Diversion requires a recorded destination
Status: proposed
Collection is not recovery. Mass counts as diverted only when it is in a stream the project design declares diverted and an offtake, treatment or disposal record shows it reached a recovery destination (recycled, composted or treated). Organic mass collected with no record of treatment is not diverted.
The diversion rate NWSS reports is the share of collected mass recovered: diverted mass divided by collected mass, with uncategorised mass excluded from both and reported alongside. It is not a rate based on the waste households generate, and it makes no claim about what would otherwise have been landfilled. A generation-based rate needs a waste characterisation baseline and is a separate indicator.
NWSS does not calculate greenhouse-gas results. Recovered quantities by material, contamination and residual disposal are the inputs that approved methodologies (AMS-III.AJ for recycling, AMS-III.F for composting) use under NIAS.
Distilled from novaWaste2’s three conflicting diversion and recycling rates (indicator judgements J3 and J4). The only evidence of recovery there was recycler invoices.