the lesson?
Yes, there is that chance and facilitating this process is one of the tasks of the educator. But without
asking questions from learners and allowing them to come up with their own questions we run
the much higher risk and that is not activating their thinking at all or keeping their misconceptions
intact. If we just present our information without the learners feeling the need for it and without
discovering it on their own, it is much less likely that they would attach it to their pre-knowledge.
3. Is it possible to over-do it with questions?
Yes it is. This is the part where the educator should follow the three basic psychological needs of
the learners and make sure they are not suppressed, perhaps the need of competence in this case
the most – the feeling of tasks (or questions) being not too easy and not too difficult. Questions
are meant to activate learners’ thinking and make them struggle a little bit, but not to interrogate
or exhaust them. It is the task of the educator to find that balance of not overwhelming the
learners with too many, too difficult, or too trivial questions and creating just enough mental
effort for them to want the answers from the educator.
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In order not to over-do it with questions in this chapter, just two
ending questions to further reflect upon:
• What would you ask from your learners if you wanted to

get them interested in your topics?
• What makes a question good?
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LEARNING ASSESSMENT aka
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT
LEARNING HAPPENED
• What is it that you usually want to achieve with

your teaching?
• Can we measure learning? How?
• Do you usually assess if your audience learned
anything? How?
• When do you assess their learning?
• If and how do you assess yourself as an educator?
In zero waste and in environmental topics in general our main end goal is usually that people
start to think and behave differently, that they take different decisions than before, which also
incorporate environmental reasons. So we want them to start acting differently based on the
new things they learned. And knowing if your teaching actually helps them to do that, is essential.
What is the best way to assess a change in behaviour?
Probably this means we should know what the behaviour was before and after the learning-
teaching intervention. Would this mean that we should follow people around and see how they
behave? Well, basically yes. This however is often rather difficult to do and more or less only
scientific research teams with strict ethical protocols are able to do that. What is often done
instead is asking people about their behaviour. But here it’s important to remember that asking
people about their behavior is not always a reliable source of information. One of the reasons
for it is human psychology again – when asked about our behaviour, we tend to make things nicer
than they are, tell small lies without even noticing it ourselves – most of us want to look better
than we are in reality. It’s also because our perception of our own behaviour is not actually the
same as our actual behaviour. This can often even extend to our actual behaviour – if we know
someone is watching, we can act differently than usual. So the observation usually means having
to set up official scientific experiments, where the participants are informed about the study,
its goals and agree with participating, but at the same time are not conscious what part of their
behaviour is under the study.
Truly assessing the impact of an intervention (a learning activity) is difficult and not something
we can easily do by simply asking questions to the learners, unless we are able to design a really
reliable and valid set of questions, which usually takes a lot of time. So it can be quite a messy
process.
But this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to assess learning. We just need to accept that every
assessment comes with some margin of error. We can still find ways to check whether the things
we taught are remembered afterwards and if some concepts or skills are put into practice. If we
are working with our group of learners for a longer term (e.g. consultation process for a company
or municipality), then this also allows us more easily to check if and what they have learned, by
noticing if they still have some misconceptions and asking inquisitive questions about that.
When it comes to assessing learning, we first need to define what it was that we wanted our
learners to learn in the first place. And we need to be sure whether we are assessing:
A. Their perception of their own learning

B. Their enjoyment of the learning activity or
C. Their actual learning
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Probably in the end we are interested in the last one. So the first thing is to define our desired
learning outcome. And more importantly, making it a realistic one. Reading through our chapters
on how learning happens and how slow the process actually is, it is quite fair to say that we often
tend to overestimate what can be realistically learned in the time given to us, for example in short
one hour sessions. In that one hour we will probably not have time to enable someone to correct
his/her misconception. In one hour we can probably only find out that there are misconceptions
and help learners to start questioning them.
Learning cannot be hurried (as it also suppresses the feeling of autonomy), our working memory
has a limited amount of new things it can process at a given time. So this is simply something we
need to accept as educators.
HOW TO ASSESS LEARNING?
Take a look at this list and think which ways would be a good way to assess learning and
why, and which would not be that good; why?
What have you used yourself in the past?
• Quiz right after the session

• Quiz after some time has passed after the session
• Asking people to compare their knowledge in the beginning of the session with the
end of the session
• Systematic observation of people’s behaviour (or traces of behaviour, like amount of
trash in certain place, etc) before and after the session
• Observing what kind and how many questions learners had throughout the session
and after it
• Using valid and reliable questionnaires (if there are any) about the topic you are
interested in
• Asking people to send data (e.g. images) about their behaviour afterwards
• Asking people if they liked the session
• Asking people what they liked most in the session
• Asking people to solve a problem related to the session’s main topic before the
session and after some time has passed from the session
• Using experience sampling apps
• Asking them to keep a diary for some time
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Also think about this example you might know from the Main principles of teaching
chapter:
“I wanted to teach about the environmental impacts of food. I showed the students images
of 2 food items: beef and avocado and asked which has a bigger impact and why. Most of
them said avocado, because it comes from far away and has a big impact from transport.
I then showed them a graph, which illustrates how small the impact from transport is (6%)
and that the main impact comes from how the food is farmed (land use, use of pesticides
etc). Everybody looked surprised and it felt like a good wow-moment for me.
A month later, when I asked them to assess the environmental impact of different food
items and how to lower that, many of them still focused on transport and even after
showing the graph again, they still needed several questions from me to think about the
land use impact.”
What does this story tell you about assessment of learning?

Before continuing with the rest of the chapter, reflect about both the list and this
example, what does it mean for learning assessment and what are the best ways
to do it?
Here are some thoughts:

• What the story tells us is that if there would have only been one session, the educator
would have left the whole experience thinking that she succeeded in teaching people
something new. It was only thanks to the next session a month later that she realised
that this new concept hadn’t actually reached her learners. So although it was a teaching
failure, it was valuable information for the educator on the learning goals not being met.
How often do we actually leave without checking if we made that trace into our learners’
long term memory? It’s not always possible to check that, but then we also need to realise
that we also don’t know for sure if our work had an impact.
• If you have read the Main principles of teaching chapter, then you probably know that it
makes more sense to check whether people learned from your session some time after it
happened and not right after it.
• It is always advisable to use open ended questions and not quizzes with multiple choice
answers, because retrieving information is actually good for making the content also
retrievable in the future. The opposite – just recognizing the right option – will not. And
second, when using multiple choices, it’s harder to know what were their own thoughts
and where they still might have knowledge gaps or even misconceptions.
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• It’s natural for humans to want to be liked and we tend to ask that also about your
learning activities and we feel good if people say they liked our sessions. But it’s important
to know that enjoyment and learning are not the same thing. They can happen together,
but enjoyment is not a metric for learning, because sometimes learning can be difficult
and at the same time we can also enjoy situations, where we don’t learn anything new. So
it’s better not to ask learners about that, because it just tends to distract us as educators.
Learners liking you is a bonus, but not our main focus.
• Having to solve a problem, where learned knowledge and skills need to be applied (kind of
a test), is quite a good way of assessment (in the story above it would be environmental
impact exercise of new food items). This also means meeting the learners at least twice,
so that same problem-solving task with some time apart can be given to learners. But
we have to keep in mind that in test-like situations, everything that makes people feel
stressed or anxious harms the actual problem solving – for example time pressure,
social comparison, high-stakes, telling them that we are testing their learning etc. And
as an educator we may not always understand what aspects in a given situation may be
perceived as stressful.
Should the context of the problem solving test be the same each time or
different? Why?
What does the chapter on learning basics and memory tell us?
In reality we want the learned skill or knowledge to be flexible – meaning people are
able to use it in different contexts. So the problem solving test should offer a new
context for the concept learned. One way to do this is also during the learning session/
training. In our training programs we have included these parts (scheduled on the 4th
and 5th day of the training):
• For the Zero Waste Ambassadors there is the Zero Waste City role play game, which
incorporates all the knowledge and skills tackled in previous sessions and puts learners in
the situations where they have to solve problems by using skills and knowledge gained on
previous days.
• For the Zero Waste Trainers there are the teaching mini-sessions, where in the same way
learners try to put into practice the main elements of teaching, and the session is then
jointly analysed by the whole group.
In both programs, the expert trainers are there to first offer challenges (role playing) and observe
and then give feedback. This of course is in a training setting right after the learning sessions,
so ideally another assessment could be made later on, in learners’ real life situations. If this is
not possible, having another session or meeting later on, where learners can even try to solve
hypothetical new problems, would work as well. In our training programs we offered some zero
waste and training related scenarios to solve during a follow-up interview a few months after the
training event.
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HOW TO MAKE EVALUATION QUESTIONS?
What we often do and which is also a way to assess learning, is evaluation questionnaires to
learners. Creating good questions is actually very tricky. There can be questions which actually
don’t give us the info we need, we are just used to asking them (like “What did you like most
about the training?”). We should remember to respect the time of our learners and choose our
evaluation questions very carefully, only leaving in the questions where we know clearly what
information we want to get from there, how we will use this info and making sure that these
questions do give us this data reliably.
Much of the rules mentioned before apply here too: questions should be open-ended and as
neutral as possible, avoiding implying questions and socially desirable answers (e.g. “Were the
trainers nice and supportive?” implies that you should answer “Yes”) and in a good way tricking
the respondents slightly so that their thinking process wouldn’t be too much directed and that
they are actually able to answer the questions. But you also could use scales with (rather neutral-
phrased) statements about the topic that interests you and ask the learners how much they
agree/disagree with these. Such scales can be used in various contexts – asking about values,
attitudes, but also knowledge and behaviour; or feedback about educators, etc.
For example if we want to assess whether we met the three basic psychological needs
of the learners, we don’t ask that directly, because they might not be able to estimate
themselves if they were met. Instead we can put it into practical context, for example:
Rate from 1 - 6 (1 - I do not agree at all 2 3 4 5 6 - I completely agree):
1. During the training I understood why the learning activities were set up the way they were
2. During the training I felt as if I were “invisible” to the trainers
3. During the training I felt, that I can slow down the pace of training to ask for additional
explanations
4. During the training I felt that I could not say out loud what I really thought about the
topics we learnt
5. During the training I felt that the trainers were really caring towards the group
6. During the training I was not sure how to best learn the material
Can you guess which question is about which basic need?
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Here are the answers:
Relatedness – 2 (reversed version) and 5
Competence – 3 and 6 (reversed version)
Autonomy – 1 and 4 (reversed version)
The reverse version questions add diversity and balance to the questions, so that not all of them
are framed positively and the respondent has several angles to evaluate the educational activity.
Also it could help to test if the respondent actually reads the questions and doesn’t just answer
the same way to all of them (giving the same score to all the questions).
SUMMARY
A short summary of the messiness of assessment and how to put it in practice:
• Don’t rely solely on the emotions nor the skills and knowledge your learners
have right after your learning activity.
• If you want the material you taught to stick with your learners for a longer
time, try to find ways to assess that after some time has passed from your session. Offer
possibilities to retrieve the learned material (check Main principles of teaching chapter for
more) – this helps to make the memory traces stronger.
• Use open ended questions as much as possible – this way you’ll get a more correct idea of
your learners’ actual understanding.
• Use cases and scenarios, problems to solve in different contexts to see if the learners can
apply the learned things in practice. If possible, give a problem to solve in the beginning of
your learning activity and some time after, so you can compare the difference and impact
of your teaching.
• If possible, test your evaluation questions with fellow-experts and also non-experts, to
see if they are easily understandable, assess the aspects you planned to assess and give
you the information you need.
Valid and reliable assessment is difficult and complex and requires work on the level of scientific
research (e.g. observing people’s behaviour without any other influences; or making a functional
measurement instrument, like a questionnaire). In usual training situations we do not have the
time or resources for that. There are still ways and methods mentioned above that we can use to
get some sense of if and what kind of learning happened. But it is important to keep in mind that
with wrong types of assessment we create the illusion of teaching for ourselves.
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1. After my session I got many compliments from my audience and several of them said
they really liked it. Can this be considered as proof of successful teaching?
2. I feel my session went a bit out of hand: people had so many questions, they wanted to
discuss the topic and then the time ran out and we had to finish up in the middle of the
conversation. Is this a sign of not so good teaching?
1. After my session I got many compliments from my audience and several of them said they
really liked it. Can this be considered as proof of successful teaching?
Actually not, or – we do not know. If you want to assess teaching, assess (durable and flexible)
knowledge. It’s very nice if people are having a good time and enjoying something, but this is
not necessarily connected to the fact if they learned or not. It might be that you simply offered
them a lot of amusing things and told them exactly what they wanted to hear (and what they
already knew). But it can also mean that you really created a learning experience – where
everybody thinks, struggles, feels confused from time to time, asks substantial questions,
draws conclusions, debates and so on, and while doing that, you supported their three basic
psychological needs at all times. It can also mean as a side-effect of learning and with you
supporting their basic psychological needs, that they enjoyed the session. The point is that
praise for your session only cannot be used to assess whether learning happened.
2. I feel my session went a bit out of hand: people had so many questions, they wanted to
discuss the topic and then the time ran out and we had to finish up in the middle of the
conversation. Is this a sign of not so good teaching?
Although the reality here really depends on the specific situation, the questions being asked,
etc, it is generally actually a good sign if people have questions and you feel there is not enough
time. This of course means if the questions are related (even if related not that closely) to the
topic in discussion. It means that people’s thinking and pre-knowledge was activated and they
wanted to know more. We can never teach everything we want and the time will always be
too short. If the learners leave the session with questions and wanting to know more about it,
then this is a better situation than if they just enjoyed themselves but have actually no need
to ask for more – this probably means they didn’t learn much new as with deeper learning,
questions tend to arise.
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• From the examples in the chapter, what methods of
learning assessment could be applied in your work? Why?
• What do you think, do we more often tend to assess the
illusion of learning or actual learning? Is there anything
that needs changing in that?
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HOW TO MANAGE YOUR
TEACHING TIME aka
“There’s no time for this today”
• How detailed time plans do you make for your teaching

sessions?
• How strongly do you stick to your time plans usually and if
not, why?
• How do you decide what activities get the most time in
your teaching sessions?
• How much time do you plan in your sessions for learners’
questions, discussion, interaction?
• How long does it take for new knowledge to set in the
learner’s brain?
Time is always an issue, there is never enough time to go deeper into the topics, for the learners
to fully understand them. How can we deal with the constant problem of time running out?
First thing is probably to accept the fact that we will always be running out of time and there
will always be topics that didn’t get discussed at the session. Even if we plan more time, we
will simply find more things to discuss. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. The feeling of
wanting to know more, ask more, discuss more is actually something that we aim for in learning
situations, so sparking that interest and getting the feeling of “I don’t know enough of this” is a
good outcome. This means that learners might be willing to go and learn more about the topic
themselves later on.
Maybe what we need to change is our expectations and relationship with time, especially how
we use the time in our teaching sessions. In the end managing time means managing the content
you teach and how you teach it.
Some thoughts on time:

• The most important is to address issues that are on learners’ minds during the session,
when they are thinking about the topic at hand. It’s better to dig deeper into something
that learners don’t understand and are eager to discuss, rather than run through
everything you planned and maybe lose your learners’ attention/interest in the process.
• At the same time we don’t have to follow all the ideas that learners have. For some topics
that get too big or detailed, we can say that this would need a separate session (time) on
its own, giving specific reasons for it, maybe some resources where to look for more info.
It is the balance to find what aspects of the topic can be discussed so that learners can
think about the elements they are interested in and at the same time keep within in the
general topic you wanted to tackle.
• It is very difficult to actually change someone’s mind in only one hour or less (it’s simply
how our brain works), which is the time often given to us for presentations, especially
when we also don’t have time to create proper connection with our participants (for
example in online contexts). But even if we cannot make people accept new knowledge,
we can always use this time to get to know their thoughts and pre-existing knowledge on
the topic. Even in online workshops, we can ask questions through polls or chat and that at
least gives us a better sense of how our audience perceives this topic and we can use this
information in the future.
• As educators we tend to overcrowd our sessions with our own knowledge and content,
where there is not much room for the learners to digest the new information (to encode
it). Depending on the context and specific nature of the lesson, the time allocation could be
different, but it could be good to plan around 2/3 of your time for discussion and questions
of the learners with possibilities to discover and construct new knowledge, and 1/2 for your
own talk and expert information. Remember, the brain is not a voice recorder, it needs
time to connect new information with existing pre-knowledge and if needed, start re-
constructing incorrect ideas.
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Our experience of the flow of time is subjective depending on how we feel about the situation we
are in. As educators we usually sense it a bit differently than our learners. If the topic is new to
them, then they need the pace of the lesson to be much slower than to us, the experts, because
they process that information more slowly. Also, when we get a little bit nervous, we tend to
start speaking faster. So although we might feel that there is so much we need to cover in one
session, we actually need to take a slower pace so that the learners would be able to follow us.
Asking more questions instead of simply providing information is a good way for slowing down,
as it both helps to see where learners might be struggling and it also can calm us, and our speed
of talking gets slower. On how to design questions to ask from your learners, you can check the
Why are questions important? chapter.
Time and the basic psychological needs

Time is tricky because pressing with time can also be a form of control and can suppress the
learners’ need for autonomy, because they need to feel there is time for their questions and
confusions. They need time to think and discover the answers, solutions and ideas themselves,
in other words, to deeply understand. Then again, a commonly agreed and set timeframe also
offers structure in the learning setting and that supports the feeling of competence – the feeling
that I know what is going on. So perhaps we should see time management more as a dialogue
between the educator and learners:
• If there is an interesting discussion going on and time is running out, the educator can
pause for the moment and ask whether everyone would prefer to stay a bit longer in the
session to finish the discussion or finish on time, so that the learners themselves can
decide what is more important at that moment. This might also mean continuing the
discussion later and that in turn could mean changing the initial plan of the educator.
• Depending on the possibilities, the educator could also offer choices on which specific
topic to continue within the broader topic at hand. For example, if there are different
interesting questions being discussed, the educator could give the learners the option
to vote which they want to discuss and which the educator could later provide written
information on.
• In all this it’s also important to explicitly communicate and explain this way of teaching
and managing time to the learners and why it is done differently than perhaps what they
are used to.
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Some tips for a better relationship with time
• Don’t overcrowd your session with information. The aim of the session is
not to run through all the slides that you had but to help people learn new
things. Learners need to feel that they have time to think and learn. So we as
educators should adapt ourselves to their pace, not them to our pace.
• Time is precious for both you and the learners, so make it meaningful for both. Ask your
learners what they want to know. If you teach them something they are interested in,
then it’s also time better spent for you.
• Accept that there will always be a level of unexpectedness in your teaching sessions.
Accept that you will not be able to talk about all the important things you wanted. Once
we start to let go of that need for control, we also become more relaxed, more interested
in what our learners actually think about things and our teaching becomes more deep and
meaningful. And paradoxically we may end up actually teaching much more.
• If you use slides, you can plan them not as a final structure for your session, but as a pool of
information on your topic that you can pick based on the needs and interests of the learners
– information that you can either skip or add, depending on how the discussion goes.
• For how to plan time for different activities in your session you can check the example
learning session format in the Trainer’s checklist.

Before reading the answer, think to yourself: how would you answer this?
What if learners themselves get anxious around time and expect the educator to “finish
all the slides” so they could get all the information planned for the session?
As we are so used to workshops being about “passing on the information” and just following
the slides of the educator, the feeling of not seeing all of those slides can create some
disappointment. But this is again one of the learning illusions. Having seen all the slides and
actually learning the topic that was on the slides are of course not the same things. This is
something that us as the educators probably need to explain explicitly: we have the structure,
general idea and expert knowledge of the topic, but we are here for the learners, their interests
and their pace and that can mean not talking about all the planned topics, but making sure that
what gets talked about, is discussed thoroughly and made sure that everyone understands it.
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• As a learner, what do you experience more: too much time
taken for discussions or not enough time? How does it
make you feel in those sessions?
• As an educator, what do you tend to do more: putting too
much time on discussions or not enough? Why do you
think so? Would you want to change it? Why or why not?
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TRAINING VIDEO GUIDE
FOR ZERO WASTE TRAINERS
This training video (12 minutes) gives an example of how a Zero Waste Trainer could
tackle misconceptions in a training setting and it can be used as a training tool for
practising teaching similar kinds of topics.
The simplified graph shown in the video is based on the findings from the report “Reuse Wins at
Events: Life-cycle analysis of reusable and single-use cups.”
In reality our training sessions are of course longer and more time can be taken to discuss
different topics and discuss them more in-depth, however in this video we have tried to capture
the essence of a good teaching practice on complicated issues such as zero waste.
An example exercise how this can be used in a training session.
1. Give a task to learners to practice:

You are giving a workshop to cafes and restaurants about sustainable alternatives for single-use
plastic take-away cups and tableware. You can already guess that biodegradable plastics might be
mentioned as a good solution. How do you approach this misconception?
The task can be organised in several ways:

A. Learners work in pairs or groups of three, where they do role play: one is the trainer, other(s)
the learner(s),
B. Learners work in pairs, where they simply discuss what their approach would be OR
C. Individual work, where learners write down their thoughts, which is then followed by
discussion in smaller groups or in one big group.
2. After the task, the video is shown. This is followed by another discussion, some
possible guiding questions:
• What did you notice in the video?

• What did the Trainer do differently in the video than you would have? What could be
the reasons for that? What would work better in reality?
• What was done well? What could be done better?
• What principles of communication/teaching can we deduct from here?
• How could the Trainer continue the workshop from here?
Some parts of the video can be shown again, or the video paused at certain moments, for example
when the graph with the life-cycle analysis is shown.
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The expert reasoning for the Trainer’s approach in the video that can be shared in the end:
• The Trainer starts the session by showing warmth towards the learners, listening and
showing support for the attempt to make environmentally friendly decisions, and simply
being sincerely interested in what is important to them – their business. This creates
relatedness from the beginning.
• Instead of starting with a presentation why biodegradable plastic is not a good solution
and what is, the Trainer asks clarifying questions to understand where the roots of the
misconception are – that biodegradable plastics create no waste and therefore cause
no environmental harm. This allows to address the underlying misconception of what
elements form the environmental impact of these products.
• The Trainer tries to avoid getting into too detailed discussion around issues with
composting problems and composition of biodegradable/compostable plastics, in order to
keep the focus on a larger conceptual change – that it’s the single-use, regardless of the
material, that is the problem. This is supporting the need for competence – getting too
technical with the details could be distracting, as the main concept around environmental
impact first needs to be formed by learners. If the learners would start asking more
questions about the details, then it can be explained or indicated clearly when these
questions will be answered or if not, why.
• The Trainer tries to delay sharing her own knowledge and continues asking questions from
the learners to get them to doubt their misconception, and gives them time to think.
• The Trainer writes down the arguments from the learners and based on that asks them to
predict what they think would have the biggest impact and why, before showing them the
data, maintaining their active thinking.
• When the data is presented, the Trainer again asks the learners to explain and define what
they see there. In the end it’s ideal if the learners themselves say what is the underlying
principle – that all kinds of single use items are a burden to the environment and refuse/
reuse is the best option.
• All questions from the learners are welcomed and recognised as valid concerns –
supporting relatedness. If they are not answered right away, it is explained when and why
they will be answered – supporting competence.
Anything else that you noticed?
For the purpose of the video’s length, the flow of the discussion in the video is a bit rushed and
faster than in reality. In a real life situation, in what moments and how could the Trainer act
differently than shown in the video, following the same principles mentioned above?
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TRAINER’S CHECKLIST
It’s difficult to always remember everything we need to take into account when designing and
facilitating learning processes. So this checklist could be helpful for remembering all the elements.
It’s also fine if you don’t manage to fulfill all of these things, as the learning contexts can be
different and not all is needed every time. Plus none of us are able to create perfect learning
sessions.
This checklist can be used when planning your training session and also when analysing it. It
can also be used to brainstorm ideas on how to embed each element into the session. If it feels
overwhelming, just pick a few which you’d like to focus on and practice.
You can first answer these questions with your own ideas and then consult with the other
chapters from the handbook, to get more ideas from there.
What is the intended learning outcome (what is the new knowledge or skill the learners
should gain)?
Make realistic estimations, take into account the length of your session, how much time is available for
deep thinking and practicing, how much or little do learners already know about the topic, what could be
the misconceptions that first need to be tackled.
What do you want the learners to start thinking about during the session?
In order to reach the planned learning outcome, what is the thinking process the learners should go
through, what should they realise and think about first? What should you ask and do to get them thinking
about it?
Do you activate learners’ thinking? How? When?

Easiest way to activate the brain is to let people speak, let them ask questions and give answers
themselves. Learners’ brains should be active and construct the new knowledge from the beginning of the
session. How much and what kind of interaction is there with the learners? When and how often do you
ask for their input?
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Do you get to know learners’ pre-existing knowledge and their misconceptions? How?
When?
Is there a possibility to get some information about their opinions and knowledge before the session?
That could already help to prepare the session which takes into account some existing misconceptions.
In any case, asking people their opinions and knowledge at the start of the session also helps to adjust
your session content on the go. What kind of questions could you ask to get the best overview of the pre-
knowledge and misconceptions?
Do you help the learners to challenge their misconceptions? How?

There is not always time to correct the misconceptions, but raising the right questions, offering
comparative data, asking to give examples and comparing different options could help to make learners
question their misconceptions.
Do you create possibilities for effort and mistake making for learners?
Having to solve some problem or task where the learners lack some skill or knowledge is a good way to
create mental effort which is needed for learning.
Do you help the learners construct new knowledge? How?

Solving a problem is knowledge constructing, but also asking to explain something or compare different
options, or creating opportunities when learners need to phrase a principle based on examples or create
definitions or find principles on their own.
Do you help to analyse and reflect on mistakes made and give expert feedback so that
learners understand what would be the right approach? How? When?
Providing expert guidance is a crucial part of mistake making, so that the learners won’t leave the session
confused and without full understanding of the issue. Reflection should have enough time after problem
solving, so that there can be discussion between educator and learners. Another option is to do it after
the session in writing.
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Do you assess if learning happened? How? When?
If we want the things we have taught to stay with learners for a longer time, we should assess it after
some time has passed, maybe with a follow up call or questionnaire. If that is not possible, what could be
the ways to test if the learners are able to put the learned things into practice during the learning activity?
Do you make sure that learners later also retrieve the learned things? How? When?
In order for information to stay in our long term memory, retrieval needs to be practiced – trying to recall
information from the memory. Of course it can be done right at the end of the session, but it is impactful
only if it is also done after there has been time to forget the info. So it has to be some time after the
session, which is not always possible to organise. If possible, reminder questionnaires can be sent or the
retrieval exercise made at the beginning of the next session.
Do you create relatedness with learners? How?

Relatedness means that the learners feel that you as the educator like and accept them. Creating
relatedness starts from the beginning of the session, how you create relationships with them and what
attitude you have towards all of them. And it needs to be kept throughout the session.
Do you support the autonomy of learners? How?

Autonomy means that the learning activity is meaningful for the learners, they understand its importance
for them and/or can find that meaning during the session. This means their point of views should be
heard, and they should be allowed to find that meaning themselves, and they have the possibility to
create and discover solutions themselves.
Do you support the competence of learners? How?

Competence means that learners understand what is happening in the learning activity, what tasks they
need to do and how to do them, and the tasks are at the right level (not too easy, not too hard). This
means giving clear instructions, being present to help and guide.
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EXAMPLE LEARNING SESSION FORMAT
In order to create some understanding how this all could work in reality, we have made this
example. This should not be taken as universal form, it is simply one example how these principles
could be put into practice. Timeshare can really depend on the specific group of learners and how
the flow of the session goes, where some activities may need more time than others.
Timeshare Activity Purpose
Before the Small questionnaire with open questions Getting to know learners’
session for learners about what they know and find pre-knowledge and possible
important about the topic misconceptions
5% Asking everyone their name, keeping eye Creating relatedness, supporting
contact, asking why they are here and their autonomy
connection to the topic, telling how you will
merge it with what you had in mind for the
session
10% Asking how they define the problem or issue, Getting to know learners’ pre-
what examples do they have knowledge, activating their thinking,
supporting competence and
autonomy
20% Asking questions about their opinions and Challenging misconceptions,
thoughts – why do they think so? Probing more supporting autonomy and
with questions, giving your examples, info, relatedness
data, asking to compare contradictory data or
information
25% Dividing participants into groups and giving Creating effort, room for mistakes,
them a problem to solve on the topic allowing participants to construct
their own knowledge
25% Discussion and feedback based on the group Allowing participants to construct
work, asking input from other groups, if they their own knowledge, supporting
solved things differently, asking more probing autonomy
questions
15% Giving expert feedback and factual input on the Analysis of the mistakes made,
correct solutions and data, asking participants constructing new knowledge,
to reflect upon it, guiding with questions supporting autonomy
Throughout Trying to see things from the perspective Supporting relatedness and
the session of your participants, before saying their competence
understanding is wrong, asking why they think
so, correcting it politely and explaining why,
staying calm and warm towards participants,
acknowledging their emotions
1-2 weeks Sending feedback questionnaire, asking to Retrieval exercise, assessing the
after recall from memory also main takeaways and learning
how to put them into practice
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Not everything is always possible to put into practice and sometimes we need to choose priorities
in our workshop design.
What would be the few priority things you absolutely need to do?
What would you pick from the text above?
These are the few things we recommend and that are doable in almost any situation:
• Ask for learners’ pre-existing knowledge and build relatedness – open with
questions about what they know about the topic, if and what interests them
about it. If nothing else, at least you will learn something about them and how
they think about the topic.
• Delay your own answers and knowledge. If someone has questions, ask first if someone
else has an answer, what they think the answer is, give them time to think, and only then
give your thoughts.
• Even if you are presenting to a big audience where interaction possibilities are limited,
you can ask people to write down their own answers first or ask them to have a short
discussion with a person next to them or use different digital tools like Mentimeter to get
their input.
Few finishing thoughts:
The one who speaks most, gets to learn most. It should be the learners, not the educator.
We as educators are there for the learners, not the learners there for us. Learning activity
is their process and should be accommodated to their needs.
And finally:
Don’t forget to breathe and tell yourself: none of us can control everything.
Some things we simply must let go. And it’s also ok :)
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TEACHING MINI-SESSIONS
The teaching mini-sessions were designed as a final activity in the Zero Waste Trainers training
event, in order to practice all the competences needed for being a Zero Waste Trainer. This gives
the learners a life-like, yet safe environment for testing the level of their skills and understanding.
These are the main elements of the sessions:
• Design a teaching session using the principles taught in the training,
• Test and experiment new ways of teaching,
• Practice supporting the three basic psychological needs of learners,
• Learn from own and others’ mistakes, analyse them in safe environment,
• Share teaching ideas and methods with each other through practice,
• Practice analysing own and others’ teaching.
For better time management but also to make it easier for learners, the sessions are recommended
to be conducted in pairs. In this way, the pair can exchange thoughts and ideas gained from the
whole training course, which also supports their further learning. It is recommended that the
learners can choose their own partner as it’s important that the pair works well together. The
whole group including the trainers will assume the role of learners in these sessions.
Each pair can choose their own zero waste topic they want to use in their session and they can
also assign roles to the learners depending on their choice of teaching sessions (municipality
workers, event organisers, new volunteers of local zero waste group, etc).
Main timeframe for teaching sessions:
Time Activity
At least half a day Find your teaching partner and prepare the session – trainers are available
(4h) during this time for mentoring and consultation
30-40 min Per teaching session
15 min Feedback and analysis for each pair from the trainers and the
whole group
If the training schedule allows, the teaching sessions could last longer, in order to give a better
real life feel, but with a bigger group of people that can be difficult. If the group is large and
there is enough room, then one option is also to have parallel teaching sessions and trainers are
divided between them, so that all sessions are observed by 1-2 trainers. The sessions shouldn’t
be shorter than 30 min, in order to give some time to try out more things.
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Up to two days could be dedicated to these sessions, so that every learner can have a practical
experience. Although the session set up is the same for all the pairs, experience shows that
everyone will approach the task differently, even if the specific topic is the same, and therefore
there is no fear that having a full day of these teaching sessions will get monotonous.
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RESOURCES FOR
ZERO WASTE
AMBASSADORS
ZERO WASTE BASICS
• What do you think zero waste is?

• What is for sure not zero waste?
• What are the most common zero waste examples that you
know of?
• What could be the guiding principles of zero waste?
• Why is zero waste important?
Zero waste can mean many things to different people but the key connection is that zero waste
is a goal that is pragmatic and visionary, local and global, at the same time. Inspired by nature,
the zero waste philosophy works in an ecosystemic way to maximise what is available in the
community alongside building local resilience and increasing the natural capital available for
future generations.
How would you define zero waste? How do you usually explain it to people?
Can you guess the missing words in the most used definition of zero waste?
“Zero waste is the of all resources by means of production, consumption,

reuse and of products, packaging and without burning, and with no
to land, water or air that threaten the environment or .”
Make your guesses, read on and see if you can get some hints in the text before reading
the full definition on the bottom of the page.
Zero waste aims at rethinking the way we produce and consume in order to preserve the value
and energy embedded in our planet’s resources whilst enabling civilization to flourish and prosper.
While waste management aims at turning waste into resources, zero waste is about keeping
resources from becoming waste.
It’s also about designing waste – and the toxics and inefficiencies associated with it – out of the
system. In a zero waste system, the value of materials and products is kept within the community
where they are used over and over again. Any technology that doesn’t allow for materials to be
taken back to circulation is deemed as unacceptable and phased out (e.g. incineration which does
not support the zero waste thinking). Meanwhile, recycling is important to close the loop on a
smaller scale and it should be seen as an end-of-pipe solution because we cannot recycle our way
out of a wasteful society.
Why is recycling not enough for zero waste (vision)?
If you are not sure of the answer, see if you can find it from the rest of the chapter.
And here is the full zero waste definition:1

Zero waste is the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production,
consumption, reuse and recovery of products, packaging and materials without
burning, and with no discharges to land, water or air that threaten the environment
or human health.
1
Zero Waste Definition, Zero Waste International Alliance (2018)
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What is the difference between your wording and the official one?
Would you be able to explain all its elements?
For example: what is the difference between recycling and recovery?
The main waste terminology in the EU is defined in the Waste Framework Directive.2 This is the
legal basis everyone working with waste in the EU has to follow:
Recovery – any waste management operation which results in waste serving a

useful purpose by replacing other materials which would otherwise have been used.
Recovery operations are listed as R-codes R1 to R 13 for legal purposes.
It’s important to note that under recovery we can distinguish:
• Material recovery – any process of obtaining materials from waste that still have
useful physical or chemical properties and can be reused or recycled for some purpose.
• Energy or thermal recovery – conversion of waste into usable heat, electricity, or fuel.
Examples are incineration, pyrolysis and gasification.
• Chemical recovery – decomposition of mainly mixed plastic waste to new polymers.
It converts pyrolysis oil or gasification gas into feedstock for production of new
plastic materials.
Disposal – any operation which is not recovery even where the operation has as a
secondary consequence the reclamation of substances or energy. Disposal operations
are listed as D-codes D1 to D 15. Landfilling is a disposal method.
Treatment – recovery or disposal operations, including preparation prior to
recovery or disposal.
Recycling – any recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into
products, materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes. It includes
the reprocessing of organic material. It does not include energy recovery or landfilling.
Reuse – any operation by which products or components that are not waste are used
again for the same purpose for which they were conceived.
Waste treatment methods can be listed in hierarchies, where they generally lay down a priority
order of what constitutes the best overall environmental option in waste legislation and policy. In
addition to EU waste hierarchy defined by the EU Waste Framework Directive there is also Zero
Waste hierarchy.
The fact that recycling is not the first solution towards zero waste, is described within the Zero
Waste hierarchy.3 Take a look at the Zero Waste hierarchy together with EU waste hierarchy.
2
Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC (amended with Directive 2018/851)
3
The Zero Waste Masterplan, Zero Waste Europe (2020)
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What are their differences and similarities? What could be the reasons for the differences?
EU waste hierarchy Zero Waste hierarchy
Refuse, rethink, redesign

Most favoured
Prevention Reduce and reuse

Product, not waste
Preparing for reuse Preparing for reuse
Recycling Recycling, composting, anaerobic digestion
Other recovery e.g. energy recovery Material and chemical recovery
Residuals management
Disposal
Least favoured Unacceptable
It is important to note that while we prefer to use the Zero Waste hierarchy, the EU waste hierarchy
is the one officially in use in the EU and it’s the one that decision makers and waste management
sector mostly refer to. So as Zero Waste Ambassadors we need to be ready to clarify and explain
their differences and reasons for it.
Besides the most obvious visual difference in the direction of the pyramid, the EU waste hierarchy
has two steps less and is less circular. The Zero Waste hierarchy gives more importance to the
preservation of high quality products and materials, plus optimizing residual (mixed) waste
treatment before opting for disposal. And the reason why the pyramids are presented in opposite
directions is also a form of prioritising – in zero waste we want to show the focus on prevention,
and minimisation of disposal. On the next page you can see a more detailed overview of the Zero
Waste hierarchy.
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Zero Waste Hierarchy
Best use
Refuse what we don’t need and change the way we produce and
Refuse/Rethink/Redesign consume by redesigning business models, goods and packaging in
order to reduce resource-use and waste.
Minimise the quantity, toxicity and ecological footprint and any
Reduce and reuse operation by which products or components that are not waste are
used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived.
Preparation for reuse Checking, cleaning or repairing operations, by which products or

components of products that have become waste are prepared so that
they can be re-used without any other pre-processing.
Recycling/composting/ High quality material recovery from separately collected waste streams.
anaerobic digestion
Material and chemical Technologies to recover materials from mixed waste into new valuable
recovery materials in an environmental sound way.
Residuals What cannot be recovered from mixed waste is biologically stabilised

management prior to landfilling.
Options that don’t allow for material recovery, have high

Unacceptable environmental impact and create lock in effects that threaten
the transition to zero waste: waste-to-energy incineration, co-
incineration, plastic to fuel, landfilling of non-stabilised waste,
gasification, pyrolysis, illegal dumping, open burning and littering.
Worst use
Zero Waste Hierarchy has been developed together with Zero Waste International Alliance4
4
A Zero Waste Hierarchy for Europe, Zero Waste Europe (2019)
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ZERO WASTE PRIORITIES: PREVENTION,
REDUCTION AND REUSE
The best waste is the waste that is not produced in the first place. Hence intervention at the
design stage is key to prevent having to manage waste that shouldn’t exist. For example, food
waste can be reduced with the right training, incentives and procurement policies in canteens,
restaurants, hotels, hospitals and homes. Packaging-free shops and local markets can prevent
packaging and food waste whilst providing fresh food. Most single-use packaging is superfluous
and can be easily replaced with the right intervention at the city level. Coffee cups to go, containers
for take-away food, throw-away water bottles or single-use straws are just a few examples of
items that can be replaced with solutions that don’t generate waste.
City authorities can also play a key role in facilitating the roll-out of refillable systems for
beverages and reuse systems for nappies, as well as guaranteering availability to alternative
waste-free sanitary items within local shops. For durable goods such as electronics, furniture
or clothes, it is key to encourage repair and reuse operations in the form of second-hand shops
or reuse activities and platforms both offline and online. Using the purchasing power of public
procurement to change the market, promoting paperless offices, establishing material banks and
libraries for tools are other ways to prevent waste from being generated at local level.
Additional reading:
Putting second hand first – the guidance from Zero Waste Europe outlines the key
principles that every reuse strategy should prioritise, the benefits these strategies
can bring for a municipality and highlights examples of how similar policies have been
successfully implemented throughout Europe.
Zero waste is a vision of hope for the future.

Zero waste is an attitude.
More than a destination, zero waste is a journey, and it is open to anyone.
Cities, restaurants, hotels, events, communities, and individuals worldwide are already proving
that a better world is possible by adopting the zero waste philosophy.
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1. But in reality we can’t get our waste production to zero, so isn’t zero waste a utopia?
We can’t just close all our landfills…
2. What is the difference between zero waste and the circular economy? Are they the
same thing?
3. Why can’t we just focus on recycling?
1. But in reality we can’t get our waste production to zero, so isn’t zero waste a utopia? We
can’t just close all our landfills…
You will say zero waste is an illusion and you are right. A waste-free society is not a goal, but
a journey. Zero waste should be understood as a mindset, not as a physical outcome. There
is no simple transition and it does not happen overnight, but with small steps to continuously
reduce waste generation and improve waste separate collection. Zero waste has been
increasingly adopted throughout the world by both urban and rural communities. In Europe,
over 450 municipalities have committed to this journey through implementing impactful
policies, community education and participation, and other action supporting that waste
generation is taken to the minimum and from the waste generated, as much as possible is
put back to circulation. In some Italian cities, like Bitetto, the separate waste collection rate
increased from 16% to 78% while producing just 79 kg of non-recyclable (residual) waste per
inhabitant in the period of 4 years. Bitetto has achieved these impressive results in such a
short time through economic incentives to produce less waste (Pay-As-You-Throw), and by
ensuring that citizens have a wide range of accessible information available to them to better
understand the system, their waste generation, and how to reduce it. For more best practices
see The State of Zero Waste Municipalities Report.
2. What is the difference between zero waste and the circular economy? Are they the same
thing?
While they both have the same goals, they are two different models which complement
each other in multifaceted ways. A circular economy is one that does not waste or pollute,
an economy that keeps products and materials in use and rebuilds the natural capital of our
ecosystems. This can be achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse,
remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling. This is in contrast to a linear economy which is a
‘take, make, dispose’ model of production.
Zero waste is guided by principles known as the Zero Waste hierarchy which is focused on
waste prevention that encourages the redesign of resource life-cycles so that all products
are reused. Zero waste is a translation of circular economy or a practical toolkit that can be
meaningfully implemented on the ground. Zero waste strategies perfectly integrate the circular
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economy narrative into local level solutions, providing concrete guidelines and policies that
municipalities can implement within their communities to ensure a healthier environment.5
3. Why can’t we just focus on recycling?
Although we might reach high rates of separate waste collection, do we know how much of
it is actually recycled? It is true that with source separation it is possible to increase recycling
rates, especially when we talk about the recycling of biowaste (composting or digestion).
However, when it comes to manmade materials like single-use plastics (e.g. wrappers or
straws), real recycling happens very rarely. In most cases such materials with high calorific
value are incinerated due to being unwanted – or downcycled because the new material has
lost purity in comparison with virgin counterparts. Plus, recycling’s effectiveness depends on
the material type, economic value of the output materials (is there a market for them?) and
safety for the environment and people. For example aluminium and glass are theoretically
infinitely recyclable into material of the same quality, while paper and cardboard only enable a
handful of cycles. So in order to reduce the material and energy consumption without reducing
living standards, working on waste prevention, minimisation, raising awareness, lasting
product design, proper treatment, Extended Producer Responsibility, etc. is sorely needed.
For more information about recycling see the Waste treatment chapter.

• In your experience what is the hardest thing to explain to
people about zero waste? Why do you think it is so?
• What is the difference between looking at zero waste as a
lifestyle and as systemic change?
• What good examples do you have from reuse and
prevention?
5
Creating a methodology for zero waste municipalities, Zero Waste Europe (2020)
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THE ZERO WASTE
CITIES MODEL
• Why focus on cities/municipalities with zero waste instead

of individuals or national governments?
• What do you think makes a Zero Waste City?
• Where are the Zero Waste Cities in Europe today?
• What would be the reasons for a city to want to become
zero waste? What would be the reasons why they
wouldn’t?
‘Zero Waste City’
Any municipality who has committed to become zero waste by a specific
timeframe, through the implementation of local policies that create a system which
simply does not generate waste in the first place.
“Zero Waste Cities” is a term used by Zero Waste Europe and their Zero Waste Cities programme,
which is dedicated to help cities and communities transition towards zero waste. It brings together
an European-wide collective of expert knowledge for local stakeholders to implement best
practices, as well as providing mentoring and recognition for municipalities wishing to implement
zero waste strategies. Zero Waste Cities is jointly run by Zero Waste Europe in Brussels and its
member organisations throughout Europe. It is worth noting, though, that the Zero Waste Cities
movement is global, with other municipalities also committing to zero waste and implementing
activities in other parts of the world. For more information about the Zero Waste Cities work
outside of Europe, check the website of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).
A great focus is placed on municipalities as this is where waste is created, managed, and most
visualised for the majority of people – and, therefore, is where the biggest impact can be made.
In most countries, municipalities are the ones responsible for the collection, management,
and reduction of waste in their area, organised via public, private, or hybrid waste companies.
Furthermore, greater emphasis has been given to zero waste at the local level as this helps
empower community stakeholders on their collective journey. By working with local households,
businesses, schools, and the entire community, municipalities can embed zero waste behaviours
and policies within the community, ensuring the long-term strength and viability of such strategies.
Ambitious EU legislation regarding waste and recycling is in place today, whilst the EU’s Green
Deal and Circular Economy Action Plan 2.0 will provide further requirements and incentives for
Member States to transition towards a circular economy. While national governments are the ones
responsible for reaching these goals, their fulfilment will require local authorities to accelerate and
change gears in the coming years. This means that prevention and reuse policies are designed
and implemented effectively, whilst the separate collection of high-quality recyclable materials
becomes the norm. With lowering levels of waste generated in Europe, this will facilitate the
phasing out of disposing waste into landfills and incinerators, with increased emphasis placed
on the positive impact this will have on achieving the EU’s target of becoming carbon-neutral by
2050. For more information about what targets are set by the European waste policy, check the
Waste policy and advocacy chapter.
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DEFINITION OF A ZERO WASTE CITY
What do Zero Waste Cities do differently from other cities?
What would your city need to do differently?
Zero Waste Cities all hold one central feature: the desire to keep improving and optimising their
existing strategies to reduce waste even further. Whether a municipality is at 7% or 70% separate
collection rates, it can always be better, and it is this desire which sits at the heart of our approach.
The foundation of a Zero Waste City is an effective waste collection, one that allows for high-
quality recyclable materials to be collected, including most notably organics. This is a door-to-
door (kerb/curbside) separate collection system, which delivers that quality.
Why is the door-to-door collection most effective, and why does it give the best quality
materials for recycling?
If you are unsure of your answer, you can read more about this from the Waste collection chapter.
However, Zero Waste Cities go beyond just recycling by creating and maintaining systems
that prevent waste from occuring in the first place. Policies that prioritise reuse are adopted,
such as laundry systems for cloth nappies, whilst municipalities can set a legal and regulatory
framework to enable business-led solutions to flourish, such as Deposit Return Schemes and
packaging-free shops.
Furthermore, a key distinction of our Zero Waste Cities is that they commit to work towards
phasing out their use of rigid residual (mixed) waste management facilities that do not allow for
the constant improvement of waste prevention and recycling rates. Zero waste programmes, in
the long-run, only accept residual waste management facilities that:
• Maximise the recovery of recyclables,
• May be progressively converted into recycling platforms,
• Avoid any thermal treatment, which is considered as “destructive disposal” and a
loss of resources.
All Zero Waste Cities implement policies which prioritise the upper end of the waste hierarchy.
THE FRAMEWORK OF A ZERO WASTE CITY

Zero Waste Cities have acted as pioneers for others, consolidating the principles for operationally
optimised, cost competitive schemes. Key practices within these strategies include:
• The separate collection of dry recyclables.
• The separate collection of organics.
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• The implementation of Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) schemes or other economic
incentives.
• Reuse and repair initiatives.
One key element to highlight is residual waste audits, as they expose materials that are
hard to recycle/reuse, and this is a mighty powerful tool in generating messages to industry
representatives, reminding them of their responsibility for redesigning such products that cannot
be reused, repaired, or recycled. Furthermore, these audits have been used to promote new
business models that provide solutions to the most problematic materials, such as centralised
washing services for cloth nappies and rental services for reusable tableware.
A residual waste audit or assessment

is the process of understanding what remains in the non-recycled bin. The process
includes collecting residual waste from a certain % of local households, and then
analysing this to collect data on the type and volume of materials found.
Residual waste assessments are fundamental within a local zero waste programme, as they
help municipalities understand what continues to not be recycled. Local authorities can then use
this data to better design and optimise the system, whether that’s reducing collection rounds for
residual waste or increasing educational activities on the types of plastic that can be recycled but
may currently still be put in the residual waste bin.
An example of using a waste audit for zero waste:
Capannori, Italy was the first municipality to have formally committed to

a zero waste programme in 2007. After reaching around 80% separate
collection, audits by their Zero Waste Research Centre found a growing
number of coffee capsules which are impossible to recycle. The information
was passed on to industrial coffee-makers, who started dedicated research for
reusable or compostable capsules (which can be collected together with organics).
Whilst separate collection for recycling and composting has been the cornerstone for local
implementation of zero waste programmes (it’s effectively the “low-hanging fruit”), lately we
have seen a growing focus on reduction and reuse. This will surely be the next step to make a dent
in the already minimised amount of residual waste, so as to make further progress towards the
magic number: “zero”. Propelled by the new vision of a circular economy, an increased emphasis
on reduction and reuse is the foundation of a long-term roadmap to sustainability.
In the meantime, optimised kerbside (door-to-door collection) and PAYT programmes are helping
us minimise disposal and keep materials/resources in the loop in their best quality for as long as
possible. Municipalities that already achieve 80-90% separate collection rates, and consistently
less than 100 kg/person residuals a year (in both rural and urban areas), show us that not only is
it sensible to adopt a zero waste approach, but that it is also possible and effective.
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On a practical level, we talk about 10 steps for a municipality to become zero waste.
Before checking the list below, what kind of 10-step plan would you make for a municipality
starting from scratch?
10 steps towards becoming a zero waste municipality

1. Source separation – beginning at the household and business levels (the source of
municipal solid waste generation), individuals separate recyclable materials from
non-recyclable ones.
2. Door-to-door collection – it is then the responsibility of municipalities to organise
the collection of as many recyclable materials as possible directly from households/
businesses. This includes paper/cardboard, plastics, metals, glass and, most
importantly, organics.
3. Composting – once food and garden waste is being separately collected and therefore
of a high quality, Zero Waste Cities should establish infrastructure and incentives for
community members to compost. This could be done either at home or via community
compost centres; if neither are suitable, larger composting sites can be established.
4. Recycling – with higher amounts of recyclable materials being collected, which are
less contaminated due to their separation and, therefore, of a higher quality to the
secondary material market, municipalities should be able to operate effective recycling
systems that form the foundation of a Zero Waste City. Revenues can increase and
the amount of waste sent to landfill/incineration can be dramatically reduced in a
short period of time.
5. Community reuse and repair centres – every Zero Waste City should recognise
that recycling alone is not enough, and therefore a culture and system needs to be
established locally which prioritises reuse and repair. One of the biggest policies
available to municipalities is to create community reuse and repair centres, where
individuals can bring materials that otherwise would have been previously discarded,
so that they can be repaired and prepared for reuse again.
6. Incentivise waste reduction – economic incentives should be introduced to support
the community to reduce their waste further. Most commonly this is done via a Pay-
As-You-Throw system, which introduces a higher fee for households and businesses
that generate the most waste. However, many other options are available to local
authorities, such as rewarding homes which compost with discounts to local services
and businesses.
7. Zero waste research – zero waste systems make waste visible. Cities adopting such
strategies should continually conduct regular research and analysis (e.g. residual
waste assessments) into the waste that is not being recycled. With this information,
municipalities are in a much better position to understand what isn’t being recycled, so
that policies can be put in place to address and overcome these remaining challenges.
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8. Banning single-use items– municipalities have direct control over the events and
activities which are held in public spaces and buildings. One of the best ways to
reduce waste and also send a strong message to the community is for municipalities
to ban all single-use materials in all public spaces, events and buildings, with reusable
alternatives offered instead.
9. Residual separation and stabilisation facility – an important aspect of managing the
dwindling amount of residual waste that’s being generated is its proper stabilisation.
Stabilisation means that residual waste has been properly treated to remove as many
recyclables as possible and to reduce its fermentability. It’s a key method in helping
reduce subsequent toxics and greenhouse gas emissions from arising once the waste
is landfilled. All Zero Waste Cities recognise the incompatibility of incineration within
a society that is circular and zero-carbon. Therefore, alternative facilities should
be established to conduct a post-sorting on the residual waste and maximise the
recovery of recyclable materials, which is then further supplemented by the biological
stabilisation of the remaining waste.
10. Transition to safe landfill – with the remaining residual waste biologically stabilised,
this should be sent to a safe landfill instead of any form of burning. Over time, as
the effectiveness of municipalities’ reuse and recycling systems increase, the volume
of residual waste will continue to decrease and, therefore, reduce the need for, and
impact of, landfill sites.
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Example of a Zero Waste City compared to a city without such a commitment
City with a traditional

waste management system City with a zero waste system
Different recyclable materials collected Recyclable materials are separately collected in

altogether in one bag or bin different bags and bins
Citizens put their recyclable materials into Citizens separate recyclables into bins at home
shared bins on the street which are collected from the kerbside
Citizens do not compost their organic waste Citizens are provided with equipment and
education on how to compost at home, whilst
community compost centres are established
with the help of the city
All citizens pay a standard waste fee Citizens pay a varied waste fee dependent on
the volume of waste they generate
The city has a fixed long-term contract with a The city has a flexible residual waste disposal
landfill or incinerator option that does not lock in the need for
continued waste generation
Businesses who want to offer reusable Businesses who want to offer reusable
alternatives must do this by themselves alternatives are provided with financial and/
or knowledge support and/or put in contact
with companies that can provide the reusable
products/infrastructure
The city does not have any data on what waste The city conducts regular residual waste
is not recycled assessments to understand the composition of
the current non-recycled waste, and uses this
to inform future policy-making processes
Public events, buildings, and spaces offer Based on a common policy, public events,
single-use items, such as cutlery and cups buildings, and spaces only offer reusable
options
Citizens are unaware of where they could take Citizens can easily access information on a
Items that need repairing, which will otherwise large number of reuse and repair opportunities
be discarded and waste within the city
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Benefits of becoming a Zero Waste City
There are several potential and meaningful benefits available to local communities who adopt
a zero waste approach. We break these down into 3 main categories: economic, environmental
and social.
Before checking the list below, what benefits would you write under each category?
Depending on the local context, the benefits for each city will differ. For example, for municipalities
with Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) systems, the economic benefits will differ to those
where no EPR exists. However, here are the general benefits from which communities have
benefited over the past decade:
Economic
• Reduced operational costs for municipalities as the collection system
becomes more optimised with less residual waste.
• Higher revenues for the municipalities as they have a higher volume and better quality of
recyclable materials to sell onto the secondary market.
• Fewer fees having to be paid by the municipality to send the residual waste to landfill or
incineration.
• Fewer capital investment required for large scale incineration technologies, with zero
waste infrastructure offering a much cheaper and yet more effective methodology for
reducing waste.
• Zero waste systems create more jobs throughout the whole supply chain and therefore
municipalities can increase local employment. On average, zero waste policies create 10x
more jobs than landfill or incinerator alternatives.1
Environmental
• Obviously, zero waste policies result in less waste generation. This means
less pollution, via discarded waste, leaks into our oceans, land, soil, and our
air – doing vast amounts of damage to our planet’s biodiversity and ability to
fight climate change.2
• Zero waste systems produce less greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions throughout the whole
cycle of a product. If a material can be reused, then there is no need for extraction and
manufacturing, which damage landscapes and biodiversity and are huge sources of GhG
emissions. On the other hand, the incineration of materials continues to unnecessarily
contribute towards climate change, as do ongoing methane emissions from organic
material ending up in landfills instead of composting sites (proper composting is chemically
a different – managed – process from what happens to organic waste in landfills).
1
Ribeiro-Broomhead, J. & Tangri, N. (2021). Zero Waste and Economic Recovery: The Job Creation Potential of Zero Waste
Solutions, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
2
The True Toxic Toll: Biomonitoring of incineration emissions, Zero Waste Europe (2021)
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• A system using reusable materials and less single-use packaging is one that has much
less toxic chemicals in circulation, which are doing severe damage to the natural
environment and human health. Chemicals found in many forms of single-use packaging
are proven to be dangerously harmful to human health There is also growing evidence
showcasing the negative impact that toxic emissions from incineration plants are having
on local communities.3
Social
• Zero waste jobs are jobs in sustainable fields of work, therefore helping to
protect the livelihoods of those involved in the long-term. By supporting
businesses and social enterprises which focus on reuse, repair, redesign
and recycling, local authorities can help empower their communities – integrating and
upskilling individuals into the wider community.
• Zero Waste Cities are cleaner and safer than most of today’s cities, bringing pride and a
sense of collective togetherness to the community. For example, community composting,
repair cafés, cooking with food discarded by supermarkets, to name just a few, are all
zero waste activities which help bring the community together and build its resilience as a
collective unit.
• Zero waste is all about local solutions to manage resources. This means investing in new
business opportunities that design waste out of the system, in awareness-raising and
education together with optimising separate collection to manage the waste locally. This
is in stark contrast to traditional waste management, which is capital investment- and
technology-intensive. This means investing money in creating local jobs that cannot be
delocalised later down the line.
The exact benefits available to each municipality that wants to become zero waste will differ
every time, depending on the specific context and regulatory environment. However, in typical
European conditions, adopting a well-designed zero waste programme will help local authorities
reduce costs of the waste system, create local jobs and, obviously, reduce the volume of waste
that is generated.
Additional reading:
Zero Waste Masterplan – an in-depth introduction to zero waste and what it means
for municipalities.
Zero Waste Cities Certification – launched in 2021, the Certification provides the most
robust and structured framework on what a Zero Waste City is.
State of Zero Waste Municipalities Report – the most comprehensive overview of the current
network of Zero Waste Cities and the impact they are having.
3
Food Contact Materials, Zero Waste Europe
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Zero Waste Cities best practice case studies – presentations about the best examples of zero
waste at the local level.
Zero Waste Cities website – full of resources on the topic and the number of Zero Waste Cities
across Europe.
The Keep it Clean Plan – a practical guidebook on how to start implementing zero waste on
different levels of society.
Factsheet on the cost effectiveness of zero waste – showcasing the economic benefits of
zero waste.

1. How do I know where my city stands according to the waste management system
and policies?
2. How can I get started in supporting and planning the transition of my city to zero waste?
3. What are the best examples from European Zero Waste Cities?
1. How do I know where my city stands according to the waste management system
and policies?
For potential scenarios and suggested steps please refer to:
• The Masterplan (part 3) where you will find the questions to help a municipality get
started and examples of different starting points in different contexts around Europe.
• These 3 starting scenarios to help municipalities overcome the most common challenges
facing them today.
2. How can I get started in supporting and planning the transition of my city to zero waste?
Please refer to the 10 clear steps for designing a zero waste plan at the municipal level, as
well as the documents linked above as they each provide a good overview of how to begin
with your local municipality. The main resource is the Zero Waste Masterplan by Zero Waste
Europe and the toolkit Creating a methodology for zero waste municipalities, which includes
the savings calculator that has been designed to help you visualise and understand the
benefits that adopting zero waste policies can bring to your local area.
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3. What are the best examples from European Zero Waste Cities?
You can find many examples from State of Zero Waste Municipalities Report and various case
studies of zero waste frontrunners on how a city can move towards zero waste.

• How are responsibilities divided among different waste
management stakeholders in your country?
• Who could be your main allies in establishing a Zero Waste
City? Who would likely oppose it the most?
• What initiatives are already in your city that could form
part of a Zero Waste City ecosystem?
• What are the next steps, if any, that you want to take in
your work regarding this topic?
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WASTE DATA BASICS
• How would you define/describe waste data?

• What could be the most important data about waste?
• What data would you need to know in order to give good
zero waste advice?
• From where to get the best data?
• How can we know if the data is reliable and of good
quality?
PURPOSE OF COLLECTING WASTE DATA – WHY COLLECT DATA?
The more we know about our waste, the better we can manage it. Data is essential in setting
recycling and recovery targets, calculating current waste treatment trends and identifying
potential problem areas. In general, good data helps saving money. Accurate waste data provides
a foundation for implementing effective waste management.
Consider this exercise:
Imagine you wanted to reduce the amount of food waste in your city. It’s relatively easy to
come up with preventive measures, but how would you know you are on track? Where and
how would you get the data to verify the impact and even to be sure action needs to be taken
in the first place?
What would your plan of action be? You can also write it down and see if you can get some
more hints from this chapter.
TYPICAL WASTE DATA TYPES – DATA ABOUT WHAT?
In general, all waste from a given country is called ‘total waste’. One of the essential
tasks would be discovering what categories, types and fractions are there:
• Waste category is a broad class of waste with common characteristics like
residential waste (coming from residential areas, connected to our everyday
life or households) or construction and demolition waste. Even though different in
details, the composition of such waste is predictable.
• Waste types are a subdivision of waste categories. For example, residential waste
contains waste from households and waste from gardens.
• Waste streams define where the waste goes. At home, citizens source separate waste
into fractions, which are then collected and managed as waste streams.
• (Waste) material fractions are visually sortable materials: paper, plastic, glass, food
waste, etc. Usually this is enough to sort waste according to such categories at home.
Each material fraction, however, contains many sub-fractions: office paper, newspaper,
books, magazines, cardboard, corrugated cardboard. Sub-fractions are important on
the material market where prices are specified at a high detail level depending on the
material specifications. Material fractions are sometimes separated into sub-fractions
at the source and further separated by quality classes in waste sorting facilities. It is a
good exercise to check the local market of waste materials to see which quality classes
are most appreciated.
• Substances defines the content material that can be described in a laboratory, like the
content of water, dry matter or ash, nitrogen, heavy metals, calorific value, etc., or for
instance the content of heavy metals in each waste plastic fractions.
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Overview on how different waste data types relate to each other:
Waste category
type Waste type

type
fraction
type type
fraction
fraction
fraction
Waste fraction
substance substance
Waste stream
source
substance
substance
disposal
collection
substance
treatment
Typically, waste quantities are reported as:

• Wet weight, since this is easily measured. Wet weight is measured at the scale after
collection and it is subject to change: it reduces because of evaporation or due to biological
degradation; or increases due to rainfall.
• Volume based, since volume is easily estimated. Volume can be easily reduced by
compacting; therefore it is not a reliable parameter. Knowing the bulk density (kg/m3)
allows transformation between mass and volume.
• Chemical composition from the laboratory is usually obtained from very small quantities
(few grams) and expressed on a dry weight basis (dry matter, dry solids, total solids). It is
accurate compared to errors, which are made in sample collection.
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WASTE DATA SOURCES – WHERE TO GET DATA?
Follow the waste stream and split the responsibilities at each lifecycle stage between possible
actors. Therefore, who is responsible for collection (of every type of waste), where these waste
streams end up (waste sorting facility, material recovery facility, composting site, incinerator or a
landfill)? You can ask for data from the responsible body or from the authority to whom it reports.
In the case of a public entrepreneur, the data is likely public. In the case of private companies,
the data is public as much as the contract allows or as transparent as the company is. If we do
not know the responsibilities then we do not know with whom to talk about zero waste. This
means we need to study the existing contract of waste hauler (if public). What kind of wastes are
covered by these, and which wastes are not covered? It is also important to specify waste types
which are separately addressed (e.g. household hazardous waste) and which collection is a duty
of some other organisation (e.g. Extended Producer Responsibility organisation) to understand
who is doing what, where and if there are any significant gaps.
First we need to know all the waste which is collected. Note: waste generated does not equal
to waste collected. The waste hauler needs this data for calculating fees. The treatment facility
needs this data periodically for design adjustments and frequently for calculating fees. Data on
kg per street address is not very useful, unless we know the number of inhabitants per address.
Costs associated with waste are at the centre of many calculations and decisions about how to
run waste management. It can be insightful to calculate the total sum per year of waste related
costs in a particular municipality. One should know how much a person or household is paying for
waste collection and treatment/disposal. One should know what is the current gate fee1 at the
landfill or incinerator. Cost of any collection and/or treatment method proposed by the Zero Waste
Ambassador, which is comparable to existing one, would be acceptable to waste producers.
Some waste data is collected because it is mandatory. This is when authorities require information
i.e. the types of waste being disposed of at landfills, the amount of waste that is incinerated, and
what materials are treated by the recycling sector. Publicly available data can be found in national
databases. Also Eurostat offers different datasets, for example: waste generation and waste
treatment, in all Member States, key waste streams and shipment statistics.
DATA ACCURACY AND PRECISION – IS THE DATA RELIABLE?

Perfectly representative data is rare, because of:
• Spatial (area-wise) variation of waste;
• Temporal (time-dependant) variations;
• Uncertainty (duration of waste audit, amount of waste studied, sampling errors).
1
Gate fee is the fee paid at the reception to any waste treatment plant. It does not include transportation cost,
but it does include the cost for processing of waste and taxes.
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It is important to also know the age of the data, the best being of course data from the latest year.
Older data series, however, offer trendlines. So we should not ignore data from the past. Data can
be illustrated by drawing a time series chart to identify basic trends more easily.
One common pitfall involves data about separate collection and recycling. People often refer
to them interchangeably when talking about collection performance, so it is important to verify
whether the numbers are for actual recycling or just separate collection. The latter is a good
proxy, but because of process losses and impurities it will always be lower than the former.
Other waste related targets need scrutiny for the same reasons. Sometimes legal definitions
are involved, sometimes what is actually being measured is surprisingly different from what the
name suggests and sometimes there are multiple valid methodologies for computing the targets,
potentially giving significantly different (or incomparable) results. You can read more about it in
the Waste policy and advocacy chapter.
For reasoning and advocacy work we often also use qualitative or even non-waste related data. In
these times of ubiquitous access to the internet, it is progressively easier to get data on whatever
we desire. Often however the true sources are not given, data is misrepresented, omitted or
forged and reuse becomes tricky. The Full Fact team (and several others) have prepared a useful
toolkit for detection of doctored images, fake news and other mis- or dis-information. Explore it
at Full Fact Toolkit.
MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE
The EU defines municipal solid waste (MSW) as waste from households and
waste from other sources, such as retail, administration, education, health,
accommodation, food and other services and activities, which is similar in nature
and composition to household waste.
MSW includes waste from park and garden maintenance, such as leaves, grass
and trees clipping, and waste from market and street cleaning services, such as
the content of litter containers and street sweepings.
Materials such as sand, rock, mud or dust, and waste from activities such as
production, agriculture, forestry, fishing or construction and demolition are
excluded from the scope of MSW.
It constitutes approximately 7–10% of the total waste generated by weight, but is amongst the
most complex ones to manage, as it is a mixture of many individual waste types and materials.
So it is one of the key waste streams to monitor and regularly collect data about. One good way
to understand this heterogeneous waste better is to conduct a waste composition audit.
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THE ROLE OF WASTE AUDITS
Waste audit or assessment is the only exact option for learning the composition of MSW. In
general a large sample is chosen from collected MSW, which is then mixed up to be more uniform.
A smaller sample to analyse is then chosen from it. Finally, through sorting (characterisation)
of individual waste fractions contained in the sample, an overall composition is concluded. By
averaging several samples the real composition can then be properly estimated.
The purpose of a waste characterisation event must be clearly determined because the data will
later be used for solving specific problems. This means that it is important to think into which and
how many fractions the waste should be sorted in the analysis.
Example: National MSW composition analysis for Slovenia (simplified), MOP, 2019
Waste fraction Share %

Paper 10.3
Biowaste (organics) 28.2
Plastics 14.3
Glass 3.2
Metals 2.9
Textiles 8.9
Composite packaging 1.6
Wood 1.5
Batteries 0.1
E-waste (WEEE) 0.8
Other 28.4
What to expect? As a rule of thumb, one third of our municipal waste is biodegradable/organics,
another is paper products, and the third part is all the rest combined. About two third of municipal
waste by volume is packaging, and by weight is biodegradable waste.
In developing countries the amount of organic waste is higher, but the amount of paper and plastic
is lower. This is because of different consumption habits.
Looking at the table above what is the % of – waste by weight or volume?
It is always good to specify in which units the waste is described.
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USEFUL WASTE DATA UNITS
The quantity of waste per defined time and per unit is called a unit generation rate. Most often
weights should be expressed as such ‘unit generation rates’ to make data fairly comparable.
Examples:
• kg waste/capita/year, (also ton, m3, number of bins, etc.);
• kg waste/employee/year;
• kg waste/m2 of building demolition;
• kg waste/hospital bed/year.
For municipal waste, the most common unit generation rate is in kg/person/year. Since the
number of people per household is a flexible character then sometimes the rate kg/household/
day-week-month is used.
Worldwide, waste generated per person per day varies widely, from 0.1 to 4.5 kg. In Europe, one
person generates 1 or 2 kg of MSW per day. Assuming that people are quite similar, one should
start with assuming that every person generates ONE kg of MSW per day.
Exercise:
Multiply the number of inhabitants (in your city or country) by 1 kg and by 365 days per year.
This gives you a total amount of MSW per year. It is in kg! To get it in tons, divide it by 1000.
About half of this is generated at home, and half is generated elsewhere (at work, dealing with
hobbies, sports and leisure). This is your starting point to target waste reduction or improve
source separation (at home or in the office?).
In order to have comparable and reliable data on waste generation and treatment in all EU
countries, clear definitions and a common understanding of waste classification is necessary.
Classification of waste in the EU for administrative purposes divides waste into 20 classes.2
Each waste type is characterised by a six-digit code. First two digits identify the source generating
the waste, e.g. means waste category (20 is municipal wastes); next two digits waste type (20 01
is separately collected fractions), and last two digits indicate it in more details (20 01 01 is waste
paper and cardboard; 20 01 02 is glass etc.)
In Europe waste management prices are expressed in euros (or other local currency) per ton or
per kilogram.
2
Commission Decision 2000/532/EC
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DATA PRESENTATION
To make understanding of data easier it is important that we pay attention to how we present
it. Like with voice communication, visual communication has many nuances and dimensions
due to the peculiarities of our perception. One might think a chart is a chart, but consciously or
subconsciously we do care about things like colour choice, line thickness, size and visual noise. As
with any style of communication, clarity is key, so simplicity is usually prefered. That is something
we have to deliberately implement, as the software tools we commonly use force needlessly
cluttered designs on tables, charts and other representations of data.
Check out an excerpt of Edward Tufte’s seminal The Visual Display of Quantitative
Information for a detailed explanation of why certain data presentation practices are
bad and what to replace them with.
Check out also the interactive Data Viz Project web toolkit helping users pick the right
visualisation for their data. It sports beautiful examples and explanations of why particular
representations are used, when and how.
For basic data collection and what is good for a Zero Waste Ambassadors to know about their
municipality, the data gathering assignment in the Annex 2 of the Zero Waste Ambassador
Curriculum can be consulted.

• How easily can you access your local and national waste
data? Do you trust it? Why or why not?
• What kind of data would be helpful for promoting zero
waste solutions?
• To whom would you go with this data?
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WASTE COLLECTION
• What waste fractions1 are collected separately in your

municipality? How is the collection organised?
• How transparent and understandable is the waste
collection system in your municipality?
• What are the characteristics of a good waste collection
system?
• How does waste collection influence material recovery?
• What do you need to know before selecting which
collection system suits your local context the best?
1
for waste unit terminology, check the Waste data basics chapter.
Waste collection is a generic name for a series of activities on how waste from
the location of its generation flows to the treatment or disposal facility. It includes:
1. The gathering of waste, including the preliminary sorting and preliminary
storage and
2. Mechanical processing of waste for the purposes of transport without changing the
composition and nature of the waste.
Let’s start with an exercise.
Design a waste collection system for scenario 1 or 2 (select one). Do not yet read the chapter
to the end, try to see what you can come up with on your own. Just do the brainstorming!
What would you suggest and why?
Scenario 1
• The municipality has 200,000 inhabitants. The population density is 4200 pers/km².
• 70% are high-rise block houses, 30% are private houses with gardens in the suburbs.
• The total waste per capita per year is 550 kg, which includes a lot of waste coming
from local cafes and restaurants.
• The average income of local residents is below that of the EU. Most residents’ income
comes from the tourism and hospitality sectors.
• Challenge of the language diversity: 5 different languages are spoken by residents.
• The municipality partners with the local private waste management company which is
responsible for implementing the waste and separate collection systems.
• Currently there is a 35% separate collection rate in the municipality:
• Glass, paper and cardboard, plastic bottles and metals by drop-off system
• No separate collection of organics
• Waste transports to a distant incineration plant, which holds a contract for

6 more years.
• There is one public recycling centre for hazardous, bulky, and garden waste, which is
10 km outside of the town with low participation rates of around 5-10%.
• Residents pay a flat base rate of tax to the municipality regardless of the amount of
waste they produce or recycle.
• The municipality is interested in introducing a Pay-As-You-Throw scheme to offer
fair price.
125
Scenario 2
• The regional government consists of 4 small municipalities of 2,000-3,000 inhabitants

each with 10-15 km distance between them. The population density is 820 pers/km².
• There are no high-rise buildings. 100% are private houses with access to a garden.
• Total waste per capita per year is 350 kg.
• The average income of local residents is above that of the EU.
• 3,000 people of additional workforce commute to the region daily and weekly from
neighbouring foreign countries.
• The regional government has a contract with a private waste management company
to perform all municipality-driven decisions.
• There is some separate collection for mixed recyclables. No biowaste is collected.
• Mixed restwaste is disposed of in a landfill with a gate fee of 200 euros/ton.
• There is no central drop off location for hazardous and bulky waste; the service is
available only on demand twice a year.
• Currently, residents pay a fixed rate for mixed waste and 50% less for recyclables.
What are the key factors about waste collection that you take into account?
What kind of waste streams/materials do you plan to collect? Why so?
How would you justify or explain your choices for the waste collection set up?
After making your plan, continue reading the chapter and see if it gives you further ideas.
Waste collection is an organisational step:

• Between those who generate waste and those who run the waste management system.
In typical contexts, collection of municipal solid waste (MSW) is organised and managed
by local municipalities. Proper collection avoids uncontrolled dumping and littering. The
alternative option is that collection of MSW is organised by local municipalities, but work is
done by private companies, based on public procurement.
Waste collection is a technical step:

• Between the place where waste is generated and the place where waste is treated.
Collection technology determines which treatment technologies may be feasible in the
further processing of the waste. Waste collection often accounts for 2/3 of all the cost
involved in waste management and therefore has to be cost-effective and optimised.
There are many technical and organisational issues to consider when designing a waste
collection system:
• Containers for the waste and recyclables,
• Collection vehicles,
• Collection frequency,
• Collection routes,
• The fee scheme for citizens and businesses.
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Whatever you suggest, you have to communicate it to citizens because proper communication
is essential.
Collection and transport of waste is the most important part of the waste management system
for many reasons which we’ll discuss in this chapter.
COLLECTION SYSTEM LOGISTICS

Separate collection is the cornerstone of high-quality recycling.
Why is it so important?
It is important to decide how the residents give source-separated recyclables to the waste
company. It can be organised in a way that they bring it to the designated recycling spot (recycling
centre) or the waste company takes it from each doorstep where waste was generated (door-to-
door or kerbside/curbside system).
Door-to-door collection is proven to be the most effective model for those wanting to have better
quality of materials, but is more expensive initially to arrange and run. Kerbside (door-to-door)
collections are common in many countries such as Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium. Collection is
commonly weekly or bi-weekly. When you separate key recyclables, including, most importantly,
the organics as these are the most fermentable and therefore require more frequent collection
rounds, you can reduce the frequency of residual waste collection to once a fortnight, given it will
include mostly lightweight packaging.
In the most intensive kerbside schemes, such as in Italy, a capture rate2 of 80-100 kg/capita
per year of just food waste is commonly achieved, equating to a participation rate of around
80%, with less than 5% impurities (waste other than organic). The capture rate with public bins
(bring-system) is typically lower than for kerbside collection, around 20-50 kg/capita per year,
and impurities are considerably higher, reaching averages of 10-15% in many cases.
2
Capture rate is the % of the recyclables captured from separate collection. It is calculated by dividing the weight of
recyclable material collected for recycling by the weight of all recyclables in the waste stream.
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Examples of kerbside schemes
3 streams
e.g Monday/Thursday,
once or twice a week
Organic Packaging Mixed
4 streams
e.g Wednesday, twice a month
Organic Paper Packaging Mixed
5 streams
e.g Friday, twice a month
Organic Paper Glass Packaging Mixed
Collection days and frequencies vary across the world. In hot cimates collection is organised
more often, above all for organics and residual waste.
The colours of the containers for different waste streams may vary grom country to country.
128
Bring-systems (where people have to bring their waste to dedicated points) rely on sparsely
placed waste bins or recycling centres. They are anonymous; therefore, the quality of materials
is lower.
In developing countries, the informal collection system offers a living for many waste pickers,
however, it is preferred to incorporate them into some kind of official network to protect their
health and rights. One example of such local community cooperative can be found in Tanzania.
Waste fractions and streams
Separate collection of waste

The activity where waste is kept separately by type and nature to facilitate further
handling. The decision on how to separate waste and into which fractions, is a
matter of local legislation.
The list of waste fractions which are source-separated could include:

• Waste paper. Usually newsprint, office paper and paper packages are collected together,
including corrugated cardboard.
• Mixed packages. In some countries soft plastic and hard plastic are collected separately,
often referred to as PMD (Plastics, Metals and Drinking containers) given their similar
characteristics and ease of sorting.
• Glass bottles. In some countries glass is separated according to colours: transparent,
green, brown; but in some countries mixed colours are collected and later sorted by
sensor-sorting system.
• Organic waste. The main objective would be receiving food waste from households. Food
waste should be collected at least once a week due to its fermentability and smell.
• Others. PET bottles without deposit, batteries, textiles, shoes, cooking oil and many other
site-specific fractions are collected as well.
Why do you think these waste fractions are collected separately most commonly?
Why, for example, would metals not be collected separately?
Bins are marked by colour to simplify collection. Unfortunately, no uniform EU-wise colour coding
exists. However, there are some initiatives for standardising colour coding.
An example:
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Why would it be good to have the same colour coding for all waste fractions
everywhere? Why do you think it isn’t so already?
Organic or biowaste is the sum of two fractions of biodegradable waste:

• Park and garden waste (green waste), and
• Household kitchen waste (food waste).
The main output of the recycling of biowaste is a stabilised and sanitised organic material.
Depending on the recycling process, the material can be digestate (anaerobic process) or compost
(aerobic process), which are both excellent soil improvers. Although many countries claim to
collect biowaste, they organise only the separate collection of green waste and do not provide
any solution for citizens’ food waste.
This will change: kitchen waste has to be collected separately in the EU no later than from 1st
January 2024. The composition of collected biowaste relates to cultural and social factors. In
areas with single-family houses, green waste is often the main fraction found in the waste bins –
particularly in spring and autumn – whereas in regions with many high-rise apartment buildings,
food waste is the main fraction throughout the year. This has to be taken into account when
designing the collection system.
Centralised ‘brown bin’ collection of organics may also be replaced or combined by community
composting and home composting. This helps save municipal costs with less collection needed
whilst also connecting households with a more natural-based solution for managing their
food scraps.
Why does organic waste need special attention in waste collection?
Collection frequency
What is the frequency of waste collection, what should be the schedule?
Collection frequency is usually higher in hot climates and lower in cold climates. Where food
waste is collected more frequently, both acceptance of the system and participation are usually
high, since nuisance odours are avoided. Food waste has to be collected even if the container
is not full, given the odours it produces. Whereas glass, packaging, paper and residual waste
can all be collected less frequently as they can sit in a bin for a long period of time with no big
negative effects.
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The fee system
What are the costs of waste collection for the citizens?
The fee system is important to foster participation in the separate collection schemes. A Pay-As-
You-Throw (PAYT)3 fee includes a fixed part (preferably 60-75%) covering the costs of collection
and a variable part rewarding good separation, and preventing and penalising the generation of
poorly separated waste. Other flexible fees can be applied through bag purchases (bags with
municipality logos or stickers, indicating which waste is collected) or the purchase of differently
sized bins (one bin for each type of waste). PAYT schemes should incentivise lower residual waste
generation, often achieved by better sorting but also importantly via less consumption of waste.
A simplified image on Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) system:
Pay-As-You-Throw
Mixed waste Recyclables/ compostables Mixed waste

Free Cheaper
Bins and containers
What does it matter what kind of containers do we have?
The way waste is stored tries to find a compromise between being cheap and nice for waste
owners whilst also offering reduced workload for waste collectors, helping optimise collection
rounds:
• Manually handled receptacles. Paper or plastic sacks and plastic or metal bins offer
flexibility in collection waste at the source. They are manually handled and carried to the
collection vehicle. A problem with bags is the vulnerability to sharp items. Spilled waste
from broken bags creates littering but sharp objects may also injure workers.
3
More info from: Pay-as-you-throw, European Commission
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• Containers. Plastic wheeled bins were taken into use to increase workers productivity
and reduce workload because wheeled bins are easier compared to no-wheeled metal
bins. Wheeled plastic bins are used worldwide, not only for residential waste but also
for commercial, light industrial waste as well as source-separated materials. In Europe,
standards exist for both two- and four-wheels bins.
• Large containers. Larger containers have a volume of 1,5-12 m³. They are emptied into a
collection vehicle on-site; or transported individually to the treatment or disposal facility,
and back.
• Underground receptacles. In cities with narrow streets, it is difficult to find space for
bins. Cities try to overcome this problem by placing waste containers in underground pits.
These are emptied by a small crane. Underground automated waste conveying systems
along with robotic sorting systems will become typical in highly developed and densely
populated areas.
• Plastic bag instead of bin. Sometimes there is no space for bins, or bins just turn out to be
too expensive. Alternative would be collecting waste in plastic bags. If waste is light then
picking a bag is faster than rolling a bin.
Containers may have personalised electronic locker systems. Dedicated electronic keys or cards
are measures, which intend to reduce and prevent contamination with other materials; or prevent
using the container by non-residents of the particular area. The last one is a question of funding
the collection, which is often from local taxpayers’ money.
WASTE TRANSPORT
Waste transport
The shipment of waste from the place of origin to the place of destination. It also
includes the loading and unloading of waste into the collection truck.
If the transportation distance is long then waste may be loaded into larger trucks in transfer
stations. A transporter of waste does not become the owner of the waste if its only task is
to convey the waste shipment to the point of destination, unless otherwise agreed by the
contract. The proximity between the collection round and the destination of the waste is an
important factor to consider when designing a collection system, as this can have a big impact
on GhG emissions.
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Waste collection vehicles
Transportation of waste is expensive. One would suggest optimising it by offering service with
bigger and heavier trucks, however, it is limited to how much waste a collection truck may legally
contain. EU Directives limit the truck weight to trucks, one example. It has become important to
compact the waste thus reducing the air-filled space and increasing the specific weight.
The trucks that are handling very large containers load them by rolling on and off (multilift-type)
by using hooks or winches; or lifting them (lift dumper-type) by using chains and booms. Multilift
systems are most comfortable because they do not require the driver to leave the cabin.
Multi-compartment trucks enable collecting several waste fractions in one go. A problem in this
kind of collection is that when one of the compartments fills up, then the vehicle needs to be
unloaded, even if the other compartments remain empty. This can be optimised however by
having good data on waste generation by local citizens over a recent period of time.
Now check your initial waste collection proposal again and if needed, redesign according
to knowledge from this chapter.
Based on your plan, what kind of communication would you design for households (how do
you ask households to act and why) on these points:
• Waste fractions you suggest to collect
• Types of bins and how they are labelled
• Collection rounds frequency
• Fee system
What do they need to know about their waste collection? For example, how do they learn
and remember the schedule?
For communications’ planning, you can also check the Communication and storytelling chapter.
Additional reading on separate collection:

Guidance for separate collection of municipal waste
Guidance on Separate Collection - focus on biowaste collection
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• What kind of changes would you make in the waste
collection system in your municipality? What do you think
is the key challenge for your municipality?
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WASTE TREATMENT
METHODS
• Why is it important to know about waste treatment

methods as a Zero Waste Ambassador?
• How do you think a municipality or waste company thinks
about waste? Is it the same as you?
• What kind of waste treatment methods do you know?
• What are the main arguments that determine which waste
treatment method is selected/proposed?
• What kind of waste treatment methods are in use in your
municipality?
• What do you think makes a waste treatment method good
or bad?
We are not placing zero waste into an empty space, but in an already existing infrastructure. A
Zero Waste Ambassador should know the basics of waste management, e.g. waste hierarchy and
technologies which are described in it. It’s important to know the global, EU and national target
values, to be informed about the roadmap of waste management and circular economy. It is
necessary to link waste management with other sectors, be it transport, energy or construction.
Municipalities, but also producers of our consumables have obligations and responsibilities which
are set by law. Zero waste has to contribute to the legal responsibilities for municipalities or
waste companies, zero waste has to become beneficial!
Before reading more into this chapter, think about why your municipality has
selected the waste treatment options it has. What do you think were the reasons?
Future perspectives in Waste Management

Typical driving forces in waste management are:
• Public sanitation;
• Prevention of littering and illegal dumping on land and sea;
• Material and energy recovery;
• Savings and economic incentives;
• Producer responsibility;
• Need for remediation;
• Urbanisation.
Some of the new challenges:

• Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – these 17 UN-defined global goals are
fundamental for mankind to preserve opportunities to live in dignity and prosperity across
generations. The goals cover ecological, economic and social sectors.
• Lack of resources and secure supply chains – we are running out of metals which could
actually be harvested from waste.
• Resource efficiency – we must improve utilisation of resources through smart products
and eco-design.
• Climate change – proper management of biowaste and reduction of CO2 and CH4 will help
to slow down the speed of climate change.
• Alternative energy sources – energy-rich waste fractions provide electricity and hot
water in urban areas, and they replace fossil fuels.
• New waste streams – e-devices, flat screens and IT-equipment, smart clothes and
houses, internet of things, nanomaterials etc., will require treatment methods which did
not exist before.
• Globalisation – we need to learn the treatment of materials which do not exist in each of
our countries.
• Ageing population – elderly people have different patterns of consumption.
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• Circular economy, life-cycle thinking, and green jobs – to replace the linear production and
consumption routes.
• Extended Producer Responsibility – to finance collection and treatment of particular
waste streams.
• Artificial intelligence and robotics – to allow automated waste processing.
• Crisis waste management – permanent or temporary waste collection systems, e.g. for
refugee camps or in war zones.
• Zero waste – to manage waste in a manner that there is no need for discarding wastes.
• Urban mining – to handle our entire urban environment as a future quarry of new
materials, etc.
• Improving treatment plants facilities.
• Decreasing the gap between policy makers and citizens to avoid conflicts when taking
important decisions (for example a new anaerobic treatment plant) – public debate.
• Avoiding “waste tourism” (waste made in a place but treated somewhere else because of
the lack of treatment facilities).
• Bureaucracy.
• Non technological obstacles (laws and regulations).
Increased GDP will affect the amount of food waste along its production chain, and leftovers
at homes. The organic fraction will be more dominant in municipal solid waste (MSW), and the
greenhouse gas (GhG) challenge has to be faced. Sustainable and cost effective treatment of
biowaste will be a combination of composting and anaerobic digestion (waste-to-bioenergy),
and nutrient recycling will offer the best solution. Bio-refinement of functional compounds from
organic wastes will boost, but it will take ages to incorporate it into the waste management
system on a large scale. Cross-border transportation of waste materials will become inevitable
and should be seen as everyday practice, provided that it is well controlled by authorities.
Integrated waste management

Integrated solid waste management means the strategic approach to sustainable management
of solid wastes covering all sources and all aspects, like:
• Pattern of waste generation,
• Source separation and waste segregation,
• Collection and transfer,
• Secondary sorting,
• Treatment,
• Recovery and disposal in a combined way,
• Production of secondary raw materials with an emphasis on maximising resource
use efficiency.
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Waste is separated into several fractions and not one; quality is evaluated and upgraded whenever
possible; and waste is used as material, rather than disposed of in landfills. Integrated waste
management employs several waste control and disposal methods such as source reduction,
recycling, reuse, energy recovery or just incineration; and finally sanitary landfilling, to minimise
the environmental impact of waste streams.
WASTE TREATMENT
Waste treatment refers to any activity that enables material recovery.1 The waste
sector prepares waste for recovery or disposal by using mechanical, thermal,
chemical or biological processes on waste. This also includes sorting and packaging
of waste for transport.
By treatment we aim to make waste more easily manageable by:

• Reducing the quantity of the waste,
• Reducing the hazardousness of waste,
• Improving the amount and quality of recovered materials,
• Facilitating its management or disposal.
Reduction of volume is achieved by crushing, shredding, and compacting the waste.
Sorting into individual fractions takes place by:

• Hand sorting (hand-picking, manual sorting). It is widely practised, but slow, dirty,
unpleasant, unefficient. However, it is flexible and easy to organise.
• Mechanical sorting. Sensor-based sorting in the near infrared spectrum (NIR) is well
established in Europe.
Properties of waste can be altered by washing, moistening, drying (thermal, biological), melting
and granulating. Baling and storing is required for logistic purposes. Baling includes compacting
into uniform shapes, and wrapping to avoid quality loss during storage and transportation.
Waste treatment is not a goal by itself, but rather a preparation step that enables further
mechanical treatment.
When reading about different waste treatment methods below, try to think about their
advantages and disadvantages first yourself, before looking at the lists.
Every method has them, they might be advantages or disadvantages just from someone else’s
perspective (like an elected politician or the owner of a waste company).
1
For waste management terminology, check the Zero waste basics chapter of this handbook.
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BIOTREATMENT
Organic wastes are materials originating from living sources like plants, animals, and
microorganisms that are biodegradable and can be broken down into simpler organic molecules.
This happens in natural cycles in our environment. In urban areas, however, we cannot rely on
natural processes and have to use technology. Organic waste recycling is the process in waste
management where organic wastes are recycled into useful products.
Composting on a municipal scale requires segregating the organic waste from other waste
materials to ensure a high-quality end product – compost.
Composting is the process of decomposition of organics by soil organisms

resulting in the recycling of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other soil nutrients into
humus-rich components.
Composting differs from the natural degradation process because input of oxygen and moisture,
temperature, and degradation process as such is monitored and controlled by the operator. There
are quality standards for the compost, and the facility has to meet the emission limits which are
set by legislation. Compost is used as a fertiliser and soil improver, because it enriches soils with
nitrogen, phosphorus, organic carbon, and microorganisms.
Several composting technologies are practised depending on the space, the volume of organic
material to be composted, budget, climate etc:
• Windrow composting is the cheapest and simplest, where organic waste is placed in a
large pile known as a windrow and periodically mixed to introduce oxygen and promote
microbial activity.
• More sophisticated windrow systems rely on force aeration, and covering the pile against
weather conditions.
• Another method is in-vessel composting, where the process is controlled by a
composting chamber.
• Enclosed systems are much more expensive than windrow systems, but they require less
land because of the faster processing time and better control over odours.
It is important to consider:
• Quality, types and availability of input materials (the biowaste).
• Siting and sizing of a composting facility.
• Technical issues, stormwater and odour management, climate considerations, birds
and vermins.
• Benefits from composting for waste producers, and fee system.
• Market for compost and product certification.
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Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a biological process of converting organic waste into
two usable products – biogas and digestate, a semi-solid fertilizer.
The digestate can be used for agricultural purposes and the methane-rich biogas can be used to
generate electricity and heat. Organics are placed in closed reactors where oxygen-free conditions
are maintained. Anaerobic microorganisms convert biomass into biogas and nutrient-rich residue
which is called digestate. Biogas produced by anaerobic digestion is a mixture of CH4, CO2, and
small amounts of H2 and H2S. Usually, the process requires two to three weeks.
When to use composting, when anaerobic digestion?
Small scale composting can be easily applied everywhere, by anyone, and it can be practised
anywhere. It is a perfect opportunity to start with treating organic waste. Windrow composting of
garden waste in open air is common for beginners. To become economic, the scale of composting
has to grow beyond 10,000 t/y throughout. Large scale composting requires equipment and
space. Air treatment is a must in case of reactor composting.
Anaerobic digestion (AD) requires special heated reactors and relatively high and a steady
flow of waste. The revenues depend on the gate fee2 of input material, price of biomethane,
and ease of utilising digestate. It requires skilled personnel and strict safety measures, because
methane is explosive gas. To become economic, the scale of AD has to grow beyond 20,000
t/y throughput. Both liquid and solid state AD are widely used. Home-size AD reactors are not
possible. Along with AD treatment, the mass of waste does not change significantly. It means
that the treatment residues, the digestate, have to be further treated. Quite often it is dewatered
and post-composted. After that it can be used as common compost.
Advantages of biotreatment:
• Separate collection and treatment of organic waste reduces GhG emissions from
landfills.
• If organic waste is separated from waste stream, then the remaining material
(e.g. packages) are cleaner, making material recovery easier.
• The end product of biotreatment (both compost or digestate) are fertilisers, and also are
improving quality of soil.
• AD produces biogas, which is an alternative to fossil fuels and is easily marketed.
• Compost reduces demand of mineral fertilisers.
• Locally organised biotreatment creates jobs.
Disadvantages of biotreatment:
• Treatment of organic waste is costly.
• It requires equipment.
• It requires odour and leachate purification.
• There can be some difficulties in marketing compost/digestate.
2
Gate fee is the fee paid at the reception to any waste treatment plant. It does not include transportation cost, but it does
include the cost for processing of waste and taxes
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• Regardless of the quality, the compost or digestate is still considered waste, and has to be
marketed under waste regulations.
• Process, if in open air, is weather-dependent.
• AD requires highly skilled personnel, because the process is sensitive, and the biogas is
explosive. Gas requires additional cleaning.
MECHANICAL-BIOLOGICAL TREATMENT
As the name suggests, Mechanical-Biological Treatment (MBT) contains elements of
mechanical treatment of waste, and then biological treatment of the finest part of
it, which is rich in organics. An MBT plant is a type of waste processing facility that
combines a sorting facility with a form of biological treatment such as composting
or anaerobic digestion.
MBT plants are designed to process unsorted mixed household waste. MBT systems enable
the recovery of materials contained within the mixed waste and facilitate the stabilisation of
the biodegradable component of the material. This component is either configured to recover
the individual elements of the waste or produce a refuse-derived fuel that can be used for the
generation of power. The main idea of MBT treatment is to degrade organic material in a well
controlled environment to avoid GhG emissions. Compared to similar degradation processes which
take place in landfill, emissions are better controlled. After the organic fraction is composted or
anaerobically digested, it should be disposed of to landfill. The concept of MBT was developed in
the late 80ies to offer an alternative to waste incineration of unsorted wastes.
Why is MBT used?

MBT was developed to treat unsorted waste. It required no change in collection, therefore it was
attempted for less responsible municipalities.
Advantages:
• Robust technology, well automated.
• Organics degrade – less GhG emissions.
• Anaerobic degradation is possible too – CH4 can be captured and used for energy.
• Plastic-rich fraction can be converted to refuse-derived fuel (RDF).
• The finest soil-like fraction is stabilised and it emits no GhG, so it can be landfilled under
current regulations.
• MBT aims to minimise the need for landfilling and incineration.
• Available on a very large scale.
• Technology may be upgraded to handle sorted organic waste – once source-separation
replaces mixed waste collection.
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Disadvantages:
• No sorting is demoralising for society, incorrectly signalling that do-nothing
is acceptable.
• In the case of MBT (as in the case of having an incinerator or a landfill) the policy makers
feel no push to change waste into recycling.
• Large investments.
• Equipment is not long-lasting.
• No straightforward end use for fine fraction other than landfilling.
• Soil-like fine fraction is not equal to quality compost and cannot be used in agriculture.
• MBT cannot be considered as recovery of waste from 2027 in the EU.
Material recovery, biological treatment (MRBT) is an advanced modification of

MBT, where focus is not just processing plastics and other combustibles to waste
fuels, but separating waste stream to individual waste materials like plastic,
paper, glass, wood etc. The remaining organic-rich part is still subject for biological
treatment. For more information check Zero Waste Europe’s policy briefing on MRBT.
WASTE-TO-ENERGY
Wastes have been burned throughout the history of mankind. The incineration technology has
developed dramatically since then. Even though there is no room for waste-to-energy in the Zero
Waste hierarchy, it is currently still a reality in many places in Europe and elsewhere and when
addressing this reality, we need to know what it is.
The most common technology is mass-burn. No pre-treatment is required and large volumes are
incinerated ’as received’. Alternative to mass burning is incineration in rotary kiln and fluidized bed
systems. One of the most important parameters is temperature: minimum for municipal waste
is 850°C and for hazardous waste is 1100°C. The flue gas (gas from burning of waste) contains a
wide range of particulate and gaseous contaminants and must be cleaned before released to the
atmosphere. This is the most expensive part of waste incineration.
Incineration is not waste-free, because ash is generated. Typically ash makes up 25% of input
waste. There is bottom ash and fly ash:
• The bottom ash is 90% of total ash content. It consists of non-combustible materials,
such as sand, stones, glass, porcelain, metals, and traces of unburnt organics. Bottom ash
makes 150 to 300 kg per 1 ton of waste incinerated.
• The amount of fly ash is 10% of total ash content. Fly ash is considered hazardous, and
cannot be landfilled in municipal landfills.
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Advantages:
• The process results in a significant reduction of the mass (up to 75-80%) and
volume (up to 90%) of the waste, reducing the need for landfilling.
• Waste is sanitised and stabilised in minutes.
• Organic content of wastes reduces to minimum.
• Energy (heat and electric power) production is of priority.
• Waste incineration also contributes to savings in fossil fuel consumption, whereas
restwaste from recycling can be incinerated.
Waste incineration is always a large-scale technology, which is both good and bad.
Disadvantages:
• Incineration seriously affects separate waste collection and other waste
management technologies.
• Materials are lost for recycling, and organic carbon cannot be utilised in soils.
• Incineration is a major contributor to air pollution and a risk to public health.
• An incinerator is costly to build and maintain and once it exists, it has to work: it’s not
possible to switch on and off whenever we want.
• It’s not an alternative to landfill (the result of the incineration goes to landfill in any case).
The combustible fractions of waste are food and green waste, paper, cardboard, plastics, rubber,
wood – all well-recyclable materials. This is why incineration should not be an option unless other
recycling methods have been exploited.
WASTE FUELS
Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) is a fuel produced by shredding and drying municipal
solid waste, commercial and industrial waste.
RDF consists largely of combustible components of municipal waste such as plastics, wood,
rubber, textile, but also some biodegradable waste. Inert mineral fraction (like construction and
demolition waste) is removed; as well as most parts of wet organic fraction. Reject waste is
disposed of in landfills, or further processed.
Advantages of RDF compared to incineration of unprocessed fuel:

• It is homogenous, its calorific value is high, moisture and ash content are low.
• It is possible to prepare waste fuels ‘on demand’ according to market
requirements.
• Waste fuels can be produced everywhere, also in small quantities; it is storable
and easy to transport, and it is also exportable.
• Standard for solid recovered fuels exist, significantly broadening its marketing
possibilities.
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Disadvantages of RDF:
• Its production is costly.
• Material is lost for recycling.
• Rejected fine fraction still requires disposal or further treatment.
• Any fuel which is made of waste is considered as waste, and rules for waste incineration
apply – flue gases are still harmful to the environment.
• Storage requires great care, as organic-rich material is a subject for self-ignition.
Ferrous metals, aluminium and some individual plastic fractions may be removed for material
recycling. Sometimes optional biodrying is applied to benefit from drying organic fraction, which
should otherwise have been disposed of. Biodrying is a technology using heat produced in the
initial stage of composting of biodegradable waste for augmenting its drying rate, whereas moist
air is removed by ventilators. Excavated landfill plastic rarely requires biodrying as organic fraction
has already been degraded. The number and the kind of processing steps correlate to the waste
composition and the desired product quality.
Another type of RDF is SRF – Solid recovered fuel. SRF is distinguished from
RDF as it is produced to meet a standard – the classification and specification
requirements laid down in EN15359 (Standard from the European Standardisation
Committee), CEN/343.
RDF is primarily utilised for energy production in incineration and co-incineration plants. SRF is
typically used in the cement industry.
PLASTIC TO OIL AND GAS

Pyrolysis is thermochemical decomposition of organic material at high
temperatures in the complete absence of air (or oxygen). Pyrolysis leads to synthetic
liquid fuel similar to crude oil and by-products as solid carbon and combustible
synthetic gases. Liquid products can be mixed with natural crude oil and further
refined to gasoline and other petroleum products.
Gasification occurs in the presence of limited amounts of air that allows partial
combustion of the material. Gasification leads to flammable synthesis gas (syngas), which
is a mixture consisting primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and some carbon dioxide.
Syngas is a valuable commercial product, which can be used as an intermediate to create synthetic
natural gas, methane, methanol, dimethyl ether and other chemicals. It can also be used directly
to produce energy as a substitute to natural gas.
Synthetic oil and gas can be used as raw material for producing new plastics. Then it is called
chemical recycling of plastics.
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Advantages of pyrolysis:
• Energy can be obtained in a cleaner way than from conventional MSW
incineration plants because of lower amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur
oxides (SO2) in flue gases.
• Most of pyrolysis’ products – solid, liquid and gaseous – are energy-rich.
• The scale of pyrolysis’ plant is more flexible than in case of mass-burn of wastes. Smaller
volume is associated with smaller gas cleaning devices, which reduces investment and
operation costs.
• Compared to solid waste or RDF, pyrolysis oil has high calorific value, it is well storable,
easy to transport, and the potential market is worldwide.
• Oil can be further processed to other products too.
Disadvantages of pyrolysis:
• Its complexity and high energy demand.
• Equipment is sophisticated, costly.
• The result depends on the quality of waste. Municipal waste, however, is heterogeneous
in composition and size.
• There are some environmental and safety risks too!
MUNICIPAL LANDFILL AS AN ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM

Landfilling has many negative environmental effects during its active operational phase and
even after it has been closed. One should reduce disposal as much as possible, but we cannot
totally avoid landfilling in the future. Ultimate recycling of waste is not possible due to economic,
technical, environmental and health reasons. Therefore, we should improve the environmental
performance of landfills and build sanitary landfills. Sanitary landfills are those where waste is
isolated from the environment until it is safe.3
Additional reading about the environmental effects of landfills

and basics of safe landfills:
“Landfill basics” chapter from The Keep It Clean Plan by Let’s Do It Foundation.
3
Landfill Directive 1999/31/EC (amended by the Directive 2018/850/EC) and the Council Decision 2003/33/EC on
acceptance criteria (WAC) set standards for the authorisation, design, operation, closure and aftercare of landfills.
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LAST BUT NOT LEAST – RECYCLING
Recycling of waste is defined in the EU’s Waste Framework Directive as “any
recovery operation by which waste materials are reprocessed into products,
materials or substances whether for the original or other purposes.”
This includes the reprocessing (composting) of organics but importantly does not include energy
recovery and the reprocessing into materials that are to be used as fuels or for backfilling
operations. Often recycling is split into 2 categories:
1. Material recycling for materials such as paper, metals, plastics etc.
2. Recycling of organics via composting and digestion.
The issue of recycling and the role it plays within local zero waste programmes is much debated
and one that we must tread carefully as Zero Waste Ambassadors. Therefore we have decided
not to go into detail on the recycling process itself here, but rather focus on the different aspects
of this debate. This is also because the necessary space and literature it would take to describe
the recycling process of each material is far too long. However, we have included some links at
the end of this chapter which can be useful to get to know the recycling processes for the key
materials found within municipal solid waste.
At its core, true recycling is the foundation of a circular economy, which is why we advocate for
effective separate collection systems so much. Effective separate collection, often done via the
door-to-door system, is the best method for achieving high recycling rates, given that they result
in more quantity of recyclables captured in better quality, therefore being easier to recycle.
With an increasing number of targets set by governments for the percentage of recycled content
in products, and commitments by businesses to include a set % of recycled content in their own
materials, it is clear that there needs to be a flow of high volume and quantity of recycled materials
within the European market today.
So as Zero Waste Ambassadors, we must advocate for separate collection systems at the
local level as this is the greatest way to improve recycling and reduce residual waste. This
is most commonly our entry point into discussions on zero waste.
Of course though, recycling alone is not enough. Our work on increasing recycling must always be
supported by advocacy on policies that prioritise the prevention of waste – tackling consumption
and production patterns so that we reuse more materials in a circular manner.
Yet on the topic of recycling itself, what is clear today is that the recycling system in Europe is
not working. It’s not working for citizens, for municipalities, for recycling companies, for national
governments, and – most importantly – it’s not addressing the environmental problems we need
to so urgently fix. This is particularly evident and important when discussing plastic recycling. In
theory, all different types of plastics can be used again. The reality is vastly different though, with
estimates suggesting that only 9% of all plastic ever generated worldwide has been recycled.
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Why do you think so little of plastics gets recycled?
There are several reasons for that.

1. True recycling is not often what happens. Materials collected for recycling, especially
plastics, often have the potential for one or two more lives before they end up as
waste. For example, plastic bottles being recycled into socks or garden furniture –
this is downcycling, meaning the quality of the end material is worse than that of new
material and further recycling eventually becomes impossible. In most scenarios, they
still also require a certain amount of virgin material – the material being used for the
first time since its extraction and manufacturing – as well as an intensive amount of
energy to be remade. Worse, there is an increasing trend to burn plastics for fuel and
call this “chemical recycling.” When in fact this is just embedding an unsustainable
treatment method within the system.
2. There is also a particular concern for recycled materials which come into contact with
the foods we consume, such as plastic packaging. If recycled content is put into plastic
packaging for what is called “food contact materials”, there is very little knowledge
or regulation on where this recycled content came from and therefore the potential
hazardous chemicals which may exist in this recycled material – which we then
subsequently put into our bodies. There needs to be new regulation, ideally from the
EU, that ensures all products and packaging, including those in contact with food, are
durable, reusable, toxic-free and recyclable at the end of life, allowing to achieve a
toxic-free circular economy.
3. European municipalities still use different calculation methods for recycling, even
within one country, so the data gathered on recycling cannot be accurately compared
from one country to another. Some include the discards from recycling as they were
at least collected for recycling, even if they didn’t end up being recycled, whilst other
reporting methodologies include fuel made from burning waste. As mentioned in
the Waste policy and advocacy chapter, the EU has introduced new legislation (2020)
to enforce a harmonised calculation methodology across Member States to help
overcome this issue, although we won’t see the results of this bearing fruit for a
couple of more years.
4. European countries still export vast quantities of our waste to non-European
countries. This is often classified as recyclable materials but the reality is that it is dirty
and unusable materials that European recycling companies and waste handlers do
not want. Many of the countries who receive this waste, whether legally or too often
illegally, have poor waste management infrastructure themselves and therefore are
not able to treat the waste properly. This results in tonnes of plastic and other dirty
types of waste being burnt, landfilled or dumped – damaging local communities and
biodiversity in regions far away from Europe where the waste was initially generated.
5. Finally, there remains an issue with the definition of recyclability – or the lack of one.
For example, if a product claims it is 100% recyclable, that does not mean it will of
course be 100% recycled in the area where that product has been consumed. Due to a
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lack of a harmonised definition of recyclability, recyclability claims are not necessarily
based on real life conditions such as the availability of recycling infrastructure, market
conditions and the financial viability of recycling operations. While waste prevention
and reuse efforts must be prioritised, we cannot achieve a circular economy, as
outlined in the Circular Economy Action Plan, without closing this huge gap between
recyclability potential, actual collection and sorting, and final recycling. This requires
European-level action to establish a clear harmonised definition of recyclability, to
strengthen the enforcement of existing requirements in key EU legislation, such as
the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive, revised, which would help ensure that
ambitious sector or product level standards for recyclability are established.
FINAL REMARKS
By knowing the pros and cons of every waste treatment method, you as the Zero Waste
Ambassador can easily discuss the possible transformation of a municipality to a Zero Waste
one. You just have to avoid a costly and outdated mindset. Recycling is a debatable issue but it
remains a core part of the circular economy and is often the best entry point to focus on in initial
discussions with municipalities. The limitations and failures of our current recycling system must
be known and recognised within our work. As a result, focus more attention on the upper end of
the waste hierarchy, and minimise landfilling and energy use. You cannot just reject – you have to
replace these methods by offering viable solutions.
Additional reading and links on waste treatment and recycling:

Decision Maker’s Guides for Solid Waste Management Technologies
Mechanical-Biological Treatment: A guide for Decision Makers
European Biogas Association
European Composting Network, in particular its factsheets
The European Recycling Industries’ Confederation (EURIC) factsheets
European Environment Agency’s advocacy work on recycling
Plastics recycling
Paper/cardboard recycling
Glass recycling
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• What would be the most important arguments for you
when suggesting/selecting a waste treatment method?
• What waste treatment methods would you recommend to
your municipality? Why?
• What are the main challenges around recycling in your
municipality/region/country?
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WASTE POLICY AND
ADVOCACY
• Do you think policies on waste affect our everyday lives?

If yes, how?
• Do you know what waste policies/legislation are relevant
in your municipality?
• Do you know what waste policies/legislation are relevant
in your country?
• Do you know the relevant European waste policies
and legislation?
• How do the different levels (local, regional, national,
European) of policy-making connect to one another?
• What is the process of national and local level policy
making in your country?
WHAT ARE WASTE POLICIES FOR?
The term policy is defined as the deliberate action, or set of actions, instigated by an institution,
organisation or individual. As Zero Waste Ambassadors, we engage with policies on a daily basis
within our work. Policies most notably come from government institutions, ranging from the
European to local level, but they also importantly come from businesses – for example, their
policy on how much recycled material they include in a certain product design.
For the majority of this chapter, we will refer to policy as public policy – the actions
and decisions taken by publicly elected officials and public institutions related to
how waste management and prevention systems are enacted.
Knowledge about how public policy on waste and resources is created is invaluable for Zero
Waste Ambassadors and organisations working on this topic. They set the framework for action
from which all other stakeholders must work within. Knowing how these policies get designed
and then put into force, how these policies affect local waste management systems and how
different levels of policy-making interact with one another will bring so many benefits to Zero
Waste Ambassadors and help you achieve your goals.
Imagine this task:
You are a zero waste activist and want more people to start using reusable takeaway cups.
What would be your action plan?

How many people could you affect with it?
Many of the starting activists would try to convince their friends and acquaintances to bring their
own mugs to cafes and tell people about the pollution caused by single-use cups, but this type of
action doesn’t reach many people. While it is still important to raise awareness about the issue
and support individual action, more effective action in the long term would be to influence the
regulatory system around takeaway drinks.
To showcase this, let us use one recent example from Germany. As we will discuss later in this
chapter, the EU legislation on reuse currently is not as strong as it should be. Activists in Germany
have been pushing hard for several years to get legislation that will support reuse business
models, such as a national Deposit Return Scheme for beer bottles. Legislation passed at the
federal level in Germany in the early 2020s, part of the country’s transposition of the EU Single-
Use Plastics (SUP) Directive, made it a requirement for businesses over 80 m² and with more
than 5 employees to offer reusable options for cutlery and food/beverage containers that will
be consumed immediately. Many local groups started using this new federal law to support their
cities and local businesses to enact this law, as well as going a step further by removing the
single-use option as well.
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This one short example shows how the different levers of policy-making interact (for better or
worse) with one another, and they all must be considered when working on local zero waste
strategies.
Being an effective Zero Waste Ambassador requires:
• a strong understanding of how policies are made and

• an ability to effectively advocate on behalf of zero waste strategies.
We are going to tackle these two interlinked but complex topics, policy and advocacy, together in
this chapter due to the fact they are complementary to one another.
The EU has set an ambitious framework for waste and the circular economy. However, the details
of how waste is managed and who is responsible for the numerous policies associated with the
circular economy differ greatly from country to country, in and outside of the EU. Therefore,
understanding the policy landscape is absolutely critical for any Zero Waste Ambassador who
wishes to suggest realistic but also ambitious policy changes to their local municipality.
For Zero Waste Ambassadors living in EU Member States, there is a guiding framework set at
the European level for collection, recycling, pre-treatment of waste and increasingly, on reuse
and prevention.
KEY EU WASTE POLICIES

A key revision of the main EU legislation on waste was approved in May 2018 and it aimed at
taking Europe towards a circular economy. These revised pieces of legislation include:
Directive on Waste (2008/98/EC) (also known as the Waste Framework Directive)
Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste (1994/62/EC)
Directive on the Landfill of Waste (1999/31/EC)
Key elements of the revised Waste Framework Directive include:

• A common EU target for recycling 65% of municipal waste by 2035.
• A common EU target for recycling 70% of packaging waste by 2030.
• Recycling targets for specific packaging materials (see table on the next page)
• A binding target to reduce landfill to a maximum of 10% of municipal waste by 2035
(see table on the next page)
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Overview of new required goals for EU Member States in the field of waste management
2025 2030 2035

Minimum recycling & preparation for reuse of municipal waste 55% 60% 65%
Maximum landfilling of municipal waste 10%
Minimum recycling of packaging waste 65% 70% –
Plastic 50% 55% –
Wood 25% 30% –
Ferrous metals 70% 80% –
Aluminium 50% 60% –
Glass 70% 75% –
Paper and cardboard 75% 85% –
• Separate collection obligations extended to include hazardous household waste (by end of
2022), biowaste (by end of 2023), textiles (by end of 2025).
• Minimum requirements for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes to improve
their governance and cost efficiency.
• Reinforcement of prevention objectives in particular, requiring Member States to take
specific measures to tackle food waste and marine litter as a contribution to achieve EU
commitments to the UN’s SDGs.
The Waste Framework Directive and the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste will
also be reviewed and likely amended in 2023. This will mean new targets, definitions and
requirements for the collection, recycling and preparation for reuse of materials by local
municipalities.
The current European Commission (as of 2022) introduced a second Circular Economy Action
Plan when it first took office in 2019, building on the first action plan that was introduced in
2015. Therefore, the “circular economy” is a relatively new term and package of legislation for
EU Member States. Nonetheless, with the second Circular Economy Action Plan from the EU, we
should expect more directives in the future that aim to tackle issues ranging from greenwashing
to the reuse of textiles, eco-design, reuse and the definition of recycling – all of which will have a
huge impact on local zero waste strategies within the EU.
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Furthermore, 2019 marked the adoption of a landmark piece of legislation to stem the flow of
plastics into our environment and oceans by the EU. The Single-Use Plastics (SUP) Directive,
a key component of the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy (2018), aimed
to prevent and tackle plastic waste by, among other things, phasing out unnecessary single-
use plastics, introducing economic incentives to reduce consumption and help the transition to
reusable systems, and establishing high collection rates and Extended Producer Responsibility
(EPR) schemes.
EPR schemes are a policy instrument available to governments. They apply the
‘polluter pays principle’ by placing the responsibility of a product’s entire life-cycle
– from designing environment friendly and low-impact products to managing their
end-of-life – onto the producers themselves. Their design and implementation (and
subsequent performance) differ greatly from country to country within Europe, but the
general principle remains the same – the producers of materials which are placed onto
the market should be responsible (financially) for ensuring they are properly managed.
Most common product types covered by EPR schemes include (plastic) packaging, WEEE (Waste
from Electrical and Electronic Equipment), tyres, mattresses and more, but again this differs on
a country-by-country basis.
For a deeper dive into the SUP Directive, check out this briefing by the Rethink Plastic Alliance.
For Zero Waste Ambassadors from non-EU countries, whether your municipality and national
government has to follow these rules largely depends on the agreement between the country
and the EU. Those willing to join the EU will sooner or later be bound by these directives, but,
for as long as negotiations on environmental issues have not started, a country isn’t formally
compelled to follow the legislation, which is the case of most candidate countries. Countries like
Switzerland are bound to EU directives to a certain extent, particularly with regards to single
market rules. In the case of the UK, the Brexit deal has separated UK and EU legislation and now
the UK is creating its own framework for waste and the circular economy.
NATIONAL LEVEL POLICY

It’s important to know the specific relationship for policy-making, reporting and data collection
between the local – regional – national levels of government within your country.
For those working within EU Member States, the targets listed above are applied and are the
immediate responsibility of national governments to achieve. In most cases, waste policies are
delegated from national to the local or regional level of government, where the responsibility for
having the capacity, choosing the methods and finding the funding to achieve the EU goals listed
above become a key issue in actually meeting these targets.
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We as Zero Waste Ambassadors should not only know what the relevant EU policies are, but
also what important circular economy related policies remain within the jurisdiction of national
governments.
Possible differences between countries:
• Municipalities have full competency over waste management.

• Collection is a local authority competency but fee charging may be a regional-
level competency.
• Decisions over what can be collected, how much is charged for it and how the
waste is treated sit fully at the national level.
Each country, sometimes also specific subregions within the country, will have public bodies
responsible for the collection of data on waste related indicators. Examples of national waste
authorities and their data collection:
England Northern Ireland Germany

Wales Italy Portugal
Scotland Spain Croatia
This of course is not an exhaustive list of statistical sites, but rather a list to showcase just a small
sample of examples of governmental bodies responsible for collecting data on waste.
Additional reading and key links:

Eurostat municipal waste data
Eurostat recycling data
Eurostat biowaste data
The map from Seas at Risk – best plastic prevention policies from across Europe
Achieving the EU’s Waste Targets: Zero Waste Cities showcasing how to go above and beyond
what is required
Unfolding the Single-Use Plastics Directive – a comprehensive briefing outlining what’s in the
SUP Directive, including specific goals and requirements of EU Member States
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Why do calculation methods matter?
Something important for all Zero Waste Ambassadors to acknowledge – Eurostat data, whilst
it is the most comprehensive overview of waste data across the EU and its close neighbours
(hence why it is included in this handbook), cannot be seen as 100% verifiable or accurate. This
is not in any fault due to the work of Eurostat. Varying degrees of quality data collection and
different calculation methodologies exist at the member state level, which means they are hard to
compare with each other. As Zero Waste Ambassadors, we should be advocating for harmonised
data collection across the EU, in all Member States, which can be replicated by other European
countries. This would include matching and adopting the new EU calculation methodology for
recycling, as well as the key indicators used to measure waste, such as what is outlined in the
Zero Waste Cities Certification framework.
New measurement and calculation rules have been introduced by the EU for Member States in
recent years which will likely reduce the actual recycling figures.
Why would the harmonised calculation rules reduce some national

recycling figures?
What does the Waste data basics chapter say about this?
Previously, Member States could include all the recyclable materials that were collected at a
sorting facility and via collection methods in their reporting. Yet in most cases, a small percentage
of these materials are too contaminated and too low quality to be considered for recycling. They
end up being discarded and sent for landfill or incineration – meaning they make the statistics
look better than the reality.
The new EU recycling methodology will now only count what officially goes into the recycling
process. This methodology will be required to be put into use for the next round of EU targets, so
2025 at the latest, meaning the first results will likely be available in early/mid 2027 (the normal
delay for reporting such figures).
Why isn’t there more EU policy on reuse and prevention?

Ultimately, as Zero Waste Ambassadors we should always be prioritising and advocating for
policies that prevent resources from becoming waste. Recycling is not enough to get us out of the
crisis we face today – more action is needed to embed reusable products, materials and systems
into our everyday lives.
As discussed in the Zero Waste Cities model and Zero waste basics chapters, local municipalities
commonly have the responsibility for the collection and disposal of municipal solid waste. Quite
often, local authorities can also decide the structure of the waste fee that citizens pay, creating
systems that discourage waste generation.
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Yet as we move up the waste hierarchy to focus more on reuse, repair and redesign, the role
of local municipalities becomes slightly more opaque, as a range of other actors and legislative
factors come into play. These actors include businesses such as restaurants, hotels, bars etc,
whilst the legislative picture looks different for reuse and prevention, as it requires broader action
at the regional, national and European levels to have a significant impact outside of just a city’s
borders.
Examples of waste prevention initiatives relevant to local authorities:
• Deposit Return Schemes for several product categories (beverage containers to

food packaging)
• Repair and reuse centres for bulky and electronic items
• Packaging free shops
• Washing and delivery of reusable nappies
• Foodsharing platforms and apps
• Flea-markets where second-hand items of all kinds can be sold, but textiles are
most common
Deposit Return Schemes and the limitations of city-wide

prevention policies
For example, let us take a look at one key reuse policy – Deposit Return Schemes (DRS). DRS place
a small deposit on the price of a product or item, that can be returned back to the consumer when
they return the reusable product or item to another participating service provider. For example,
you buy your favourite bottle of beer as
part of your weekly shop, and pay an
additional 10 cent to the price of the beer.
When you go back to the supermarket
for your next weekly shop, you either
return the beer bottle to the cashier or
drop it into a machine that identifies the
bottle and collects it. Both options give
you your 10 cent deposit back.
It’s relatively simple and such policies are

increasing in countries across Europe.
However, this one example of DRS is
being noted here as such schemes also
show the limitations that city-wide
initiatives can have. To have a big impact
and provide citizens with clarity on where
the DRS apply, these systems should be Image from We Choose Reuse campaign
applied either regionally or nationally. A
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national DRS is important as it should also set harmonised design criteria for reusable products.
For the example of beer bottles, in a national DRS, the system should uphold certain design and
manufacturing requirements that all beer manufacturers must follow. This allows the bottles
to be easily cleaned and prepared for reuse, whilst also creating a level playing field for all those
involved in the DRS for beer bottles in this example – ranging from the producers of beers to the
shops selling the bottles.
Whereas if the DRS is applied in one city but not its neighbour, manufacturers will not have the
confidence they need to transition over to the system, whilst citizens cannot be sure where the
deposit can and cannot be accepted.
One important note – this is not to say at all that DRS should not be tried and pursued by
cities. In situations where national legislation does not mandate for DRS or other reusable
pooling models, cities can play very important roles in piloting and implementing city-
wide reuse initiatives.
Companies such as Recup, reCIRCLE and many more are expanding rapidly in Europe, as they
work with cities to install pooling systems for reusable coffee cups and takeaway food containers.
Companies such as Uzaje in France are installing centralised cleaning infrastructure to help
the expansion of reusable packaging by providing businesses with a safe and easy method for
preparing products for their reuse.
When advocating for DRS within an EU member state, it’s important to know that the Single-Use
Plastics Directive sets targets for the collection of plastic beverage bottles of 77% by 2025 and
90% by 2029. This target cannot be achieved via standard separate collection models alone,
and therefore requires DRS, as these systems are proven to achieve such impressive results.
Once a DRS has been established within a city and is working well for such items such as glass
bottles or aluminium cans, we as Zero Waste Ambassadors should use this to show municipalities
where DRS could also work for other product types, such as e-commerce packaging, to truly help
catalyse action towards a circular economy.
Of course, DRS are just one of several different tools/policies that can help prevent waste. There
is a broad range of policies available that differ depending on the target material/product for
prevention. For example, repair cafes and reuse centres – where citizens can bring products or
materials, ranging from bikes to furniture and electronics, that are repaired and prepared for resale
– are commonplace in Zero Waste Cities. Increasingly, businesses are also using digital technology
to scale up reuse systems, such as eReuse in Catalonia which uses blockchain to create an open-
source map of electronic products that have been repaired and reused in the region.
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What to ask of cities on reuse and prevention?
What would you ask, based on what you have read so far?
Thinking of the activist who wanted to reduce use of single-use cups in the city, what kind of
policies could he/she propose for the municipality (and the national government)?
Due to the increased number of actors needed to be involved in citywide prevention policies,
some municipalities will be hesitant to take ambitious action or will not see it as a priority. In
many cases, you as Zero Waste Ambassador may have a strong relationship with city officials
working on waste management but for the topic of reuse and repair, the relevant city official with
such competencies in their job will sit in a different team or department.
Nonetheless, there are still many initiatives and actions that municipalities can take which can have
a significant and quick impact on waste generation locally. ZWE’s briefing on how municipalities
can create effective reuse strategies outlines 4 main priority areas:
• Establish reuse and prevention targets.
• Adopt environmental and social public procurement criteria that prioritise reuse.
• Invest in and create quality collection points.
• Create a reuse culture locally with the community.
This section is by no means exhaustive in the slightest. The topic of reuse and prevention is huge,
with huge volumes of resources already dedicated to these topics and many more will continue
to be in the future, as we urgently push the solutions we need to transition towards a circular
economy.
However, the purpose of this section is to introduce some of the details that we most commonly
face when advocating for reuse and prevention at the local level. Zero Waste Ambassadors should
focus on two main spheres when working with their local authorities to prevent waste:
• What is in the municipality’s direct sphere of control – e.g. making reusable
items mandatory in all public events, spaces, buildings and embedding
prevention criteria within public procurement tenders.
• What is in the municipality’s indirect sphere of control – e.g. supporting the
growth of packaging-free shops, local enterprises which operate reuse models,
connecting local businesses with existing reuse companies (to name just a few!).
EU waste policies and targets are the most ambitious in the world. However, at the local level
we have seen significantly better achievements thanks to strategic action taken with the help
of Zero Waste Ambassadors such as you. All of these examples have one thing in common:
prioritising waste reduction and reuse. Since policies and targets are not yet very illustrative
on how to achieve this, it is perhaps the hardest and most rewarding advocacy part in the
ambassador’s work. Collaboration and sharing best practices is crucial for this.
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Additional reading:
Local guidance on creating reuse strategies – a briefing outlining 4 main policies for
municipalities to adopt to help create a local reuse culture.
Reducing food waste at the local level – a briefing outlining several steps that
municipalities should adopt to prevent the volume of food waste they generate.
DRS Manifesto – a short briefing outlining how DRS should be established.
ReLoop’s DRS factsheets – a set of very useful documents outlining the key factors and benefits
of DRS.
Reusable vs single-use packaging: a review of environmental impact – a comparison of reuse vs

single-use packaging and their environmental impacts, which showcases the benefits of reusable
packaging.
The story of ReWine – a case study on establishing reuse system for wine in Catalonia.
The story of Halle 2 – a case study on Munich’s reuse and repair hub.
RREUSE’s factsheet on why reuse targets matter and what they should be – a briefing outlining
why targets on reuse are so important and guidance for you on what they should be.
ADVOCACY
Of course, knowing the policy landscape is just one part of being an effective Zero Waste
Ambassador. To perfectly supplement this knowledge, developing our advocacy skills, in order to
be confident communicators of zero waste policies and messages, is also critically important to
achieve meaningful change.
The term “advocacy” includes a wide range of activities that all intend to influence
public policy. Advocacy can include:
• Conducting research.
• Educating the public through awareness campaigns.
• Meeting with politicians.
• Organising social media campaigns.
Advocacy tactics and activities are the most important way a Zero Waste Ambassador can help
push for systemic change. Often, advocacy and lobbying are used interchangeably, yet lobbying
is more associated with specific efforts to influence pieces of legislation, whilst advocacy
encompasses a much broader range of educational and awareness-raising activities.
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The best advocacy campaigns and initiatives are those which have a clear goal, know the system
and how to work it to their advantage. Therefore, planning and preparation is absolutely critical
when conducting advocacy activities. There are several important steps to follow to plan your
advocacy:
Understand
• You must understand your issue first. You need to define what success looks like,
what the causes of the problem you’re trying to solve are. You need to know who
you require on your side to achieve success and who may oppose what you are
trying to do.
• PEST (political, economic, social and technological) and SWOT (strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis tools are very helpful at this stage, as
well as problem trees to help you dig deeper into the root causes of the problem.
Plan
• You need to break down and identify different steps on the way to achieving
your overarching goal. Identifying what needs to happen each year, month or
week, for example, will really help paint the full picture of how you can achieve
your success and what you need to do by when.
• You should also be able to identify the key targets and plan your key messages
– what are you going to say to get people to act and who do you need to be saying these
things to.
• Identifying key stakeholders by mapping them on the chart below where the two axis
are their willingness to engage and power to change things, is a very useful tool to help
during this process. Just identifying the key stakeholders is not enough though. On top of
this, consider what power they have to bring about change, how willing they are to act in
support of your goals and start to detail the specific activities that each stakeholder could
take to help your mission.1
An example of the power mapping chart, which can be seen in more detail here:
Most influential or powerful

(in terms of your objective)
Strongly oppose your Strongly support your

position or objective position or objective
Least influential or powerful

(in terms of your objective)
1
A good additional resource especially on power mapping: Burfield, E. (2018). Regulatory Hacking: A Playbook for
Startups.
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Act
• This just involves implementing the planned actions you identified previously, as
well as evaluating your impact throughout the process, being open to changing
plans, tactics or messaging where needed, if it will help increase your impact.
• The “act” phase can involve several different “actions” – meeting with policy-
makers, campaigning in public, capacity building of volunteers, collecting
petition signatures, sharing digital content in a targeted way, engaging with the media
etc. Anything that will help get the people who you want to act do so in the way that you
want them to, which may be individuals sorting their waste better at home or a politician
proposing new wording to a key piece of legislation.
Advocacy may seem daunting to some, or it may come naturally to you, but either way it is a
fundamental and necessary part of our work as Zero Waste Ambassadors. However, there are
several different tools out there to help make your advocacy work as impactful as possible,
helping to really specify what your objectives are, how you will reach your objectives and who
you will need to help you in this process. Furthermore, a large part of advocacy is the ability
to communicate – either in written or oral format. Communication skills can be worked on and
developed, but being a confident communicator often comes from having prepared sufficiently.
Knowing your key messages, who your audience is, what their motivations are and what you
clearly want them to do after reading/listening to your communications are all critical to effective
advocacy. However, it’s good to always know and be comforted by the fact that plans very rarely
ever go as they were 100% designed to. They can fail or exceed your expectations. Having a plan
will help assess the outcome, good or bad, and will provide you with invaluable guidance on where
to go next. For more information about effective communication, check the Communication and
storytelling chapter. There you will also find more information on how the power mapping chart
can be further used.
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1. Where should I go to find out the relevant policies on waste and the circular economy
for my community?
2. What are the best examples of policies that help zero waste?
3. Why shouldn’t we just ban all problematic materials?
1. Where should I go to find out the relevant policies on waste and the circular economy for
my community?
This will differ depending on the region and country you live in. Eurostat provides the best
overview of the European picture. Then for the national level, or even regional level within
a country, you should research who is responsible for waste management and where they
publicise the data they collect. Each municipality you work with should know who they must
report their waste data figures to.
2. What are the best examples of policies that help zero waste?
Any policy that follows the framework of a Zero Waste City is beneficial and should be
encouraged by all Zero Waste Ambassadors. These range from the introduction of separate
collection systems to PAYT systems and targets on the volume of material reused per year.
Whilst some of these policies are designed and implemented at the local level, national and
regional policies are key to help enable municipalities to take ambitious action. For example,
national laws that mandate the separate collection of organics, as was the case in Slovenia
in the 2000s, or the recent French national law compelling supermarkets to donate leftover
food waste.
3. Why shouldn’t we just ban all problematic materials?
In theory, this would work and we could single-handedly prevent all of our most problematic
materials from entering the market. In reality though, we must create a transitional strategy
away from our current economic models. Businesses and citizens must be supported and
guided to switch to reusable, safer materials during their everyday lives. Of course, we advocate
for bans but these bans must be accompanied by alternative solutions and an ambitious but
realistic timeline that allows all the relevant stakeholders to sufficiently adapt before the ban
is enforced.
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• Who are the main actors that you need to work with
within your community on waste prevention policies?
• Why do you think policy-making feels scary or boring to
some people? And why do some people find it fascinating?
• What skills do you already possess that makes you a good
advocate? What do you feel you can improve on?
• What tools and methods do you have to help you with your
advocacy?
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COMMUNICATION AND
STORYTELLING
• Have you thought about what does zero waste means to

you?
• What kind of messages on zero waste do you want to
share/spread?
• Who is the target audience of your message? What could
zero waste mean to them?
• How do you usually explain zero waste to people? Is it
difficult or easy to do? Why?
• How do you feel when you are challenged with a question
or counter-argument?
• What is the role of your audience in zero waste?
Once we have discovered the world of zero waste, it becomes the only right thing to do in our
minds. Unfortunately not everyone thinks like this. Sometimes they just don’t know enough about
it, they don’t understand what “zero waste” means, they have misconceptions around it or they
simply think it doesn’t concern them (even if it really does) and they are not interested.
We may wish to grow our audience or influence our target groups to take certain action.
Sometimes our role is only to raise awareness – the need arises from lack of knowledge in the
society. In other times, our job is much more complex, with the need to address false information
that translates into wrong behaviours and attitudes. In any case, our challenge is to find a way to
get people to care about zero waste in order to get them on board with us.
BASICS OF COMMUNICATION –
THE THREE PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS
The first thing to remember is that every person needs motivation in order to do something.
In the Learning motivation chapter we have distinguished between trash and quality motivation.
For deeper understanding and long term commitment we want to support quality motivation
and that comes through supporting the three basic psychological needs of the person we are
communicating with. This means supporting:
• Relatedness – showing genuine interest and understanding in the thoughts

and opinions of other people, recognising their feelings, responding without
judgement, making them feel that their contribution is valued and they are a
part of a group.
• Competence – speaking with people on the level understandable to them,
not using field-specific words with a non-expert, helping to understand what
is expected of them, what should be done to solve the problem at hand and
if needed, helping to do it, at the same time treating them like thinking and
capable beings who can take up a challenge.
• Autonomy – not forcing your own thoughts and ideas on to people, allowing
them to find their own meaning and purpose in the topic, solve posed
questions-problems themselves and in their own pace, giving them a choice to
make a decision on their own; not letting them feel guilty, controlled, or forced
to think, feel or behave in certain way.
One of the easiest ways to put this into practice is asking questions from people about their views
and understandings and truly listening, before offering our own (expert) perspective, stating our
own proposals and explanations. This also means genuinely being interested in their answers and
not bombarding them with questions in an interrogative manner, but rather showing an open
curiosity. You can read more in-depth about supporting the basic psychological needs from the
Learning motivation chapter.
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Asking questions is also a good way to approach people who hold some zero waste myths
or misconceptions. In order to truly correct someone’s misconceptions, they need to reach
the understanding themselves that they have a misconception, which is also connected to
supporting their three basic needs. Just stating our correct information to people often does not
change their mind. Different methods for correcting people’s misconceptions can be found in the
Misconceptions chapter.
The reason we need to explore how to communicate is because we are talking to people who do
not yet share zero waste values or don’t have the same knowledge as us. And this compromises
our own three basic needs, e.g. we feel that our concerns are not being taken seriously. The tough
thing about being openly curious and listening is that, as Zero Waste Ambassadors, you do not
talk to people about easy things such as how they decided to get a dog or learn a new language.
You are faced with people who make daily decisions that jeopordise the environment and human
health – the world that you live in and that you care about deeply. It is a natural response to
become defensive and irritated.
Perhaps the most helpful way to make it simpler to support the three basic needs of your
counterpart without compromising your own is: understanding another’s point of view does not
mean agreeing with it.
Be humble, respect the other person’s point of view, try to put yourself in their shoes, but
if you can’t, be mindful that another person’s shoes are still theirs.
You cannot force your ideas on anyone just like you cannot force them to wear shoes you like. It
is the key to any communication, regardless of whether you are writing an e-mail, designing a
poster or attending a meeting. It needs training and is not always easy. However, there are people
negotiating with terrorists, not losing their calm and even reaching agreements.1 It is inspiring to
believe that it is possible for us to overcome disagreements or lack of interest about zero waste.
COMMUNICATION AND VALUES

There is almost no neutral human interaction or communication, as we don’t sense the world
neutrally. It always comes through a filter of pre-knowledge, experiences, opinions, values – it’s
part of being human. Even the things we call neutral, in their deep essence mostly are not so.
Our sense of rationality is often just our skill of finding rational explanations to our irrational
behaviours. But that’s another story.2 What is important to remember is that both the sender
and receiver of messages see things subjectively, carried by some assumptions and attitudes
connected to our values and bigger life goals. In very broad terms our thinking, communication
and in turn our actions are carried by either intrinsic or extrinsic values.
1
Recommended reading for anyone wishing to improve their negotiation skills and learn about how to deal with emotionally
difficult counterparts: Voss, C. (2016). Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
2
If you are interested in the deep irrationality of human nature, read: Ariely, D. (2010). Predictably Irrational.
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• Intrinsic values – creating and keeping close relationships, personal growth, contributing
to your community.
• Extrinsic values – power and economic success, having material wealth, fame, being
popular, looking attractive.
As written in the Zero waste, wellbeing and values chapter, zero waste solutions are closely
connected to intrinsic values. These values are also something we want to support in our
communication and we can use them as a source of inspiration on how to talk and what to talk
about with our audience. It starts even with the words we use. For example, the same thing can
be referred to in two different ways:
• Taxpayer’s money – stressing individualistic, extrinsic values.

• Public investment – stressing common good, intrinsic values.
When we talk about money, we can talk more about what we need this money for, what kind of life
quality it can bring to the wider community, so we shift the focus from extrinsic to intrinsic values.
An obvious way to support values is to talk directly about them. For example how zero waste
solutions like food sharing initiatives or repair centres help to support a sense of community
between citizens. As an effective communicator, you would also know and be forever curious to
learn about other initiatives supporting intrinsic goals and which other benefits are associated
with them. This is all about knowing what makes your audience tick and offering them, in return,
information/expertise about what they value the most.
Let’s explore a few examples on how zero waste benefits can be introduced through different
angles to intrinsic values, which may not be the ones that matter most to you. Who do you think
could be motivated by these arguments?
Example 1: Zero waste boosts care of place.3 Better maintained, cleaner and greener
neighbourhoods often have lower rates of theft and break-ins and discourage
potential crimes.4
Example 2: Negative brand association. A study has shown that people are unwilling
to pay the usual price on a product if its packaging is frequently seen as litter, it is
seen worth less and that could lead to a 2% drop in a company’s turnover.5
For more explanations and guidance on how to work with values and how to support the intrinsic
values in our communication, a good resource is the Common Cause Handbook.
3
Read examples of behavioural intervention methods and their effectiveness from: Spehr, K., Curnow, R. (2015).
Litterology
4
How Surprising Neighbourhood Factors Like Trees & Trash Impact Crime Rates, EzLandLordForms (2015)
5
Litter: its impact on local communities, Brailsford Parish Council (2021)
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PLANNING YOUR COMMUNICATION
Planning communication is in essence a set of actions to ensure that your message reaches the
right people in order to have impact. With the limited time and resources we have, it is better to
know that we are doing the most important things and talking to the most important people.6
If you are in doubt on whether you are talking to the right people or telling them the right things,
you can start by asking yourself three key questions:
1. Who are you talking to? Do you know your target group (who they are, what they
know, how they think, why they do the things they do)?
2. What do you need them to know?
3. What do you need them to do?
To take the stress off:

“No, you can not reach everyone and you cannot communicate everything”.
Put out of your mind the latest viral campaign that the ‘whole world’ has heard of and get rid of
the idea that everything you have learnt throughout your journey as Zero Waste Ambassador,
can be piled onto anyone in an hour, with an e-mail or through a press release. If you can live
with that, get to work and get to know your target audience well. The more specific you are, the
better. That will allow you to craft the right message7 and focus on the most effective channels.
Sometimes there is that one key person you need to talk to. Often it is more people and it may
happen that at first sight it is unclear who you really need to address or what you really need
them to know/believe/understand in order for your desired change to happen.
6
Usually taken for two reasons: for communication activities to match the organisation’s strategic goals and to justify
budget allocations, since communication is always a cost for an organisation.
7
Simple and helpful guide to understanding why some messages stick and others not: Heath, C., Heath, D. (2006). Made to stick.
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How to choose your messages
There are many tools to help craft the right messages. We suggest here the micro targeted
audience analysis. You can start by writing down a simple question you have about a behaviour
using the formula:
WHY + COMMUNITY/AUDIENCE + BEHAVIOUR
Exercise:
Imagine your goal is to help the city transfer to reuse dishes at public events, but the current
situation is that they have opted for biodegradable ones. Your question could be: “Why does
the city allow biodegradable dishes at public events?”. The more specific about the question
you are, the easier it will be to take the next steps. City may mean city council or its officers.
Continue by examining:
4. Who influences your chosen target group? Try to stretch your list to more than the
usual suspects. The more detailed you are, the more opportunities it will give you.
5. What are the beliefs and the emotional drivers behind the target group’s behaviour?
6. What does the target group get from this behaviour (their emotional payoffs)?
Try matching the belief with the chosen influencer. If the city council notices that other similar
cities (influencers) are being highlighted in the media for transferring to biodegradables they wish
to follow suit (emotional driver). If the public officers are influenced by what is stipulated in the
law (influencer) where biodegradable is considered as an alternative to single-use plastic and
nothing is mentioned of reuse, they will do the dutiful thing (emotional driver) of following what
is written.
Then look into the target group’s (in this case the city officer) emotional payoffs. How would our
hypothetical city officer feel? Possible payoffs: a confirmation of a job well done, feeling safe for
doing the right and agreeable thing in the eyes of the employer, pride for putting the city in the
spotlight for making a green decision.
Why is it important how they feel? Because emotions help us understand what is important to
people, where they feel confident, where they are insecure. Emotions can give us information
on what they know and believe in. Refer back to the Learning motivation chapter to distinguish
between trash and quality motivation, to help you work with people’s pre-knowledge and feelings
for a meaningful and long-lasting impact. Imagine if you are promoting reuse as an alternative
that has not been proven to work, has not received acceptance in the eye of the public and is not
prescribed in the law. Your offer to them is provoking insecurity, risk of failure and becoming a bad
example. How do you think this affects their three basic needs?
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How to choose your audience
If you are unclear who the right target audience is, the only real way to find out is by listing
your assumptions and then testing them by really talking to people. By identifying your key
stakeholders, you can also identify the key audiences. The power-interest grid allows you to
understand who is important, where to allocate your energy but also to avoid frustration from
overwhelming engagement from those who do not need to attend every decision- making process
or the feeling of being left out by those who feel that their opinions should be taken into account.
The power-interest grid:

Power and impact
HIGH ENGAGE ENGAGE PARTNER
MEDIUM INFORM CONSULT CONSULT
LOW INFORM INFORM CONSULT

Interest and impact
of the change for
LOW MEDIUM HIGH the actor
The types of communication with different stakeholders:

• Inform – to provide balanced and objective information in order to assist in understanding
the problem, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions.
• Consult – to obtain feedback on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions.
• Engage – to work together to ensure that this stakeholder group’s concerns and
aspirations are directly reflected in the alternatives developed and they are provided
feedback on how their input influenced the decision.
• Partner – to work together to formulate solutions and incorporate their advice and
recommendations into the decisions to the maximum extent possible.
Example:
You are advocating for a nation-wide reuse system to be supported with regulation:
• Your partner is the ministry drafting the law.

• You should engage with the companies and associations who are directly
impacted by the law and who are in consultative status with the ministry.
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• You should consult users or alternative service providers who are impacted by
the change but who do not dictate the dominating narrative yet, such as reuse
system providers, supervising agencies who determine what alternatives can
operate and shops, cafeterias and other user groups to understand their needs
for adjusting to new systems.
• You should inform the general public who is the end user of reuse packaging.
They are the ones whose behaviour and attitudes do not affect the law directly,
but who can have a direct impact on influencing the process and discourse of the
legislative process.
STORYTELLING
The world around us consists of stories and narratives. And storytelling is perhaps the most
powerful tool for any message to come through. We can use it as an educational tool so target
groups can easily relate to zero waste topics.
A story is one single tale with a beginning and an end and with an underlying moral.
A narrative is a collection of these stories. It can influence the way people generally
think of a certain topic, organisation or a person.
Most often, our job is to shift the whole social narrative around waste. That may mean anything
from littering behaviour to designing national zero waste strategies. In order for a narrative to
change, we can use stories as tools everywhere: in social media posts, blogs, articles, researches,
campaigns and meetings.
Exercise:
The dominating narrative – single-use plastic is normal, littering is bad.8 The solution in the
majority’s mind is to educate people to separate waste and not litter.
What do we do to challenge this narrative?
One option could be to sway the narrative to this direction:

Single-use of any durable material is a waste. The companies producing plastic packaging should rethink
what options they are putting on the market and take responsibility for the damage it ends up doing in
the environment. Single-use plastics have only been around for some decades and they are avoidable
in most cases. Despite separate collection, most of the waste ends up incinerated or landfilled, because
single-use materials often have no value on the secondary market or they are not recyclable altogether.
8
Notice, who is doing the wrong thing in this narrative? Who or what should change? How does that sway your attention?
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What has been done for this: first, civil society organisations started to make public transparency
requests to corporations about their strategies to tackle waste problems as a part of their
producer responsibility. This opened the topic of “who creates and can solve single-use plastic
problems”. Over time, more and more initiatives, such as the Brand Audits, have challenged the
dominating narrative. Thus educating the public and triggering change.
The better we understand the narrative frame we operate in, the more successful we are in
achieving our goal. Just make sure that when you are telling your story, your audience is the good
guy. It is best if they are the hero in your story, but you may attribute other positive roles (such
as a fairy godmother, a mentor or other similar character who has a key role in allowing the hero
to succeed). Storytelling is an art in itself, but the easiest for anyone to get started with it, is
choosing a story you like and know best and start investigating the dynamics of the characters
and playing around with your role and the role of your audience.9
Example 1. The hero story.

Most stories we hear and tell are hero stories. A good story consists of elements that each
listener craves for and allows for your audience to follow and keep or lose interest. It doesn’t
matter if it is a 30-second pitch, a graph or a training session, the full story or a segment of it
can be present in them all. What role have you assigned to your audience? Do you think it is an
active or passive role? Is the audience a positive or negative character? How would you like your
audience to identify themselves?
The hero story in practice:
Imagine you are presenting an idea of separate collection to your local municipality, using the
example of Ljubljana since they are comparable in size and profile. It is good to get acquainted
with the resources provided by Zero Waste Europe for these case studies. You want your audience
to empathise with Ljubljana through the struggles they faced in the beginning and the success
they are attributed after. You want Ljubljana to be the hero and your audience to feel inspired to
be the hero too. Alternatively, imagine if you walked in the room like you are the saviour of the
city and the municipality representatives (your audience) are the obstacle that keeps you from
overcoming the evil. What reactions do you think this would provoke in your audience?
Example 2. The underdog story.

The story of someone who is most likely to lose. Think of Robin Hood or Cinderella. Are you in a
position of most likely losing? Describe the apparent hopelessness of the situation. What are the
lucky events or hidden talents that can turn the situation for the better. Who is the villain? The
underdog stories can be very powerful in making the audience feel like you need them to succeed.
9
Find inspiration to build your story: Amlani, A., Bertels, S., Hadler, T. (2016). Storytelling for Sustainability,
Embedding Project
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Underdog story in practice:
Imagine presenting the idea of becoming the first zero waste city to a municipality that has
always been considered the worst. It is lagging behind economically, its residents are moving to
other cities and due to low income, it is losing its attraction as a place to live. The story of using
its industrial heritage for developing new circular business models and providing new services,
playing on the “nothing to lose” position for trying out new things, and imagining the potential for
creating new jobs and transforming the community into a green and attractive one, can be just
the boost the municipality needs for a new found morale. As long as you know what motivates
your audience, the worst place to start from might become the best reason to get started.
Struggle stories vs success stories

Often, in order to inspire others to follow the zero waste path or pursue anything really, we tell
success stories of what others have achieved in this field. But studies10 have shown that people
find it easier to relate to the struggles within those stories rather than just the successes, and
even get them more interested in the field. This means talking about and even putting the focus
on the mistakes made and challenges met on that journey, and then how they were overcome and
the success achieved. It’s more about sharing the story of the process, dead-ends and eventual
progress, not just the achievement. On every hero’s journey, there is first the struggle with the
way things are until there comes a ‘change or die’ moment that gives the hero the courage to
take matters into their own hands and fight for a better new world. The hero is just like us who
makes mistakes and has doubts. It is natural for a hero to not succeed at first try. If it were so,
the movies we watch and books we read would be much shorter. At our training courses we also
ask the people sharing local zero waste case studies to tell their struggle stories. It’s the parts of
their challenges and overcoming them, which are most captivating to listen to.
This is not to say that success stories are not good. There is a time and place for everything.
Always look for the most valid examples or elements in any success story to spark your audience’s
interest. It may be a surprisingly high separate collection rate or lowest waste management fees
in the country. But the rest is about making your audience believe that they can be just as good
(or even better). More often than not, the struggle story is a tool to use with the target audience
who actually has to make the change happen. They find comfort in knowing that others have
faced the same challenges and that no one can know all and do everything perfectly at once. But
it is the followers and supporters who want to be encouraged and given confidence that they
are following and supporting a winner, unless you are certain that you can play out to be a great
underdog :).11 What do you think is the reason that successful crowdfunding campaigns kick off
with an encouraging pre-agreed donation pool?
10
Lin-Siegler, X., Ahn, J. N., Chen, J., Fang, F.-F. A., & Luna-Lucero, M. (2016). Even Einstein struggled: Effects of learning
about great scientists’ struggles on high school students’ motivation to learn science. Journal of Educational Psychology,
108(3), 314–328.
11
There is also charm in being an underdog. It is really about the way you are writing your story and which archetypes you
believe will work out best for you. Further reading: Capitalizing on the Underdog Effect, Harvard Bussiness Review (2010)
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How to tell a story?
Once you know your target group and you know what you want them to know, there are unlimited
ways to convey your message. The first key element to success is obviously – you! Your passion,
interest and understanding of the topic but also, what makes you most comfortable. If your super
power is data, present that. If you are a highly sociable person, do just that. Always keep in mind to
support your audience’s three basic needs. Whether you are advocating a new policy, presenting
data to illustrate your point or talking about the technicalities of waste treatment, you can
always be mindful of your audience’s need to make sense of things in a familiar way. Just because
your graph12 is correct doesn’t make it automatically either interesting nor comprehendable.
If you struggle making your data interesting, at least allow your audience to draw conclusions
themselves from the information you present them. Regardless of whether they are wrong or
right, a dialogue is better than just proving that you are right.
Also fight the urge to show all your slides or present all your data if your audience is showing
obvious signs of not being interested. Well laid out plans, graphs and analysis that you have
worked on so long and hard, only work for the purpose of building confidence and pride in you.
Have comfort in having them to back you up but avoid overwhelming people with information.
Always come back to reminding yourself, what was that one thing you needed them to know,
understand and act upon? All the rest is supportive information to achieve the initially set goal.
But the true success depends on whether and how well your audience feels their concerns and
questions about the topic are being addressed.
For exploring, practicing and preparing how to approach and communicate with stakeholders,
you can use this training video. Imagine, how would you feel in the shoes of the different parties
in the video and look for possible exercises to go with it in the Training video guide for Zero Waste
Ambassadors. What in the way people talk, look and behave support the three basic needs and
what is in breach of them?
12
It is not a coincidence that a graph is used here to illustrate a possible mistake in addressing your audience. A graph equals
a slide that has too much text on it. If you want data to really make an impact, make sure the information you want the
audience to know really stands out. And that is either one single point or three interesting finds the most. For some tips on
how to present your data better, check the Waste data basics chapter.
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• What makes you listen to other people and get on board
with their ideas?
• In your experience in talking about zero waste, what kind
of questions, facts, stories have seemed to work the best?
• What are the most memorable stories on zero waste you
have heard? Why are they memorable?
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TRAINING VIDEO GUIDE FOR
ZERO WASTE AMBASSADORS
This training video (7 minutes) gives an example of how a Zero Waste Ambassador
could approach her/his municipality officer, or actually any stakeholder. It can be used
as a training tool to discuss how to best get stakeholders interested in zero waste.
In reality our meetings are of course longer and more time could be taken to discuss different
topics and discuss them in more depth, however in this video we have tried to capture the essence
of a good communication about zero waste.
An example exercise how this can be used in a training session.
1. Give a task to learners to practice:

You want to get your municipality to adopt some zero waste policies, firstly door-to-door collection.
You know that they have only public recycling points, where people need to bring their source-
separated waste. You have set up the meeting with the vice-mayor with the promise that your
ideas could help to save some costs. How would you approach him/her to get him/her consider
your ideas?
Extra-layer: As you enter into a meeting with the vice-mayor, you see that the secretary brings in
coffee in single-use cups.
The task can be organised in several ways:

A. Learners work in pairs, where they do role play: one is vice-mayor, the other is the
Ambassador,
B. Learners work in pairs, where they simply discuss what their approach would be OR
C. Individual work, where learners write down their thoughts, which is then followed by
discussion in smaller groups or in one big group.
2. After the task, the video is shown. This is followed by another discussion, some
possible guiding questions:
• What did you notice in the video?

• What did the Ambassador do differently in the video than you would have? What could be
the reasons for that? What would work better in reality?
• What was done well? What could be done better?
• What principles of communication can we deduct from here?
• What would be the next steps for the Ambassador after the meeting?
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Some parts of the video can be shown again, or the video paused at certain moments, for example
when the badly sorted waste bins are shown.
The expert reasoning for the Ambassador’s approach in the video that can be shared in the end:
• The Ambassador resists the urge to start first talking about the single-use cups on the
table, which probably would shift the focus from the bigger plan she wanted to propose.
She also doesn’t go into blaming why their office is using single-use cups. Blame is a form
of control, which would suppress the vice-mayor’s need for autonomy, which in turn would
reduce his wish to truly listen to the Ambassador.
• The Ambassador doesn’t start with her proposals, she asks the vice-mayor what he
thinks about the situation (even though she already knows some things and has her own
opinions) and is sincerely interested in how it looks from his perspective. She accepts the
answers calmly, without judging, but rather being supportive, building the dialogue upon
the vice-mayor’s thoughts – supporting the need of autonomy and relatedness.
• The Ambassador mostly asks questions, trying to get the vice-mayor to get to the
answers himself – helping him to construct the knowledge himself, and again supporting
autonomy.
• The Ambassador also asks questions that need more in-depth answers than just yes or
no, where the vice-mayor has to explain a bit more and open up his thinking.
• In moments when the vice-mayor seems a bit confused, because he probably hasn’t
asked these questions from himself and others from him, and takes time to respond, the
Ambassador is patient and not rushing in with her knowledge – this is again helping the
vice-mayor to think actively about this himself.
• Only after several questions the Ambassador starts presenting her case and examples of
what could be done in their city too. By offering the vice-mayor options on how they could
do things together, the Ambassador supports his need for competence.
• The Ambassador doesn’t talk about the definition of zero waste, but shares the examples
of what it means in practice for the zero waste cities. She focuses on the decisions the
city governments have made, showing also how it has been a journey and making the
connection how those cities were once in the similar state as this city is now.
• In the end, the Ambassador also doesn’t just say that single-use cups are bad, but asks
why they are used (thus, giving a question, not an answer, with the potential to the vice-
mayor to find the answer himself) and simply proposes a possibility to discuss some
better options next time.
Anything else that you noticed?
For the purpose of the video’s length, the flow of the discussion in the video is a bit rushed and
faster than in reality. In a real life situation, in what moments and how could the Ambassador act
differently than shown in the video, following the same principles mentioned above?
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ZERO WASTE CITY
ROLE PLAY GAME
The Zero Waste City role play game was designed as a final activity in the Zero Waste Ambassador
training event, in order to practice all the main competences needed for being a Zero Waste
Ambassador. This gives the learners a life-like yet safe environment for testing the level of their
skills and understanding.
These are the elements of the game:

• The main aim of the activity is to give the learners a random municipality case, which may
be quite different from their own situation, to test if they are able to apply zero waste
principles in different contexts.
• The two first stakeholders are the most common ones that Zero Waste Ambassadors
need to work with – a municipality representative and a waste company worker.
• A disruption is built into the game, in order to practice adapting to changing circumstances
which also often happen in real life.
• The final stakeholder in the game is a journalist, as communication and talking to the
media is also part of spreading the zero waste message.
The game is played in groups, 4 people in a group is the ideal size for the learners. Groups could
either be randomly formed or formed by learners themselves.
Here you will find:

• The general set up for the game;
• The municipality profiles and disruptions;
• The short descriptions of stakeholder personas.
The descriptions are meant for the trainers playing the stakeholders. Additionally, some short
background information can be created about the personas to give to the groups, for example in
the form of a short biography or CV.
For those acting as the stakeholders, you will need experts with enough background in waste
management, zero waste policies, and real life situations (and ability to portray these personas
with a sense of playfulness!). Besides the stakeholders, it’s good to have a separate person to be
the game host, who will keep the time and help with the general flow of the game.
Recommended timeframe is around 4 hours without breaks – these can be added where needed.
Time for the groups to form is not included, but this can be done also the previous day or given as
a task during lunch or some other option.
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Timeframe of the role play game
Time Activity
30 min Municipality case is presented to groups, building their proposal(s)
15 min Meeting with the first stakeholder
15 min Meeting with the second stakeholder
20 min Teams analyse the info from their meetings, make plan for next steps
20 min The disruption is presented. Teams have time to adjust their plan and get ready to
present to the new stakeholder
15 min Meeting with the new stakeholder
20 min Making final plan (at the same time, trainers decide on the media angle for each
group based on what solution they are proposing for the municipality)
15 min Introducing media role to groups, time to prep for the interview with the journalist
10 min Two team members are interviewed by the local media persona, 5 min each
60-90 min All teams back together, reflections and feedback to each group (~10 min per
group to share their own reflections), all experts giving their view and solutions
After receiving the municipality profile in the beginning, if groups are struggling, they can be
guided to ask themselves questions like these:
• Highlight in text what you think are the most important facts, when making the decision.
• What information is not that important?
• What additional information do you need to ask from the municipality and waste
management company?
A commented version of one municipality profile can be found at the end of this chapter, which
can be helpful to guide learners to read and interpret information given to them. At the end of
each group info, we have also added short expert-opinions on what they would do in this situation.
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Stakeholders’ rotation
In our pilot training we had 4 groups and 4 trainers/experts. Each trainer met with each group
once, in a different role.
An example meeting plan with stakeholders for the groups:
Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4

Group 1 Municipality rep – Waste company – New waste advisor at Local media –
trainer 1 trainer 3 municipality – trainer 4 trainer 2
Group 2 Municipality rep – Waste company – New waste company – Local media –
trainer 2 trainer 4 trainer 1 trainer 3
Disruption
Group 3 Waste company – Municipality rep – Consultant for mayor Local media –
trainer 3 trainer 1 in charge of overseeing trainer 4
budget cuts – trainer 2
Group 4 Waste company – Municipality rep – City’s waste Local media –
trainer 4 trainer 2 management team – trainer 1
trainer 3
We reference the below information by each group, so that the municipality profile, the disruption,
and the stakeholder personas for one case can all be found together.
GROUP 1
Municipality profile
• The municipality is medium-sized (200,000 inhabitants) and is quite residential, with lots
of high-rise buildings in densely populated areas and suburbs. Only 30% of the population
have access to a garden.
• 200,000 inhabitants generate 550 kg of residual waste per capita per year, which includes
a lot of waste coming from local cafes and restaurants which is included as MSW.
comes from the tourism and hospitality sectors.
• Challenge of language diversity: there are often 5 different languages spoken by residents
throughout the town.
• The municipality partners with the local private waste management company, which is
responsible for implementing the waste and separate collection systems. The municipality
has an overall say and control over which company operates this programme, but the
waste management company is realistically the only business who have the capacity and
technical requirements to run this service within the local area.
181
• 35% separate collection rates in the municipality:
• Glass: street container.
• Door-to-door collection of residual waste + paper and cardboard.
• Plastic bottles and metals: street containers.
• No separate collection of organics.
• An incineration plant is used for the vast majority of residual waste and has a contract to
run for the next five years. The incinerator services many towns and communities across
the local region, charging high taxes due to there being little alternatives available for
municipalities to manage their waste. The plant is 50 km away from the town, resulting in
high transportation costs, too.
• There is one central drop-off location that citizens use for hazardous, bulky, garden, and
organic food waste, which is currently 10 km outside of the town, with low usage rates of
around 5-10% of the population.
• The municipality is interested in the possibility of introducing a PAYT scheme, with local
businesses not opposed to the idea either, but no action has been taken yet due to a lack
of capacity.
• Currently, residents pay a flat base rate of tax to the municipality for waste collection and
management, which does not differ depending on the amount of waste they produce.
• One small and independent packaging-free shop has been established in the town within
the last 12 months, but otherwise there remains little to no encouragement of reuse.
There are no repair centres in the local area, although some businesses do offer the
service but with a small fee.
• Educational posters have been spread around the town in the past to encourage the
use of separate collection bins for residents and tourists, as well as some social media
advertising paid by the municipality to try to get more younger people recycling and
reusing.
Stakeholder personas
Municipality representative
You are responsible for the operational level of a municipality, including finances and
project management. Being a small municipality, you need to handle many things
at the same time – you hardly keep up with the overload of work and many responsibilities. You
mainly deal with urgent things and don’t leave much room for new things – such as innovative
approaches like zero waste, although you think they might be useful for the municipality’s
development and better waste management. How to find capacity for this extra work and
responsibility? You need to be approached by chance, not pushed, and provided with a simple plan
of how and where to start without much support and expert knowledge. You desire the feeling of
trust and reliability.
182
Waste management company owner
You are a person of obvious practical concerns: you are both stern, old school, and
unfavourable to suggestions of soft and poorly defined measures. You think in
people, trucks, tons, euros – not long-term visions and social innovations. It’s all about waste
management technology and performing the core services the company was founded for.
Disruption
Local elections were held and, although everyone assumed the same party would
continue, surprisingly another party won and took office in city government. The new party is
known for their conservative and business-as-usual mindset. They appoint a new waste advisor,
who finds zero waste an utopian idea (and probably just doesn’t know anything about it). Your
next meeting is with them.
New stakeholder personas
New waste advisor for the municipality
You are self-confident. You know some basics about waste management, but lack
the big picture and do not know the local situation. You are in favour of ready-made
solutions: you are willing to build facilities that will take care of the waste, rather than modifying
the separate collection system. Three jobs generated by the new incineration plant seem like a big
win. The main argument is that sanitation is guaranteed, waste disappears, and energy is created.
You clearly minimise the importance of target values that will be mandatory for municipalities in
the future, e.g. amount of packages to be recycled.
Journalist
You work for a media outlet which is under-resourced, understaffed and yet needs
“newsworthy” content as much as ever. Stories that are unique, have a local angle
to them, provoke controversy or debate, link to what’s happening at the European level, and meet
the interest of the local population are all you are seeking. To get into the real “story”, you need
to dig deeper and ask sometimes challenging or provocative questions. This is exactly the kind of
content that your editor will appreciate.
183
Expert comment on the municipality case
Advice for the group
• Focus on optimising the existing separate collection system, because with

collection rates at only 35%, there’s lots to work on. This would include
implementing a door-to-door scheme for all residents. Showcase how, with some initial
investment, the scheme is proven to deliver higher recycling rates and better quality
recyclables which are able to be sold at a higher price. With reduced residual waste, door-
to-door schemes are proven to save money for the municipality, too.
• Organics is the priority – collect it from households directly and encourage home/
community composting throughout the municipality. Highlight the economic savings here,
as well as obvious environmental benefits.
• Pilot PAYT locally to begin with, in a section of the municipality with the aim of having it
implemented across 100% of the city after a couple of years of testing a gradual roll-out.
• Introduce reuse and repair centre(s) where possible with some municipal support,
although ideally you would create an environment where social enterprises and
businesses working on circular economy issues could flourish.
GROUP 2
• The municipality is relatively small, with a population of 15,000. It is quite rural and
geographically spread out. 90% of the population have access to a garden, with the
municipality covering a 10 km area in total.
• Its 15,000 inhabitants are generating 280 kg of residual waste per capita per year.
comes from either agriculture or jobs that require travelling to the nearby big city.
• 60% of the local population are over the age of 50. It is an ageing population, with most
younger people moving to bigger cities nearby.
• The municipality has a public waste management company, which it owns 100%. The
company reports to the mayor and is responsible for the collection and treatment of waste.
• Door-to-door collection is currently only offered to a small area within the municipality,
in the most densely populated area. Only 20% of residents have their waste collected at
the doorstep. The rest are required to drop their waste at certain drop-off points with
separate street bins.
184
• The average separate collection rate in the municipality is 37%, but this differs greatly
between the areas which receive door-to-door separate collection and between those
where people bring their waste to street bins:
• Glass: street container for all.
• Door-to-door collection of residual waste + paper and cardboard + plastics/metal/
drinks containers (PMD).
• Street bins for residuals + paper/cardboard.
• No separate collection of organics but some of the population carry out their own
composting activities, particularly those who have farms or farm animals.
• 75% of the residual waste is currently sent to a local landfill, but this is at 95% capacity, so
it cannot continue for much longer in its current state.
• The remaining 25% of residual waste is sent to the neighbouring big city’s incineration
plant. The contract for this is up for renewal in 8 years and is based upon a fixed fee,
rather than based upon the volume of waste that is sent.
• There is one central drop-off location that citizens use for hazardous, electronic, and bulky
waste located within the city centre. The recyclable materials here are then transported to
the larger recycling plant at the nearby big city, which is 30 km away.
• The municipality is interested in the possibility of introducing a PAYT scheme but worries
about the older population not liking the changes.
• The main local business and economic sectors are HORECA and elderly health care.
• Currently, residents pay a flat base rate of tax to the municipality for waste collection and
management, which does not differ depending on the amount of waste they produce.
• There has been very little encouragement of reuse locally but many of the inhabitants
would support actions on this, as they are aware that the landfill is close to being full
and of the environmental risks this poses. There are no repair centres in the local area,
although some individual tradesmen offer the service themselves, but this is unorganised
and irregular.
• Leaflets have been shared with each household about the importance of recycling and
on how to separate their waste. The municipality sees the good results of its door-to-
door collection in the densely populated area, but it is worried about extending this to
the whole population as they fear people will not have the space for extra bins. They also
worry about the extra costs of door-to-door collection, which would involve vans driving
further.
185
You are cautious about both the costs of any new policy and the ability to change
the behaviour of an ageing population. The municipality is under-resourced and,
therefore, very open to suggestions and ideas from external experts. However, keep in mind that
the municipality has a limited budget and there is little interest from other colleagues, so any
decision needs to be sustainably financed and easy to sell. Therefore, the presentation of data
and figures to the municipality is key. Come into the discussion looking for ideas and tips on what
can be done locally to improve the situation – you want to listen to the ‘experts’ and want to be
able to take away some tangible policy ideas.
The waste company is owned by the municipality. As the company owner, you have
worked for years to satisfy the municipality requirements, but you have also built up
your hidden marketing network of recycled materials that you are not reporting. The proposals by
Zero Waste Ambassadors might work if the final owner of a company – the municipality – gets
excited. This, however, would ruin your comfortable business plan.
The current incineration approach is expensive for the city but profitable for the company. The
contract expires within the next 8 years. So, it is your interest to postpone any actual zero waste
activities until then. After that point, you would agree to planning sustainable waste management
without landfill and incineration anyway. The biggest concern is that current contacts offer
stability. You have a serious fear of changes.
Disruption
The head of the waste management company gets arrested for fraud and illegal side
businesses in the recycling market. The company is temporarily closed by the police and, after a
short search, another waste company takes over the waste management at the municipality. It
happens fast – mostly because the new waste management company owner is friends with the
mayor. The new head of the waste company has ties with the waste-to-fuel industry and it’s
rumoured they are interested in developing that direction. Your next meeting is with the head of
this company.
New waste company
You are an “old machine” who knows all about waste, very technically skilled and
supportive of innovations. You know how things work in the field but you are
186
struggling when it comes to soft approaches and to communicating effectively with residents
(specially elders). You have high goals to improve waste management, but are very eager to follow
the realization of waste-to-energy practices as this is the best thing you know. You are strongly
committed to do your job well, although you are not putting environmental impacts first.
Journalist
You are an inquisitive investigative freelance journalist that will drill for concrete
details and will not be satisfied with generic and handwavy answers, let alone
misdirection. Also, since airtime is limited, there will be pressure on the interviewees to be concise.

Collect and build your evidence bank which shows why waste-to-energy is such a bad
idea for the municipality. Use mostly climate and energy efficiency reasons, whilst
showcasing the lock-in effect on waste generation that these incinerators have. With the right
collection system in place, the volume of residual waste can be drastically reduced here, which
means there is no need (and no economic sense) in building the waste-to-energy plant. Focus
first on the benefits that greater collection, recycling, and prevention can have to reduce the need
for any incinerators.
GROUP 3
• The municipality is large and quite urban. 20% of the population have access to a garden.
• 400,000 inhabitants generate 380 kg of residual waste per capita per year.
comes from the service sector (government, finances, customer support).
• Language diversity: 2 different languages spoken by residents throughout the town.
• The municipality partners with the local waste management company, who are
responsible for implementing the waste and separate collection systems. The municipality
has an overall say and control over which company operates this programme, but the
waste management company is realistically the only business who have the capacity and
technical requirements to run this service within the local area.
• Last year there was a 55% separate collection rate in the municipality:
• Glass: street container.
• Door-to-door collection of residual waste + paper and cardboard.
• Plastic bottles: street containers.
• No separate collection of organics.
187
• Separate collection rates have been stable at around 50-55% for the past 5 years, despite
a couple of public awareness-raising campaigns on why and how to recycle.
• Most of the residuals (75% approximately) are landfilled locally.
• There are two central drop-off locations that citizens use for hazardous, bulky, garden,
and organic food waste within the municipality, with relatively good use rates.
• The municipality is interested in the possibility of introducing a stricter PAYT scheme, with
local businesses not opposed to the idea either, but no action has been taken yet due to
competing schemes and the city being unsure which one to adopt.
• There are no repair or reuse centres in the local area, although some businesses do offer
the service for a small fee.
You are a person of obvious practical concerns: you are both stern, old school, and
unfavourable to suggestions of soft and poorly defined measures. You think in
people, trucks, tons, euros – not long-term visions and social innovations. It’s all about waste
management technology and performing the core services the company was founded for.
You are covering the tourism sector, which is very commercialised and with minor
sustainable practices. You are aware of the waste overload problems but don’t
have much knowledge about waste management. You are looking for quick solutions. Numbers,
results, and reputation are very important to you. You are a bit afraid of change and don’t want
to lose the municipality’s popularity. You might not see the benefits that zero waste measures
could bring to the municipality.
Disruption
Your local mayor has announced that the city’s finances have secretly not been well-
managed for several years and, as a result, each department is being asked to cut its budget by
30-40%, which includes the waste management department. You also need to prove value for
money for your activities and contracted services, with any new or increased revenue coming in
(e.g. recyclable materials) being actively encouraged. Your next meeting is with the consultant for
the mayor in charge of overseeing budget cuts.
188
Consultant for mayor in charge of overseeing budget cuts
Money is tight and every policy needs to have a solid bank of evidence showcasing
its costs, value, and impact. Time is also in short supply for you these days, so you
want facts presented clearly and efficiently – you are not afraid to demand these from those
with whom you meet. Waste is not your area of expertise and action on waste/recycling has been
limited in the past – so not only do policy changes need to be well-evidenced, but you are also
seeking easy sells to the population.
Journalist
There has to be a ‘news value’ in your article. News values in journalism are proximity,
controversy, personal influence, suitability, impact, bizarre, human interest,
timeliness, progress, genuineness, completeness, negativeness, and money (of course). These
elements determine whether the news is necessary or not for the readers. You will ask questions
about money, duties, roles, things that are done well or gone wrong, and the persons involved. In
a climate where money is tight and cuts are happening everywhere, stories of any new financial
investments are viewed sceptically, yet they would make a great storyline for your editor.

• Gather all the necessary data possible surrounding the municipality’s waste
budget so that you can understand where costs can be saved or reduced.
For example, the key indicators are the fees for disposal, the operational costs of the
collection and treatment, as well as the revenue made from selling on recyclables and (if
relevant) the income generated by any EPR scheme used.
• To improve collection – focus on organics! Community composting could be one option or,
if not, you could explore a central composting plant with potential biogas capture (see the
Milan case study for inspiration).
• Explore local partnerships and options to embed reuse (see briefing document for
guidance).
189
GROUP 4
• The regional government consists of 4 small municipalities of 2,000-3,000 inhabitants
each, with 10-15 km distance between them, in a rural area with no high-rise buildings.
The vast majority of the population have access to a garden.
• Altogether, 9,000 inhabitants generate 350 kg of residual waste per capita per year.
• The average income of local residents is above that of the EU. Most residents’ income
comes from the tourism sector and the food production industry.
• 3,000 people of additional workforce commute to the region daily and weekly from
neighbouring areas.
• The regional government has a contract with a private waste management company,
who is responsible for implementing the waste and separate collection systems for mixed
waste and recyclables. All biowaste is collected and treated by one local farm that is
happy to use the compost it generates. The government has contracts with both, and they
will run out in 5 years.
• 65% separate collection rates in the municipality:
• Door-to-door collection of all waste: glass, paper and cardboard, organics, mixed
packaging, mixed waste.
• The door-to-door collection system has been in place for one year, which caused the
separate collection rate to go from 20% to 65% (the system in place before was a bring
system with public collection points on the street supplemented by mobile collecting
points).
• Residual waste goes to an incineration plant located 300 km away, with a gate fee of 150
euros/ton.
• There is no central drop-off location for hazardous and bulky waste, the service is available
only on demand twice a year (hazardous waste for free, bulky waste for extra pay).
• Currently, residents pay a flat base rate of tax to the regional government for waste
collection and management, which does not differ depending on the amount of waste
they produce.
• Local food producers offer food delivery in reusable packaging and have a “factory shop”
where they sell their produce in bulk. Reusable tableware dominates public events.
• During the launch of the door-to-door collection, a media campaign was organised for
all the towns to inform inhabitants about the changes by visiting and doing events in all
neighbourhoods.
190
The waste company operates on the basis of a contract between you and the local
government. The conditions are fixed in the contract. You only see proposals by Zero
Waste Ambassadors as doable if they fit into existing contracts; or you might use it in future
contracts. You can not change the content of the contract, but sometimes we can do more.
Additional work, however, has a cost. Proposals are certainly valuable if they let you save costs,
e.g. cutting transportation costs. New ideas would need to be presented to show how they can
facilitate the company to fulfil the contract.
Performance is already high, so you are not desperate to change – but you know
that the current fees and costs of the system are too high in comparison with other
places. Come into the discussion with an open mind, looking for new ideas, whilst also remaining
very pragmatic about things. There is a bit of frustration with the lack of flexibility from the
contracted waste company, but the performance has increased so much over the past 12-24
months that you cannot complain too much. As a region, you know that any change in policy must
be clearly planned and thought through, especially as you will be the one presenting these to your
municipal colleagues. Therefore, data and evidence of such policies working elsewhere are key.
Disruption
The largest importer of your waste for recycling and disposal decided to stop
waste trade permanently. The city is left with a third of its waste streams without a final step.
Waste starts piling up, there is a risk of overflow and the city government frantically looks for
solutions. The industry suggests incinerating all the remaining waste. Your next meeting is with
the representative of the city’s waste management team.
City’s waste management team
You are in a position of power, but not ultimate power (not the mayor), so while largely
autonomous, big decisions will have to be screened, plus the waste management
company will need to be convinced to comply. Therefore, your mindset is one of openness to any
solutions, allies, but you quickly evaluate them through thinking out loud and asking follow-up
questions. After all, you are tasked with preparing concrete proposals for solving the disruption
and doing that fast. In the short-term response there’s no place for intangible measures, but mid-
and long-term there is and the team knows these can complement each other.
191
Journalist
Your job is your life. You work for uncensored news and you are never satisfied with
brief information, so you will not stop until you find the truth. You act very skeptical,
and cast doubt on everything. You are an advocate of justice, a journalist with respectable mileage
and great achievements. Your stories matter.

Advice for the groups
In waste management, volume matters. Instead of building a system for 4 individual

sites, cooperation would offer savings and flexibility for the municipality. Due to the small number
of people, communication is easy. Motivate people to source-separate waste and do home
composting. However, feedback and continuous education has a great role. As a Zero Waste
Ambassador, you could take the role of building communication and feedback plans for people,
encouraging community-based actions, and serving waste collection and treatment in a way that
consolidates the community. Let everyone feel like a player in this. Keep in mind that income and
profit for waste in such a small region is also small, and the waste company is probably not willing
to lose it. Perhaps it is possible to find a trade-off between new proposed actions (be it building
repair shops, recycling centre, or similar).
192
EXPERT COMMENTED MUNICIPALITY PROFILE
How an expert reads and analyses information
Group 1 municipality info

Size is important: it will give
us a critical mass of waste • The municipality is medium-sized (200,000
that is inked to cost and
income
inhabitants) and is quite residential with Not much industrial waste
Cannot use individual options,

lots of high-rise buildings in densely Lower transport distances,
easier to collect
anonymous client populated areas and suburbs. Only 30% of
the population have access to a garden. Less garden waste available,
homecomposting will make
This volume is a bit too much • 200,000 inhabitants generate 550 kg of little sense, brown biowaste
compared to background bin becomes a must
data, there is space for residual waste per capita per year, which
Calculate total amount, make
reduction, check for errors in includes a lot of waste coming from local waste audit, calculate sum
statistics
cafes and restaurants. per each material
So they have massive
catering? Is that waste • The average income of local residents is
included in residential
amount? Try to keep
below that of the EU. Most residents’ income
household and catering comes from the tourism and hospitality Tourism requires information
amounts separately, go for
food waste reduction and
sectors. campaign
brown biowaste bin

• Challenge of language diversity: there are
Language diversity requires often 5 different languages spoken by
information campaign in all residents throughout the town.
languages but mainly about
Municipality rules, but they
‘how-to-separate-and- • The municipality partners with the local have no trucks and personnel.
collect’
private waste management company Private waste company does
collection. Each proposal that
which is responsible for implementing the
municipality has, has a price.
waste and separate collection systems. Discuss with waste company
If you propose changes in what could be realistic
collection and treatment
The municipality has an overall say and
solution.
then one has to invest. Do control over which company operates this
you propose public, private So the private company
or private-public ownership?
programme, but the waste management
actually rules! Do you tolerate
This depends on local- company is realistically the only business this or would you diversify?
national financial context,
might need discussion with
that has the capacity and technical
financial experts. requirements to run this service within the
local area.
Good figure for a start! It • 35% separate collection rates in the Consider collection of
means that residents are
willing to participate. Expand! municipality: packages. See what is in the
legislation, one has to collect
• Glass: street container WEEE, hazardous waste and
bulky, too
• Door-to-door collection of residual waste
+ paper and cardboard
Why do we need street • Plastic bottles and metals: street Without introducing separate
collection high recovery rate
container system if we have containers is not possible. Support the
high rise buildings where
door-to-door is doable easily. • No separate collection of organics door-to-door idea.
193
Any other waste treatment
facility requires time to
build. 5 years is quite close,
• An incineration plant is used for the vast until then we can afford
majority of residual waste and has a incineration. You are bound
by a contract, but consider
Not my worry, irrelevant data contract to run for the next 5 years. The not prolonging it after 5 years
for me
incinerator services many towns and start with investments to
reduce incineration
Any other waste treatment communities across the local region,
method cheaper than that is If we can introduce more local
worth doing charging high taxes due to there being little
treatment options, then we
alternatives available for municipalities can offer source-separation
Have better sorting, to manage their waste. The plant is 50 collection schemes with
incinerate only what is financial motivation to recycle
inevitable km away from the town, resulting in high rather than incinerate
transportation costs, too. Study the cost components,
is it incineration tax,
• There is one central drop-off location that transportation or just high
It’s a good start to show
what’s possible citizens use for hazardous, bulky, garden, gate fee? Transportation you
can reduce by considering
Very wrong place, too far for
and organic food waste, which is currently transfer stations and
frequent use 10 km outside of the town, with low usage transport optimisation.
Incineration tax you can avoid
rates of around 5-10%.
And here is a proof: wrong by not incinerating! Huge
locations equals to low usage gate fee can be a motivator
• The municipality is interested in the
and pointless business. Bring to change the current waste
it to town, make it easy to possibility of introducing a (PAYT) scheme, treatment practice & waste
use for citizens. Collect large with local businesses not opposed to the collection practice
variety of waste materials.
idea either, but no action taken yet due to The prerequisite for PAYT is
Try with no fee or low fee.
very good source-separation
PAYT is possible capacity. and separate collection.
Introduce this first-hand,
Flat rate does not motivate,
• Currently, residents pay a flat base rate of and only then consider PAYT.
differentiate the price – tax to the municipality for waste collection Managing PAYT requires
mixed waste has to be funding too, and it can be too
expensive, well sorted waste
and management, which does not differ expensive to apply, even if it
has to be free or cheap depending on the amount of waste they feels a fair play
produce.
• One small and independent packaging-free One shop has insignificant
shop has been established in the town effect on waste volumes, but
has a great effect on public
within the last 12 months, but otherwise opinion – keep going. Best if it
there remains little to no encouragement of is in location of the municipal
dropoff centre – one place to
reuse. There are no repair centres in the local visit
This is private initiative, the
government can just support
area, although some businesses do offer the
it, nothing more service but with a small fee.
• Educational posters have been spread Education has to be life-long,
around the town in the past to encourage posters have limited effect
the use of separate collection bins for
residents and tourists, as well as some
Good start, keep going, but social media advertising paid by the
remember that educating
citizens is in the end lifelong
municipality to try to get more younger
work people recycling and reusing.
194
Expert comments:
• We have no information about waste composition. Propose making an audit.
• We have no info about the waste company. What are they capable of, what obligations do
they have in contract?
• We have no info about infrastructure, amount and type of bins, trucks, facilities.
• We need to find the people who are making decisions in the city and waste company. In
the end we need our proposals to find its way into investment plans.
• We have no info about how the city is administered. There has to be a waste or
environmental regulation in the city. Find it.
• We do not know the national regulations. We can only guess that the location is in Europe,
so EU directives will apply too.
• We definitely need to draft a waste management plan for the city with a 5+ year
perspective and in relation to national ambitions.
• Every decision has a price tag. Learn about the financial situation with the current waste
system. How the flat based rate was proposed? Can we propose a better one?
• Planning has to cover ALL waste fractions and consider ALL target values, not just easy-
to-reach or popular ones.
What is irrelevant info?
Mere recognition that the system is like that and cannot be changed is a justification for doing
nothing. One should be guided by national targets.
195
BEZWA PROJECT 2022

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ZERO WASTE

Editor-in-chief: Kadri Kalle

Let’s Do It Foundation is a social enterprise that consults, trains

Tallinn University is a modern and dynamic research university

Estonian University of Life Sciences has priorities in academic

Društvo Ekologi brez meja is one of the leading Slovenian NGOs

Zero Waste Europe is the European network of communities,

The European Commission’s support for the production of this

RESOURCES FOR ZERO WASTE TRAINERS 24

RESOURCES FOR ZERO WASTE AMBASSADORS 96

AUTHORS AND THE CREATION OF THIS HANDBOOK

A training course is the implementation of a curriculum.

Competences are a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes. As described in “Key

Opening questions for the reader before reading:

• Why do you dedicate your time to zero waste or other

One theory dealing with values is the life aspirations theory.2

1. To have many nice things

Overview of the two types of values:

Intrinsic life goals (eudaimonia) Extrinsic life goals (hedonia)

Main goal types: Main goal types:

And now the interesting part:

• What the people that surround us

• The culture, political regime, tone and style of journalism:

• The words we use everyday:

• Our everyday environment.

Ending questions for the reader to reflect upon:

• In what other ways could we support intrinsic values?

Opening questions for the reader before reading:

• Do you analyse your own thinking process or ways of

Metacognition can be defined as:

Additional metacognitive questions after these exercises could be:

Knowledge of zero waste basics:

• What is zero waste, what is it now, why is it important

Ability to work with data, knowing the importance of data

Policy, advocacy competences

Importance of waste prevention and reduction policies

Ability to advocate for zero waste and convince different stakeholders

General soft skills: Empathy, positivity, patience, confidence

Educational psychology competences

Ability to support long-term learning instead of short-term performance

Ability to assess the learning outcomes of planned educational activity

Knowledge of zero waste principles and practices in different contexts

Confidence to perform in public, ability to adapt to the changes in learning setting,

Opening questions for the reader before reading:

• How would you define learning? What is it?

WHEN DOES LEARNING HAPPEN?

• Giving rewards (grades, bonuses, free days from school/work…)

How do we create mental effort?

We offer here two different approaches:

Which one is more effective?

Consider this real life story:

“I wanted to teach about the environmental impacts of food.

What does it tell us about memory and how learning happens?

The process of creating a knowledge or skill happens roughly in three stages:8

What does this mean to us as educators? What does it mean to learners?

• Massed practice – practicing for long hours

Why is forgetting and retrieving important?

LAST NOTE: TEACHING ABOUT LEARNING

Main things that need to be present in order for learning to happen

Useful practices are: