Meeting documents

The Chairman, as Portfolio Holder for Waste and Recycling, advised that following the trial of collecting additional recyclable materials in 2013, the new scheme would include collecting plastic pots, trays and small electrical appliances.  There would be one additional sack for cans and plastic for each household and the scheme would start from October 2017 in phases across Somerset. 

The Managing Director of the Somerset Waste Partnership advised that the proposal was aimed to divert more waste from going to landfill sites.  In the trial, there had been a 27% reduction in residual waste when refuse was collected every 3 weeks and garden waste every 2 weeks with recyclables collected weekly.   Although the one-off roll out cost was projected to be £2.2m, there was an estimated annual saving of £1.7m so the costs would be recovered within 18 months.  There were reputational risks and so an extensive communications plan was in place including the development of an app to inform residents when their recycling was due.  They were also looking at consolidating their vehicle depots to one in the east of the county and one in the west.   Provided all the partner Councils agreed to participate in the scheme, and, the decision was confirmed by the Somerset Waste Board at their meeting on 16^th December, then new waste collection vehicles would be ordered and the scheme would commence in phases from October 2017 to October 2018.

The Strategic Director (Operations and Customer Focus) said she had been inundated with requests from the public to recycle more items so she felt the Council’s reputation would be enhanced by the scheme.  She noted that the roll-out of the new recycling would be phased to link in with the Transformation Programme and there would be funding available to deal with the increased volume of phone calls from the public.  If the Council did not agree to participate then it would create an issue of how to deal with an ageing vehicle fleet. 

In response to questions from the Scrutiny Committee, the Development & Monitoring Manager of the Somerset Waste Partnership responded:-

·         Additional resources had been made available to mitigate any impact on Customer Services Teams and it may be preferable for the Waste Partnership to take the bulk of the public phone calls.

·         There was no intention to remove Household Waste Recycling Centres and it was hoped to ease congestion at these sites.

·         There were no health concerns regarding dog waste in waste bins and if the waste was double bagged then the odour should be reduced. 

·         A newsletter was planned as part of the communication plan and the roll-out of the new service would be reported to all partner councils. 

In response to questions from Members, the Managing Director of the Somerset Waste Partnership advised:-

·         If one partner council decided not to join the Recycle More scheme, then a recalculation of the scheme would have to take place and councils would be asked to reconsider the amended scheme.

·         The Somerset Waste Partnership would be happy to discuss the use of Parish Lengthsmen to take fly-tipped items to Household Waste Recycling Centres.

·         The collection of recyclable materials from public waste bins would have to be resourced by the Council’s Streetscene team.

·         All of the collection routes were risk assessed to avoid schools etc at critical times.

The Strategic Director (Operations and Customer Focus) assured Members that the Somerset Waste Partnership had a continuing dialogue with its partners relating to data management and was aware that SSDC was going through a Transformation Programme.

At the conclusion of the debate, Members were content to support the new waste service model, Recycle More as the future method of recycling and waste collection in South Somerset.