The Future Role of Waste Collectors in a Circular Economy: A Case Study of SUEZ

Abstract

The continuous adoption of a circular economy results in reduced waste generation within OECD countries, necessitating future changes in the waste management industry. This re-search attempts to identify new circular business opportunities for private waste collectors, focusing on enabling circularity through the purification of material streams. In order for pri-vate waste collectors to create a sustainable and resource-efficient business strategy, they must incentivise source separation, to reduce waste treatment costs and increase the value of the collected streams. This study uses the private waste collector SUEZ and its collection activi-ties within the hospitality sector as a case study and implements a transdisciplinary research approach. The twofold research method combines a cluster analysis of the waste collection data from SUEZ with a survey in the hospitality sector. The combined results succeed in iden-tifying four distinct types of waste producers, each with unique waste generation and separa-tion habits, as well as different barriers, drivers and strategies to overcome barriers of waste separation. Based on these results a transition model toward a twofold circular business model is proposed. The model is centred around SUEZ’s ability to offer a complete collection pack-age and develop a customised multi-compartment bin for their customers.