Monitoring and Evaluation Guidance

Welcome to WRAP’s guidance on monitoring and evaluation. This introductory section will help you find the section you’re looking for.

If you already know which section you need use the links on the right hand side of this screen.

Monitoring and evaluating the impact of your schemes and initiatives is essential if you want to improve them in the most cost-effective way.

The guide covers monitoring and evaluation of:

• local recycling and composting collection services / schemes;
• reuse schemes, for example furniture and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) reuse or reusable bag schemes;
• waste prevention schemes including nappy schemes, unwanted mail and food waste prevention initiatives; and
• communications campaigns and outreach activities.

The guide focuses on household waste but the techniques described can be adapted for other types of municipal and non-municipal waste.

The guidance is designed specifically for organisations that are responsible for running waste recycling, composting, reuse and reduction services / schemes including:

• waste collection and disposal authorities, working alone or in partnership;
• waste management collection and disposal contractors;
• civic amenity site managers;
• community groups that operate recycling, composting, reuse and/or reduction schemes; and
• monitoring and evaluation specialists such as consultancies and universities.

WRAP-funded communications campaigns will be contractually obliged to follow all or some of the guidance provided in this document. The extent of the monitoring required will be set out in each contract with WRAP and depends on the key performance indicators chosen for the campaign. Further advice on selecting key performance indicators is available in Chapter 10 – Monitoring communications campaigns – and more information should be provided by WRAP when you apply for funding.

• What has changed in the 2010 revision?

  The guidance has been substantially rewritten and reorganised, with a lot of new information:

  • There is more signposting to help you to find the information you require as easily as possible.
  • Chapter 2 - Planning monitoring and evaluating the results -  now contains all the information on sampling as we recognise that sampling guidance in general is very important but that it also needs to be specific to each monitoring method. You will find a lot in the chapter on sampling that is new.
  • Chapter 9 - Monitoring waste reduction - contains a lot more guidance on monitoring waste prevention programmes, linking with WRAP’s Waste Prevention Toolkit, including: the impact of ‘real’ nappy schemes, unwanted mail, food waste prevention work and home/community composting. It also looks at monitoring reuse schemes like reusable bags, junk swap days and reuse in the home.
  • Chapter 10 - Monitoring communications campaigns - now includes new sections on monitoring door-to-door canvassing, work with schools, and monitoring other qualitative work such as call centres, outreach workers, feedback from crews, residents and stakeholders.
  • Annex 1 - Case studies - is new and is dedicated to providing you with some case studies that give examples of how others have used different monitoring methods in a variety of ways and how these have helped to identify potential improvements.
  • Annex 2 - Examples of monitoring aims, objectives and KPIs - is new and provides guidance on aims and objectives and how to construct the three key types of objectives (input, outcome and impact) that you can set to monitor your services / schemes and the communications undertaken to promote them. The key performance indicator (KPI) to use for each objective is also provided.
  • Annex 3 - Library of questions - has changed a lot. Many of the original questions have been redesigned but there are lots of new questions as well, including the WRAP metrics: committed recycler, committed food waste reducer and committed home composter. We advise you how to use these metrics and other associated questions that you will find useful.
  • All the remaining chapters and annexes cover the main monitoring and evaluation methods and background information as previously but they have been updated to reflect current monitoring needs and good practice.

What do you want to do?

• Increase my recycling /composting rate

  2. What do you think are the key issues for you? choose again

  • Don't know
  • Lack of existing schemes, infrastructure or resources
  • Lack of awareness among residents of available services / schemes
  • Low levels of use of existing services / schemes
  • Incorrect use of existing services / schemes leading to contamination
  • Growth in waste cancelling out increases in recycling
  • Lots of recyclable materials that are targeted by services / schemes still being thrown away
  • We need to add new materials to our services / schemes
• Increase the quantity of waste recycled and/or composted

  2. What do you think are the key issues for you? choose again

  • Don't know
  • We need to add new materials to our services / schemes
  • Lots of recyclable materials that are targeted by services / schemes still being thrown away
  • Low levels of use of existing services / schemes
  • Lack of existing schemes, infrastructure or resources
  • Lack of awareness among residents of available schemes
• Increase the number of households that take part in my existing services / schemes

  2. Which type of collection system is the issue for you? choose again

  • Household waste recycling centres (HWRCs)
  • Kerbside services / schemes
  • Bring banks
• Increase the capture of recyclable material targeted by my existing services / schemes

  2. Which type of collection system is the issue for you? choose again

  • Household waste recycling centres (HWRCs)
  • Kerbside services / schemes
  • Bring banks
• Decrease contamination levels in my recycling
• Demonstrate the effectiveness of my waste reduction initiatives
• Monitor the impact of my awareness campaign
• Something else

  2. There may be some simple questions that you want to answer using monitoring and evaluation techniques. Choose the question that's most relevant to what you want to find out: choose again

  • Are people happy with my services / schemes?
  • Are people aware of my services / schemes?
  • Are people using my services / schemes?
  • Are people using my services / schemes properly?

    If you want to ask people about their understanding of the service / scheme you could also look at Chapter 2 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction .

  • How much recycling is being diverted through my services / schemes?
  • What more material could I get out of my services / schemes?
  • What kinds of contaminants are getting into the recycling?
  • How successful has my real nappy scheme been?
  • How successful has my work with unwanted mail been?
  • How successful are my furniture reuse schemes?
  • How can I evaluate my communications campaign / outreach work?

    You can use any of the approaches outlined in the guidance to measure the impact of communication activities.
    To inform future work, you may also want to understand which activities worked best, or how much effort you put into each type of activity.
    Chapter 10 - Monitoring communications campaigns - helps you to decide which approaches are appropriate

• You need to know more about what's holding you back.

  Start with an awareness survey (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction) and, if you have a kerbside service / scheme, look at participation monitoring (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake).

  Also make sure you are making good use of your tonnage data (Chapter 6 - Monitoring quantities diverted).

  If these activities throw no light on the problem, move to capture rate assessment (Chapter 7 - Monitoring capture rates) and contamination assessment (Chapter 8 - Monitoring contamination).

• Monitoring and evaluation may help you convince your bosses you need to improve or expand services.

  Start with an awareness survey that can also ask what residents want (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction) and, if you have a kerbside service / scheme, look at participation monitoring (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake) to show whether your services / schemes are efficient.

• Check that this is the real issue with an awareness survey (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction).

  If you choose to run an awareness campaign, make sure that you monitor its impact - start at Chapter 10 - Monitoring communications campaigns to identify what monitoring is required.

• Measure this for different parts of your authority with participation monitoring for kerbside services / schemes and usage monitoring for bring schemes (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake).

• To measure the extent and type of contamination, carry out a contamination assessment (Chapter 8 - Monitoring contamination).

  To assess householders' understanding of what can and can't go into a collection, carry out a survey (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction).

• It's likely you will be thinking about promoting waste reduction initiatives

  1. Check out Chapter 9 - Monitoring waste reduction for advice on how to monitor these.
  2. Also make sure you are making good use of your tonnage data (Chapter 6 - Monitoring quantities diverted).

• Carry out capture rate analysis (Chapter 7 - Monitoring capture rates) - it's relatively expensive but will show you what's going wrong.

  A survey of householders may then throw light on why people are still throwing these materials away (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction).

• Carry out capture rate analysis (Chapter 7 - Monitoring capture rates) - it's relatively expensive but will show you which materials are worth targeting and, if designed properly, will show you which areas of your authority to target.

• You need to know more about what's holding you back.

  Start with an awareness survey (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction) and, if you have a kerbside service / scheme, look at participation monitoring (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake).

  Also make sure you are making good use of your tonnage data (Chapter 6 - Monitoring quantities diverted). If these activities throw no light on the problem, move to capture rate assessment (Chapter 7 - Monitoring capture rates) and contamination assessment (Chapter 8 - Monitoring contamination).

• Carry out capture rate analysis (Chapter 7 - Monitoring capture rates) - it's relatively expensive but will show you which materials are worth targeting and, if designed properly, will show you which areas of your authority to target.

• Carry out capture rate analysis (Chapter 7 - Monitoring capture rates) - it's relatively expensive but will show you what is going wrong.

  A survey of householders may then throw light on why people are still throwing these materials away (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction).

• Measure this for different parts of your authority with participation monitoring for kerbside services / schemes and usage monitoring for bring services / schemes (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake).

• Monitoring and evaluation may help you convince your bosses you need more.

  Start with an awareness survey that can also ask what residents want (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction) and, if you have a kerbside service / scheme, look at participation monitoring (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake) to show whether your services / schemes are efficient.

  Also make sure you are making good use of your tonnage data (Chapter 6 - Monitoring quantities diverted).

• Check that this is the real issue with an awareness survey (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction).

  If you choose to run an awareness campaign, make sure that you monitor its impact - start at Chapter 10 - Monitoring communications campaigns to identify what monitoring is required.

• Review the effectiveness of your HWRCs. Part of this review should include usage monitoring (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake).

  You may also want to interview users and non-users to discover the issues (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction) and assess tonnage yields (Chapter 6 - Monitoring quantities diverted).

• Carry out participation monitoring to measure the problem objectively, perhaps looking at various rounds to identify low performers (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake).

  You may also want to conduct a survey or use focus groups to identify the issues (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction). This will help you either redesign your service / scheme or develop a communications campaign aimed at addressing the problems.

• It is not normally cost-effective to carry out usage monitoring for bring bank services / schemes.

  Depending on the service / scheme you operate and the people it serves (e.g. communal bring bank for flats), you may want to interview users and non-users to discover the issues (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction).

  You should also look to assess yields (Chapter 6 - Monitoring quantities diverted).

• Review the effectiveness of your HWRCs (Chapter 5 - Monitoring scheme usage, participation and uptake).

  You may also want to interview users and non-users to discover the issues (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction) and assess tonnage yields (Chapter 6 - Monitoring quantities diverted).

• Carry out capture rate analysis (Chapter 7 - Monitoring capture rates) - it's relatively expensive but will show you what's going wrong.

  A survey of householders may then throw light on why people are throwing these materials away (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction). This will help you either redesign services / schemes, develop a communications campaign to encourage higher levels of capture generally, or focus on specific materials in order to improve areas of poor performance.

• It is not normally cost-effective to carry out usage monitoring for bring bank services / schemes. Depending on the service / scheme you operate and the people it serves (e.g. communal bring bank for flats), you may want to interview users and non-users to discover the issues (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction).

  You should also look to assess yields (Chapter 6 - Monitoring quantities diverted).

• Carry out a contamination assessment to measure the extent and type of contamination (Chapter 8 - Monitoring contamination).

  To assess householders' understanding of what can and can't go into a collection, carry out a survey (Chapter 4 - Monitoring awareness, claimed behaviour and satisfaction). This will help you redesign your service / scheme to reduce contamination, develop a communications campaign to reduce contamination, or develop incentives / enforcement strategies.

• Take a look at Chapter 9 - Monitoring waste reduction which deals with home composting, community composting, grass cycling, food waste prevention, reuse in the community, washable nappies and unwanted mail. This should give you some ideas about how to measure your impact.

• Start with Chapter 10 - Monitoring communications campaigns which gives you the basics and advises you what forms of monitoring are appropriate for different types of communications activities (PR and advertising, doorstepping, education and outreach work). You should then look at the appropriate chapters of the guidance depending on what you want to achieve.