Agenda item

(To receive a quarterly update on the dual stream recycling service)

The Chair welcomed the officers from the Joint Waste Services who introduced the report of the Operations Manager to update on the Dual Stream Recycling Service performance and data.

The Officer highlighted the following:

Ø  The Service is stable and crew numbers are within budget.

Ø  Growth within the areas covered will have a huge impact upon the cost of the service.

Ø  Missed bins are down by around 50% on this time last year and they are continuing to look at ways to reduce these figures further particularly around assisted collections.

Ø  Complaints are down to 11.6% (in a period of over a million collections)

Ø  There is plenty of stock of Blue Bags

Ø  There is large engagement from residents (excluding the high rise flats)

Ø  The Garden Waste Service has approximately 44,000 subscriptions, 65% within Lichfield and 35% across Tamworth which is not unexpected due to Lichfield having more rural areas.

Ø  The number of contaminated bins is down from 3147 last year to 1595 this year.

Ø  Quality of material produced has improved and since the introduction of the service there has only been one rejected load which was due to an error at the plant.

Ø  Dry recycling rates have decreased slightly, whilst residual waste has increased slightly which does need to be addressed and the Joint Waste Service are looking to roll out a light touch campaign before Christmas.

Ø  There was a financial overspend of £194990 on a £6.4 million spend of which Tamworth share was approximately £80,000. There is currently an overspend of 75,000 for the current year but this could change before the end of the financial year.

Ø  The Service has a number of projects underway which are details in the report including a round review, changes in legislation (including food waste), fleet renewal and Communal blocks moving onto the Service. The service is engaging with colleagues at TBC to look at how to bring the High Rise in to the Service.

The Portfolio holder highlighted the positive data that complaints are down by approximately 87% and collections are down by 50%. They also stressed that it is unlikely that anything will move forward with this in the current Municipal year.

The Committee made the following comments/observations and asked the following questions:

1.     Do Officers have any reasons and possible solutions for the missed bins?
Officers confirmed that it can be an operation issue. There are less issues when there is a regular crew in an area, there tend to be more missed bins when a different crew attends who do not know the round. It was acknowledged that human error is a factor. Assisted collections are automated to the Cab but this is not always fed out to the crew, there is now a supervisor who has taken a responsibility for monitoring missed assisted collections and liaising with crews.

2.     What will the recycling Campaign look like and how do we educate people? Have they thought about going into schools to educate children. Can Councillors be engaged in areas where there are problems to work with residents?

Officer confirmed that the plan is to liaise with all demographics, all ages and all residents and the campaign will be shared with the Committee before it is rolled out. It was acknowledged that engaging with Councillors would be a good idea and that they could speak to Officers to highlight areas where there are consistent problems.

3.     Impression seems to be that we don’t want to encourage a food waste service?

The Portfolio Holder confirmed that this is not currently mandated so to move in the to this area at this point might prove to be more expensive.

Officers confirmed that the service can be quite expensive and if the service was taken on now, we could miss out on any future new burdens funding. 

4.     Clarification around whether the fleet needed to be replaced all at once or could be done on a rolling basis?

Officers confirmed that Councils do this in different ways but the Joint Waste Service is in a position where its contract hire is due to expire on all vehicles, however the annual cost won’t change significantly and the service can benefit from economies of scale when buying in large numbers. Disadvantages of this is that you can have a large fleet of older vehicles for a period.

5.     Clarification of the Joint Waste Service position around EV charging vehicles and infrastructure as currently the Council is not forward on the Issue?

Officers confirmed that the service is behind as is the rest of Staffordshire and there was a meeting recently around the cost of electrifying Depots, which can vary massively depending on the infrastructure already in place. It is not expected that the current fleet upgrade would include any EV vehicles. Other options are being considered around Hydrogen vehicles and there is an information session coming up which members are invited to attend.

There are also discussions around the use of hydrogenated vegetable oil.

The Portfolio Holder confirmed that the industry is not rushing to take on EV vehicles as a solution as other options are being talked about and that the Council needs to step back and not rush into a decision which could be the wrong decision. Commercial energy does not compare to residential energy and is considerably more expensive. The purchase of a new fleet will reduce emissions.

6.     The impact of the growth of the districts.

Officers confirmed that roughly 1 vehicle can service approximately 1500 properties, therefore vehicle numbers and crew will need to increase to deal with this.

7.     Did they have any solutions around bringing the high rise under the Joint Waste Service solution?

Officers confirmed that they are liaising with colleagues within Tamworth arounds solutions which needs to be followed up.

The Committee confirmed that they wish for the report to continue on a quarterly basis.