Agenda item

Representatives from Veolia will be attending for this item.

Report ES16016

Members reviewed the performance of Waste Management, covering the collection of all Municipal Waste (refuse & recycling) and its subsequent disposal.

The Regional Manager of the Council’s Waste Management contractor, Veolia Environmental Services, was in attendance for the item along with Veolia’s Contract Manager for the L B Bromley contract.

In a wide-ranging discussion on Veolia’s performance a number of points were discussed with key considerations included in the summary below.

·  To help prevent spillage of material between collection and deposit in vehicles, crews are taught about tidying up with supervisors liaising with collection crews – failure to deliver required standards would be considered a disciplinary matter.

·  Plastics can be blown on to the highway in windy conditions and Veolia were prepared to look at introducing specific training for the problem if necessary.

·  Bring banks sometimes get full with material left around the banks. Veolia’s Environment Manager would look further at the problem - if necessary collection schedules would change. It was suggested that it should not be solely for residents to report such problems.

·  With bottles/cans/plastics collected every two weeks, a Member noted that a number of bottles were left at bring banks over Christmas. Members were advised that collections had doubled prior to the holiday. Two vehicles are allocated to lift the bring banks and Christmas is a busy period for Veolia. Dust carts had also been used to clear material left.

·  It was not possible to take forward a suggestion that collection crews also visit a local bring bank, at least to report whether or not the bank was full. Veolia collection rounds and crews were maximised. Bring banks had been assessed for  low usage and through the Environment Manger and new neighbourhood officers it would be possible to empty the banks sooner with an amendment to the Waste Management contract. The new neighbourhood approach would help to remove any silo approach with services.

·  The neighbourhood officers would be desk based for 30% of their time and operational outside in remaining time. More technical solutions would be introduced in the field from 1^st April in the new programme. An officer would cover two wards with one working day out of five given to waste activity (other activities would include monitoring of street cleaning).

·  To promote the Green Garden Waste (GGW) collection service as widely as possible, advertising in a variety of local magazines and at gardening outlets was being explored. The sides of recycling vehicles would also be used along with promotion in Environment Matters.

·  It might be possible in the future for residents to report that a GGW collection was not needed for a particular week – this could be looked at when considering a new environmental services contract from 2019.

·  The total number of missed collections in the borough compared broadly to missed collections in other boroughs.

·  On recycling it was intended to complete a residual waste audit to gauge the composition of waste materials left for collection. This would help identify whether it was necessary to highlight certain materials for recycling e.g. cardboard and bathroom plastics. Environment Matters would also be used to promote key recycling messages. It was better for residents to segregate all plastics for recycling even if some were unable to be recycled. This would be no more expensive and evidence suggested that widening the range of plastics for recycling also increased other types of recycling.

·  Recycling bags had been provided at flatted accommodation to increase recycling levels but as these had not been successful, localised issues were now being considered - it was necessary to have appropriate infrastructure in co-operation with Affinity Sutton.

·  It was confirmed that the size of cardboard boxes should be reduced so that cardboard pieces can fit into collection wheelie bins – vehicles should only be loaded using the bins.

The Chairman thanked the Veolia representatives for attending the meeting.

RESOLVED that the performance of the contractor (Veolia Environmental Services) be noted.