How Do You Know When A Service Needs To Change?

A change to a recycling container doesn’t sound particularly significant. But when something is used by 175,000 households and handled by collection crews every day, small changes to the way a service works can make a big difference.

Bristol is now replacing its recycling containers with new colour-coded bags that offer 60% more capacity than the old boxes. The change follows some fairly ordinary problems with the existing boxes that were prone to blowing over, becoming brittle and offering limited capacity. The new containers are also intended to make recycling simpler for residents, with paper, card and cartons all going into the blue bags and plastics and cans going into the red ones. The change is also expected to make collections easier for crews, reduce litter and help more recyclable material stay out of the general waste stream.

Neil Jeremiah, Managing Director at Endurance, sees a wider lesson in the change:

“One of the things I have learned from working with municipal services is that people are very good at making imperfect systems work. Crews develop ways of handling awkward processes, residents adapt to what they are given and over time those workarounds can become part of the normal routine. That can make it harder to see where the original problem sits. If the same workaround is being repeated day after day, it is worth asking whether you are solving the problem or simply becoming better at accommodating it.

“What I think Bristol has got right is recognising that these frustrations are useful information. The answer doesn’t always have to be a major overhaul. Sometimes the better response is to look closely at where a service is creating unnecessary friction and remove it. In this case, Bristol has identified a fairly straightforward problem and made a practical change to address it, while also making the process easier for residents and crews. That is a useful reminder that improving a service does not always mean adding more complexity.”

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