Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the Joint Waste Disposal Board held on 29 September 2022.

On page 7, the second full paragraph would be reviewed and reworded if required.

On page 8 of the minutes where it mentioned Clare Lawrence and ROLE, this would be amended to Francesca Hobson and Assistant Director, Environment and Safety.

RESOLVED that subject to the amendments, the minutes of the meeting of the Joint Waste Disposal Board held on the 29 September 2022, be approved as a correct record.

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no Urgent Items of Business.

To receive a briefing on reuse and reuse opportunities for the re3 Board.

The Board received a report which provided a briefing on reuse and reuse opportunities for the re3 Board.

Rory Brian, General Manager at re3 Ltd and Liam Bould, Regional Development Manager at re3 Ltd, attended the Board to provide a presentation on Reuse from the contractor’s perspective.

The key points arising from the presentation were as follows:

·       The YouGov poll showed a rise in public appetite for reuse.

·       Over 2000 people were surveyed.

·       44% said they had purchased in a reuse shop in 2020, this had in creased by 12% to 56% in 2022.

·       80% of those surveyed agreed all HWRCs should have a charity reuse shop nearby or onsite.

·       Three quarters of people who did not currently have access to a reuse shop said they would donate their items if their HWRC had one.

·       60% said they would be more likely to donate than throw away their good quality, second-hand items if they knew they would be resold at a reuse shop.

·       64% said they would prefer to be shown how to fix a broken item, at their local HWRC with 19% saying they would prefer to buy a new item to replace a broken one.

·       81% thought companies and local authorities should be encouraging people to fix their broken items, whereas 4% thought that companies and local authorities should encourage people to buy new items to replace their broken ones.

·       75% bought second-hand items.

·       Almost half bought a second-hand item every six months.

·       Over half of people donated items to their local charity shop every six months.

·       Almost half visited their local HWRC at least once a year.

·       FCC currently operated 10 reuse shops in partnership with local authority and charity partners.

·       The reuse shops generated £1.7m in revenue annually for the charity partners.

·       FCCs Swanton Road site in Suffolk had been reopened as a merchant drop off site for reuse items with their charity partner The Benjamin Foundation. White good repairs were also being undertaken at the site.

·       re3 currently worked with Sue Ryder, Precycle for book scanning, Precycle for electrical items and bikes, pop up shops and Re3paint scheme for residents to collect free paint.

·       55,000 books a year had been scanned and sold on.

·       Reuse sat under Reduce, at the top of the waste hierarchy and had the greatest carbon benefit of all the solutions for dealing with waste.

·       In 2020 the UK reused 3.4 million furniture and electrical items, which was 111,664 tonnes of products and 123,236 tonnes of CO2.

·       Model of reuse that could be utilised were a physical shop, pop-up shops, auctions, a Hub like at Swanton Road and working with partners such as Precycle.

·       2 repair events had been held in 2022 in Amersham, Buckinghamshire which had been continued by the local community.

·       Repair built on FCCs re-use portfolio.

·       230 councils had declared a climate emergency and reuse and repair would help to combat this.

·       The Environment Bill requires the Secretary of State to set legally binding targets for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

To brief the re3 Joint Waste Disposal Board on progress in the delivery of the re3 Joint Waste PFI Contract.

The Board received a report briefing them on progress in the delivery of the re3 Joint Waste PFI Contract.

The report covered:

·       User Satisfaction Survey

·       Recycling Centre Booking System

·       re3 and Council Performance Statistics

·       Recycling Centre Bag Splitting

·       Fire in the Material Recycling Facility

·       Community Compost Scheme

·       Communications

The annual User Satisfaction Survey for the re3 Recycling Centres had been conducted in autumn 2022. This was an annual survey and was an online survey to be completed after a visit. The survey was run until similar number of responses had been received as the previous year. Responses were similar as the previous year, with satisfaction falling at Smallmead by 1% to 90% and rising at Longshot Lane by 1% to 89%.

The same questions regarding the booking system had been asked as the previous year. At Smallmead the percentage of residents who said that it was easier to recycle with the booking system in place declined slightly, whilst the number of residents who said that they sometimes forget to cancel their unwanted bookings increased. However, both sites saw a decline in the percentage of users who found it hard to get a slot when they needed one and fewer users said that they preferred being able to come to the Recycled Centres whenever they liked or that they disliked planning their trip in advance.

At the re3 Board meeting in July 2022, Members received a detailed presentation on

the current performance of the booking system, user satisfaction statistics and

suggestions for changes. Members requested some further information, and this was

presented during the meeting in September 2022 at which it was agreed to decide whether the booking system should further be retained at the January 2022 meeting.

Following the Board meeting in September 2022, Members considered several

options for supplementing the Booking System. The options and the summarised

discussion were detailed within the report.

A number of new and older members at Reading Borough Council had raised concerns about the booking system and as a result 2 briefing sessions for members had been held. Following this Councillor Page had sent communication to the Board detailing the upshot of the internal conversations being had. Overall Reading Borough Council had overall sympathy for the retention of the system and benefits of it, however there were issues surrounding digital exclusion especially with Reading being one of the Boroughs with the highest number of foreign languages spoken within Berkshire. So, with the high turnover of residents and linguistic challenges it was important for the information to be as clear and upto date as possible.

It was discussed that a question should be included within the Council’s wider corporate surveys to why residents didn’t use the recycling centres.

It was confirmed by Oliver Burt, that the a-d detailed at 5.13 in the report was more a reflection of the correspondence that had happened with members following the September 2022 meeting.

Bracknell Forest Council’s view was that following the user survey residents were pleased with the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

To consider the following motion:

That pursuant to Regulation 21 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) Regulations 2000 and having regard to the public interest, members of the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the consideration of item 9 which involves the likely disclosure of exempt information under the following category of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:

(3)      Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person.

That pursuant to Regulation 21 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) Regulations 2000 and having regard to the public interest, members of the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the consideration of item 8 which involves the likely disclosure of exempt information under the following category of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:

(3)        Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person.

To brief the re3 Joint Waste Disposal Board on the Partnership’s current financial position, to advise on the final budget for FY23/24.

The Board received the Finance Report which briefed the re3 Joint Waste Disposal

Board on the Partnership’s current financial position and to advise on the final

budget for the financial year 2023/24.

When discussing the proposed Agenda-Setting Meeting, it was suggested that this could consist of representatives from each authority on a rotated basis, and that the meeting would be held via Teams.

RESOLVED that:

i.       Members note the Partnership’s financial position for the current year.

ii.     Members approve the Partnerships Final draft of the Budget for 2023/24.

iii.    Members note the HWRC patronage allocations for FY23/24. These were obtained from the Booking System data for the period 1st Nov 2021 to 31^st Oct 2022.

iv.    Members approve the commencement of an Agenda-Setting Meeting.

v.     Members endorse the proposed quarterly Waste Management Risk Forum.

Thursday 2 March 2023 at Wokingham Borough Council

Thursday 2 March 2023 at Wokingham Borough Council.

At the last Board meetings, Members agreed to write about the situation with POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants - chemicals applied to soft furnishings as flame retardants).

The letter had been circulated the Board Members prior to the meeting and was not massively different from similar correspondence by waste bodies and associations, but the timing of this correspondence is considered important for the councils and was important to communicate these views to residents.

It was suggested that the letter be copied to EA and DEFRA officers as well as the Minster.

Oliver requested that any amendments and responses be sent back to him within the next 24 hours so that the letter could be sent as soon as possible.