Agenda item

QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC NO. 1 Under Schedule 4, 13, Mr H Loxton will ask the Portfolio Holder for Economy & Waste Councillor D Cook, the following question:-

I noticed with interest that the recycling credit paid to the council for green waste is £32.08 per tonne in the year 2021/22, and this will reduce to £25.58 per tonne in 2022/23.

Could you please confirm what the recycling credit amounts have been each year since 2016/17 and how much has been sent for recycling in each of those years?

Councillor Daniel Cook gave the following reply:-

Thank you Mr. Loxton for your question.

All tonnages are verified from the waste dataflow system. I will of course E-mail you these figures as well.

In 2016/17 the council collected 8477.16 tonnes of dry recyclates, and 6060.76 tonnes of organic waste. It received recycling credits of £50.18/tonne for the dry and £49.10 for the organic.

In 2017/18 the council collected 8342.93 tonnes of dry recyclates, and 5425.82 tonnes of organic waste. It received recycling credits of £51.69/tonne for the dry and £50.08 for the organic.

In 2018/19 the council collected 8114.56 tonnes of dry recyclates, and 3467.65 tonnes of organic waste. It received recycling credits of £53.24/tonne for the dry and £51.58 for the organic.

In 2019/20 the council collected 7774.21 tonnes of dry recyclates, and 3763.39 tonnes of organic waste. It received recycling credits of £54.84/tonne for the dry and £45.08 for the organic.

In 2020/21 the council collected 8305.10 tonnes of dry recyclates, and 4117.16 tonnes of organic waste. It received recycling credits of £56.49/tonne for the dry and £38.58 for the organic.

Please recall we receive these payments as we are the Collection authority, but not the disposal authority which is Staffordshire County Council, but under agreement we sort end to end disposal of the waste.

Mr Hoxton asked the following Supplementary Question:

If you had known at the time, would you have introduced the green bin charge when you did, if you knew the recycling credits were to stay as high as there were would you still have done it and has anything been done to look at setting up your own company to make a profit of sending our own waste during the 3 years we have had that contract. 

Councillor Daniel Cook gave the following reply:-

Mr Loxton is correct, we introduced the green charge in 2018 £36.00 per bin per year at the time the County Council were paying us  £51.00 a tonne as a recycling credit to dispose of green waste.  County council are the disposal Authority the Borough Council is the collection authority.  Ten years before that  a deal had been struck between County Councils and Borough Councils in Staffordshire to say the county council saw no reason for two sets of councils to be involved in this process and if districts could arrange to dispose of their own waste they would pay a credit to ensure it was taken care of properly.  The District Council’s spent 10 or 11 years and credit to Mr Barratt who was part of that process, making it as efficient as we could finding better contracts and better ways to do it and it was the fundamental work of Waste officers at district level.

By 2018 the County Council had become aware that it was costing us around £25.00 a tonne to dispose of green waste whilst we were getting £51.00 a tonne.  The County of course then wanted the difference they wanted to only pay for the cost of the service.  We were arguing it was commercial arrangement the County would argue they only wanted to pay for the costs. We of course budgeted to receive that £51.00 a tonne it was underwritten in our budgets so we knew we had to do something to underwrite that shortfall against our entire General fund budget.

We consulted with fellow Councils and the public about introducing a charge on collection of green waste to cover the shortfall.  We went out to look at other council’s around the country and 60% of other Councils around the UK were already charging for green waste and looked for an average collection price that we thought would be fair.   We found some that were charging £41 and some that were charging £30 by the time we had done our due diligence we arrived at £36 per green bin per year to collect the green waste.  We had no idea at the time if the take up would be very high or very low we weren’t trying equate at the time the cost of it versus what we might earn.  We knew we might win we knew we might lose and actually the take up was better than we thought it might be and if you want to look at it from that small piece of information you could argue that the council made a profit from it.  I would argue that anyone who wants to look at the council’s balance sheet, currently this council is not making a profit in any shape or form so any additional income we fetched in by getting more people to sign up than we expected is simply swallowed up maintaining the services this council provides such as litter picking, Homelessness, Assembly Rooms Castle etc.

 We did indeed look at the time to see if there was an option around us setting up our own entity to look to dispose of the waste but what we struggled for was the land and the opportunity to do so.  I think Mr Loxton hit the nail on the head, we made the decisions at the time with the information that we had under the contract that we had at the time.  Are we intending to look at it again, I wouldn’t say at this minute that we are but I would never rule it out in the long term if there is an opportunity for this council or using one of its subsidiaries such as Solway to potentially look at options to do this  better in future.  This council as a deficit building through no fault of its own and we need to look at all opportunities as a council to be as commercial as we can and as often as we can to give our residents the best value service we can possibly give them.