Agenda item

Jonathan Hamlet (Street Scene Manager) will be in attendance to provide the Committee with an overview of the roll out and service implementation of the Council’s new waste and recycling service.

 

·  Emphasis should be on the implementation and planning of the roll out of the service.

·  Focus on the results that we have - recycling performance data compared to expected data.

·  Waste minimisation.

·  An overview of the roll out of the service.

·  Waste on the A120 left by those travelling to and from the Waste Transfer Station.

·  Clinical Waste Collection – possible expansion.

·  The numbers subscribing to the green waste service, how has that compared over time, what is the tonnages of waste collected,  what is the cost-income assessment for the service and how do charges compare with similar schemes?

·  The use of non-compostable bags.

·  An assessment of the numbers of properties on black sack collections and the extent to which they are utilising red/green recycling boxes compared with those using wheelie bins and the measures taken/planned to increase recycling amongst this group. 

 

 

The Council’s Street Scene Manager (Jonathan Hamlet) was in attendance and provided the Committee with an overview of the roll out and service implementation of the Council’s new waste and recycling service.

 

Veolia’s Contract Manager (Michael Riches) and Regional Manager (Chris Smiles) were also in attendance for this item.

 

Councillor Talbot, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Public Space, was welcomed to the meeting.

 

Members were aware that in June 2019 the Council implemented a new waste collection service, changing from a weekly black sack collection (with no restriction on the number of black sacks collected from a property) to a fortnightly 180L wheeled bin service and as such represented a significant service change.

 

The Committee had before it a Report of the Corporate Director (Operational Services) which provided information on the following areas:

 

Planning

·        Communications;

·        Procurement;

·        Property audit and route planning; and

·        Service roll out.

 

Implementation

·        Bin delivery;

·        Waste and Recycling Collections Veolia;

·        Customer support;

·        Waste Team; and

·        Communication.

 

Results

·        Residual waste;

·        Food waste;

·        Paper/cardboard;

·        Plastic/cans;

·        Glass (banks); and

·        Recycling rate.

 

Overview

·        Failure to complete collection rounds;

·        Difficulty in contacting the Council / Officers; and

·        Missed assisted collections / Remote properties.

 

Learning Points

·        Commence the process of evaluating the contract options at an earlier stage;

·        Recruitment of the temporary posts to start at an earlier stage, combined with the fixed term contracts being of a longer duration;

·        Quicker at feeding operational issues up to the communications and support teams; and

·        Reduce the reliance upon the local knowledge held by individual operatives for the collection rounds.

 

Members were given the opportunity to ask questions which were responded to by the Portfolio Holder, the Council’s Street Scene Manager and Veolia’s Contract Manager and Regional Manager.

 

Veolia’s representatives advised that it needed to implement revised collection route rounds at the same time as the roll out of the wheeled bin change as the previous collection route rounds would not work under the new arrangements.  They reported that under the black sacks scheme a team could collect from 2,000 properties a day and with wheeled bins that reduced to 1,300 properties a day.

 

Members considered the current recycling of plastics through the waste collection service and the impact of contamination of those plastic types with other plastic products or other items.  It was reported to the Committee that it was intended to arrange for Members to visit recycling facilities nearby in order to develop the knowledge of Members about the processes involved and thereby enable them to address enquiries from Members of the public and to encourage policy development.

 

The extent of the increase in recycling rates within 2019/20 was commented upon.  In April 2019, prior to the roll out commencing, recycling rates were at 28% and in October (after the roll out) they were at 41%.  Figures for November 2019 onwards were not available to the Committee.  The Committee asked about the appropriate targets for 2020/21. Notwithstanding that, it was reported that the budget for 2020/21 included an addition £60K of recycling credits for the Council. 

 

Separate figures on recycling rates among those still on the black sack service, for instance those in flats, were not kept by the service.  However, the incentive to recycle by limiting waste collection to a fortnightly 180L amount was not there for those households.  Some flats had red and green wheelie bins in their communal bin areas following a request to recycle from one or more residents there.  In addition, green canvass carry bags were available for residents in those flats to carry recyclables to the communal bin areas.

 

Veolia’s representatives responded to a question to indicate that if a plastic bottle deposit and return scheme were to be introduced it would have a significant impact on its services.  The likely impact would though need to be assessed for each separate contract it had with local authorities.

 

Glass recycling had increased locally and a question was asked about the provision of further recycling points in response to that increase.  The whole range of recycling bring sites in the District was to be looked at including whether options to provide more opportunities on existing or new sites was to be considered; the Committee was advised.

 

In respect of the Council’s green waste collection service, the Committee was advised that the amount of waste collected had risen since 2017/18 from 297 tonnes to 3000 tonnes per year and was continuing to grow. Veolia was now introducing a third collection round due to the expansion of the scheme.  The charge levied locally appeared to be about right when considering the charges levied elsewhere in Essex and the known movement in those charges in the coming period.

 

In respect of Clinical Waste, the Committee was advised that the service had been in operation for about one year, although by GBH and not by Veolia.  Those self-medicating and who needed to dispose of sharps and dressings with bodily fluid that would be dangerous to add to the general waste would be able to use the clinical waste service provided. Nappies and incontinence pads would normally be able to be disposed of in general waste.

 

Following discussion, the Committee RECOMMENDED TO CABINET:

 

a) To note, based on experience locally from the previous major change in waste collection arrangements, this Committee appreciated that the 2019 roll out of the wheelie bins/new waste service was always going to have some pain. However, that pain was more than it should otherwise have been. What contributed to this included:

 

- Insufficient/overloaded communication channels in to the Council to report problems and timely responses to those enquiries.

 

- Problems with staffing in the team and particularly recruitment to temporary contract posts.

 

- The consequences of the route changes implemented by Veolia (the Council’s contractor) to accommodate the changed waste collection service.

 

However, the Committee acknowledges the hard work of Officers to address and overcome those issues and to achieve the current position, which is one the Committee wishes to record as moving positively to the good standard expected. Cabinet is recommended to seek to capture learning from this roll out for the delivery of future major change in service delivery.

 

b) To request the Portfolio Holder for Environment to write to Essex County Council in an effort to address the continuing issue of the littering from waste being moved from the waste transfer stations by or on behalf of the Waste Disposal Authority and the related cleansing of that litter on the A120 around that waste transfer station.

 

c) To consider this Committee’s disappointment at the limited statements provided to it as to the Portfolio Holder’s future ambition for the service; including improving recycling levels further over the remainder of the contract and to request that a report on this ambition/vision be submitted to this Committee in September 2020.

 

d) To arrange for the submission of proposals for revised targets for recycling rates in the District for 2020/21, as part of the Council’s Performance Monitoring System, to this Committee’s meeting on 23 March 2020 (and that comparable recycling rates be reported to the Committee from the other Districts in Essex and any appropriate commentary on the prospect of such rates being achieved in Tendring where the rates are higher than locally).

 

e) To pursue the stated intention of arranging a site visit for all Councillors to waste and recycling centres as part of developing understanding by Councillors of these activities and this site visit should be organised prior to September 2020.

 

f) That the clear information should be provided to residents on the recycling processes of material collected from homes in the District, further information be provided on practical waste minimisation measures for residents and that, in time, a summary of the Council’s Climate Reduction measures be provided to all households (perhaps with the annual Council Tax Notification).

 

[Note: In accordance with the decision of Council of 10 September 2019, Minute 59 refers, the outcome of this scrutiny review is also to be reported to the next following meeting of the Council.]