Simulating Household Waste Management Behaviours Part 2: Home Composting

This paper describes a simulation model of community home composting behaviour based on distributions of individual households, each actively managing the organic fraction of their own domestic waste. The model predicts overall participation levels and the individual and collective flows and compositions of the materials diverted into the compost bin. The take up of home composting by new composters and the drop-out of existing composters are modelled through invoking staged or random discrete events which perturb the model attitudes, and other attributes held by individual householders. An attitude-behaviour model then determines whether these attitude changes result in behavioural change. Post-event evaluations of the compost produced are simulated by integrating an empirical, technical model of the composting process into the behavioural model. This was accomplished by matching the input/output requirements of the two models via a common vector of material flow, and by feeding back the technical process quality monitoring data into the social model, as instances of discrete events. The simulation results are compared with survey data, and simulation results are presented to predict the longer-term sustainability of home composting within the community.