Julie Lewis presented a power point and
highlighted the following points:
- Stratford and
Warwick’s waste collection contracts with BIFFA and SUEZ will
end and a new collection service will commence in August 2022
- A lot of
pre-procurement work was done to see how the services in Stratford
and Warwick were delivered
- Outsourcing waste
collection services was found to be the most effective delivery
model following the pre-procurement work
- Stratford and
Warwick agreed to have a joint waste collection service in December
2020 which will be carried out by BIFFA following a competitive
procurement from August 2022
- Separate food
waste collection will be statutory following the new Environment
Bill
- Services for
increasing recycling and reducing residual waste and the carbon
footprint were investigated
- Compulsory
recycling and charging for excess residual waste are not in local
authorities’ powers under current legislation
- Food and residual
waste collections must be free for households
- Residual waste
collection for both authorities will move from two-weekly to
three-weekly
- Warwick will go
from kerbside sorted recycling to comingled - all recycling in one
wheeled bin
- Food waste will be
collected separately on a weekly basis for both authorities and
garden waste collection will be chargeable
- The move to
comingled recycling was possible because of the new MRF (material
recovery facility) that all waste collection authorities in
Warwickshire have invested in; the new MRF allows the collection
and recycling of tetra pack across the County
- The first council
newsletter on the new service went out early March 2022, as well as
this there will be briefings, roadshows, bin hangers and
information booklets are due to go out soon
- Information was
not shared too early to prevent public confusion, because this
would not come into effect until August 2022
- There will be a
new ‘Cloud 9 app’ (which Rugby already use) which sends
out a push notification to residents the day before their bin
collection to tell them which bin to put out
- Communication
needs to be simple to understand, but frequent. The information
booklet will contain lots of pictures, so it is easy to
understand
- Stratford
residents will get their information booklets first because their
food waste bin caddies will be delivered first. All information
after this will be the same for both authorities
- The booklet will
say what should go in the kitchen caddie/food waste bin and what
should go in the other bins
- Small electrical
items and textiles will be taken for recycling, this will be an
additional service for Warwick
- Evidence showed
that having a comingled recycling collection with one wheeled bin
will increase recycling rates, as things like cardboard boxes will
not need to be cut up any more
- No compostable or
recyclable waste should go in the residual waste bins
- The information
booklets will be posted through everyone’s letter box
- FAQs on the new
collection service are available online
- A collection
calendar will be provided for 2022/23 but afterwards all the
information will be done through the app
- When this type of
collection service was introduced at Daventry there was minimal
public pushback/queries because of the good information
provided
- Three-weekly
collections for residual waste will save just under 103,000 miles
per annum, £108k in fuel prices and 2650 tonnes of CO2
emissions
- Fly tipping did
not increase when the green waste charge was brought in at
Stratford and it did not increase when the three-weekly collection
system started in Daventry
- Every tonne of
residual waste not produced stops 3.2 tonnes of CO2 being
produced
- After the system
has been in place for a year, the actual figures will be
shared
- After a year of
the same system being introduced in Daventry, residual waste
decreased by 23%, dry recycling increased by 21% and food waste
increased by 56%. Food waste was already in place in Daventry, but
when the new system was brought in much more food waste was
collected
- There were very
few complaints when residual collection went to three-weekly
because the public realised they could
deal with this alongside the other service elements
- It is hoped that
with the MRF, Stratford and Warwick will become league table
leaders with the 3-2-1 system
The Chair praised the app as it would help
drive recycling up especially with the MRF.
Councillor Shenton praised the work done by
the officers on the new service including the communication roll
out.
Ruth Dixon thanked everyone for their help
with the food waste composition survey currently taking place. Ruth
Dixon said it would be good to compare the food waste data for
Stratford and Warwick after the new collection system was
implemented. The chair noted that residents in her area were
confused when they saw their waste being collected by someone other
than their usual collection crews. Ruth Dixon added that the did
not tell residents beforehand that they were doing the survey as it
is likely that some residents would change their behaviour and this would affect the data.
In response to Councillor Shenton, Ruth Dixon
stated that they would have some data for the composition analysis
available for the next meeting. Roughly 30% of the collected
residual waste was expected to be food waste.
Andrew Pau said that this new collection
service should push the two authorities to be one of the best
recycling collection authorities.