In the context of the IMPACTPapeRec project, 34 good and best practice have been identified. They are divided into four categories:
– Operational aspects
– Policy, legislation and economic aspects
– Monitoring and control
– Information and communication.
Based on the List of Good and Best practices, we have prepared factsheets for every practice, detailing existing examples, action points, tips and advice on where to start, potential benefits, and more.
The goal of using best practices (BP) is the following: instead of aiming to reach an abstract ideal state, one could get inspired by existing practices that are already implemented and are already working somewhere else. After analysing the “practices” identified along the project, it was detected a clear distinction between good practice (GP) and BP according with three aspects that are showed later.
Either for GP or BP there is not a common definition – neither in the academic literature, nor among practitioners. In the case of BP the understanding that is probably the most widespread and most commonly used in practice focuses on the “functional” orientation of a BP (20).
In this sense, from a bibliographic perspective, a BP can be defined as: a practice that is not only good, but a practice that has been proven to work well and produce good results, and is therefore recommended as a model. Then, it is a successful experience which has been tested and validated, in the broad sense, furthermore, it has been repeated and deserves to be shared thus a greater number of people can adopt it (21).
In the IMPACTPapeRec context, the distinction between GP and BP depends on three conditions:
Hence, to constitute a BP all three conditions should necessarily apply. However, a practice is classified as GP if this is not the case or if one or more conditions apply in a conditional way.
According to this, a Good Practice (GP) can be defined as a practice that brings further better results but might not be possible to be implemented everywhere, it brings a positive impact only under certain conditions and/or is crucial to success under specific circumstances.
On the contrary, a Best Practice (BP) is an essential practice that should be implemented everywhere: it has a positive impact and is crucial to success.
For a municipality, the methodology to identify GP and BP to boost the paper collection for efficient recycling consists mainly on two steps:
In order to be as most effective as possible, it is vital to identify the specific needs of your municipality as well as the needs of your citizens and the community you serve. This step involves not only considering immediate needs, but also anticipating future needs.
After you have identified areas of need, you will begin to benchmark potential practices to address them. This can be done by identifying existing practices that the project has validated to meet the criteria of a best, promising, or innovative practice while meeting the needs of your citizens and municipality targets.
To help in the identification of GP and BP, IMPACTPapeRec Project has launched an online tool entitled Selection Tree.
The Selection Tree will guide the user through a step-by-step process that will help to the user determine which solutions are best for your municipality.
