The establishment of a network of waste advisers is about relying on person-to-person interaction for effective awareness-raising on waste management at local level. Waste advisers are employees or volunteers trained in waste prevention and management who support residents and/or local businesses in reducing and correctly separating at source the waste generated at the very local level down to even individual buildings or households. The use of waste advisers is especially relevant to address specific issues by targeting a specific territory or audience with a poor separate collection rate or high contamination in separately collected fractions in order to deliver an adapted answer, as waste advisers can interact face to face. Frontrunner waste authorities have put in place a dense network of waste advisers where there is up to one waste adviser per 20 000 inhabitants.
Waste advisers can perform a broad range of activities targeted to residents and small businesses delivering their waste to the local waste management system, such as:
- make residents and small businesses aware of the environmental issues related to waste generation and management;
- inform residents and small businesses about the waste collection rules and how the different fractions are treated and recycled;
- provide residents and small businesses with guidance to identify possibilities to reduce or better manage (e.g. better source separation) their waste;
- work with residents and small businesses on specific waste streams that are considered more problematic (food waste, textiles, nappies, etc.);
- carry out engagement actions targeted to specific audiences (e.g. children/teenagers, pensioners, businesses, foreign-language speakers);
- gain a better understanding of what happens on the ground (drivers, reasons, shortfalls).