Agenda item

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 on progress in the delivery of the re3 Joint Waste PFI Contract.

The report covered:

·       re3 and Council Performance Statistics

·       Environment Bill

·       Kerbside Glass Recycling

·       Mixed Glass

·       Reuse Pop-Up Shop

·       Rigid Plastics Recycling Trial

·       Recycling Centre Usage

·       User Satisfaction

·       Chargeable Wastes at HWRC

·       re3Grow Compost

·       Communications

Sarah Innes reported the performance statistics for all three Council, the provisional recycling rates for quarter 2 were:

BFC – 56.9%

RBC – 51.8%

WBC – 56.6%

Bracknell and Reading were following a similar trend, in that both quarter one figures were higher than quarter two. However, Wokingham had a higher recycling rate in quarter two, but this seemed to relate to the amount of green waste collected during this period. This had dropped off in October’s figures due to the suspension in the kerbside recycling collection, so would be interesting to see whether the figures increased again in November’s statistics. 

At the last meeting of the Board, contamination was discussed, particularly in Bracknell where the level looked like it was increasing. However, now more data had been gathered, it looked like the contamination levels were in line with previous years, which was still high across all three Council, so work would be looked at to see how these could be brought down.

The recycling rates for the re3 recycling centres were 70.3% for Longshot Lane and 73.9% at Smallmead these were lower than the previous year, it was hard to work out why this was, but earlier in there year there were some restrictions on residual waste capacity for kerbside, so this could have affected the rates, alongside covid, kerbside waste suspensions and lockdowns.

Commendations were given to the pop-up shop, where £500 had been raised over that weekend. A trial run of the shop in each of the Councils areas would be proposed in 2022, keeping one eye on both the weather and covid situation. Oliver would be in touch with each Council in the new year.

On the 10 November 2021, the Environment Act had been passed into UK law. This had been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. It was expected that the detail of this act would be released in Spring 2022.

In January 2020 Members undertook to consider kerbside glass collection following the roll-out of new kerbside waste collections, it was expected that as part of the new Environment Act that this would become mandatory. The situation remained unclarified between the anticipation of the deposit return scheme and the mandatory kerbside glass collection, which was causing some councils, who didn’t have kerbside recycling, to wonder how those two things would fit efficiently together. It was important that the Board had a proper look at the issue, but it was requested to wait until the secondary legislation had been released so the detail was known before work was undertaken.

It was requested that the full cost of collection of glass was calculated across the Boroughs, however it was suggested that this may not be able to be done yet due to the unknowns from the government, but that maybe a high-level costing could be produced.

It was raised that whether the government had considered the amount of supermarket home deliveries, which had increase due to the pandemic, and whether the delivery vans would also be collecting glass as part of a deposit return scheme. It was envisioned that this would be a possibility, but it was unclear what the supermarkets thoughts on this were.

It was important to not only be efficient but to provide a service that residences wanted, and although bottle banks were efficient for some areas, Reading residents wanted kerbside glass recycling.

The user satisfaction survey had been closed two weeks earlier, 3000 responses had been received. Questions regarding the booking system had been asked. In relation to the question asking whether people would prefer to go to the HWRC whenever they liked, there had been a mixed response. However, all other questions relating to the booking system had gathered a pretty positive response.

The survey had been undertaken online, with people been asked to take part after they had visited the recycling centre during a certain period. There had been two questions regarding demographics asked at the end of the survey, which were the ages of the responders, and which council area that they were coming from.

The response rate would be worked out for Board Members. It had been a 99% completion rate from those who had started the survey.

The data from the surveys would be shared amongst the individual Council groups.

At the previous meeting of the Board, it had been agreed that the booking system would be in place until November 2022.

Rigid plastics were continuing to go well, 120 tonnes of rigid plastics had been sent out from each site since the scheme had started in July. Feedback had been positive from residents, and there had been few queries from the off taker about the quality as the quality was generally very good. The cost of recycling rigid plastics was slightly higher than landfilling, as there was a fixed rate paid, the more waste on each load, the cost would reduce per tonne. FCC had made some changes, and the average cost in October and November had been less than landfill. It was requested that the trial be continued for 6 months. There was quite a mix of rigid plastics being brought to the sites, mostly being large tubs and sheets.

Due to inflation, the prices had been reviewed for the various items that were charged for at the recycling centres. As the prices were rounded up, not all of the charges needed to be increased, but these had all been set out within the report. The increases would not affect the residents but would affect the local businesses who were registered to use the recycling centres. These increases would be introduced at the start of April 2022.

RESOLVED that:

       i.         Members note the contents of this report.

     ii.         Members restate their commitment to preparing a service development programme, for kerbside glass collection, once there is clarity over the strategic status, scale and funding for such a service, as described at 5.15 in the report.

    iii.         Members approve the recommendation at 5.35 in the report, to extend the rigid plastic trial until June 2022.

    iv.         Members approve the recommendation to implement the new charging structure, as shown at 5.51 in the report.