Memorandum by City of Lincoln Council
(RC 1)
The City of Lincoln Council is a Waste Collection
Authority operating in an area of two-tier local government.
THE WAYS
IN WHICH
LOCAL AUTHORITIES
COLLECT AND
MEASURE WASTE
Collection methods: the contribution made to waste
minimisation by the timing, frequency and type of collection in
both urban and rural areas and in areas characterised by differing
housing types, such as flats
The City of Lincoln Council has recently introduced
a new collection service based on the use of twin wheeled bins
and alternate weekly collections (AWC). This has had the effect
of raising the amount diverted to recycling from 40-50 tonnes
per week to 150-200 tonnes per week.
As well as increasing the diversion of waste
going for recycling this change has also had the effect of reducing
the residual waste going to landfill. The downside is that this
recycling material requires transport to a Materials Reclamation
Facility (MRF), although this impact will reduce when a new MRF
opens in Lincoln next year.
In the inner city areas the council has issued
smaller bins to take account of reduced storage and narrower pavements,
and retained a weekly collection for waste whilst operating AWC
for recycling. Material for recycling outside the bin will be
taken if it is clearly marked as such.
Communal bins for both recycling and waste have
been introduced at flats across the City and these have been both
welcomed and well used by residents.
The aim has been to make recycling accessible
and easy for residents to use and understand. This is considered
to be the key to public engagement, and for that reason the Council
rejected multi-box and/or coloured bag separation schemes as being
difficult for the majority of residents to operate.
The service change has meant that the combined
BVPI recycling/composting performance has gone up from 29% in
the last full year to 39% last quarter this year and is expected
to top 45% in a full year. Therefore the Council now comfortably
exceeds its BVPI target, is making a significant contribution
to the achievement of the LAA stretch target and is well on the
way toward meeting the new 50% target for 2010.
As well as introducing AWC the Council has also
adopted a policy of not accepting side waste as minimisation measure,
and in effect placed a weekly limit on that which will be removed
from each household.
Joint working, cost sharing and the potential
for co-operation between waste collection authorities.
The City of Lincoln Council worked on a joint
procurement project with three other districts in 2003-04-05,
which ultimately failed to produce the intended outcome of a combined
collection contract.
The approach taken appeared to follow the best
practice that was available at the time. It included a member/officer
steering committee, engagement with the Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister and through them with the Partnership Beacon Council,
use of 4P's documentation which has since been adopted as the
OGC standard, separate supporting officer groups from legal, finance
and waste, and consultancy support and expertise wherever necessary.
Joint procurement is not as simple as it is
sometimes promoted. The problems that proved insurmountable included:
— the position of DLO's in the two
councils that had them in terms of bidding for the contract and
then TUPE costs, especially those related to "open"
and "closed" pension schemes;
— different specification requirements
between an urban authority and three rural authorities;
— different collection methodologies
in use across the WCAs; and
— cost sharing and pooling of budgets
where in the final tender submissions there were clear winners
and losers amongst the WCAs.
This case has been shared via the IDeA website,
and more information can be supplied about this if required. It
clearly highlighted that joint tendering is a difficult area for
local authorities.
THE CONTRIBUTION
COLLECTION METHODS
MAY MAKE
TOWARDS WASTE
MINIMISATION, EFFECTIVE
RECYCLING AND
THE REDUCTION
OF WASTE
GOING TO
LANDFILL AND
INCINERATION. TOPICS
WHICH MAY
BE CONSIDERED
WITHIN THIS
INCLUDE
Collection methodology in terms of both the
means and the frequency of collection can contribute toward waste
minimisation. In a lot of respects some of the problems we now
have are related to local government having in the past become
almost too efficient at collecting anything residents cared to
put out and then simply burying it. The mindset that has been
created now needs to be changed, and placing a restriction on
what will be taken and when it will be collected is one way of
doing that.
However, a balance needs to be struck in terms
of acknowledging that waste will still be produced and there is
a need to create a situation where residents resort to flytipping.
Information programmes: how the Department of
Communities and Local Government and local authorities can contribute
to reducing the amount of waste reaching collection through providing
information to households, consumers and producers
There is an on-going need to provide information
to the public about the need to reduce the amount of waste that
is produced, and the opportunity is enhanced by growing awareness
of the issues related to climate change.
There is also a need for a change in attitude
by residents to accept responsibility for the waste they produce,
and see it as their problem and not that of their local authority
(see comment above re efficiency of previous collection regimes).
This attitude also needs to more widely encompass
the view that waste is a resource needing to be re-used rather
than simply thrown away.
Finally there is a need to accept that waste
is a lifestyle issue, and that lifestyles are going to need to
change. The use of real nappies as opposed to disposables is a
classic example of a lifestyle issue. To this end given that most
people are going to continue to shop at supermarkets this lifestyle
change will need to be driven by the reduction of packaging at
source.
There is no doubt that the national recycling
campaign advertisements have been noticed, and this approach must
be continued.
In Lincolnshire the Waste Partnership has both
a sub-group of recycling officers and a separate Waste Engagement
Group to work on combined approaches to waste minimisation, recycling
and publicity. This year all seven districts and the county have
joined the WRAP home composting scheme to jointly promote the
benefits that this important waste minimisation scheme can have.
Technology: the contribution of collection technologies
to waste minimisation, reduction and setting
Technology has a role to play in ensuring that
such packaging that is used is easy to recycle and avoids the
use of complex combinations of materials. There is also some further
scope in the search for the current holy grail of the supermarkets
to make packaging that is biodegradable. However, this needs to
be approached with some care to ensure that what the packaging
degrades in to is not in itself harmful to the environment!
HOW DECISIONS
TAKEN BY
LOCAL AUTHORITIES
ABOUT COLLECTION/DISPOSAL
METHODS AID
OR CONSTRAIN
FUTURE COLLECTION
METHODS AND
MINIMISATION. TOPICS
WHICH MAY
BE CONSIDERED
WITHIN THIS
INCLUDE
Planning for future sorting, collection and disposal
facilities
The collection methodology and treatment infrastructure
need to compliment each other and avoid sending mixed messages
to the public. There is a real risk that if the Waste Disposal
Authority (WDA) opts for energy from waste (EfW) then this can
be seen as a disincentive to Waste Collection Authority (WCA)
schemes to promote and encourage recycling.
This co-ordination is clearly easier to achieve
in areas of unitary government, but it can work in two-tier areas
as well. In Lincolnshire the City WCA and the County WDA have
worked closely together over a period of 18 months to procure
a MRF that has been designed to meet both the current needs and
the future aspirations of the WCA.
This joint approach resulted from consideration
early in the process of the need to co-ordinate collection and
treatment, and a formal "Memorandum of Understanding"
on joint working was agreed. Once completed this facility will
be available to other WCAs within Lincolnshire.
This process has not restricted the WDA from
working toward an EfW solution for the residual waste, but through
the Waste Engagement Group (see above) the two approaches are
being promoted as complimenting each other and being different
parts of dealing with the overall waste problem, as neither on
its' own represents a total solution.
Therefore all the WCAs have introduced recycling
systems using their own locally developed approaches and procured
vehicles and bins/boxes/sacks as required, whilst still being
able to support the WDA approach to residual treatment.
FINANCING. TOPICS
WHICH MAY
BE CONSIDERED
WITHIN THIS
INCLUDE
The funding of waste collection, including the
implications of variable charging for waste collection
The issue of variable charging is one that needs
careful consideration. Some authorities will embrace it, whilst
others will oppose it on principle, and that will in turn introduce
the prospect of yet another aspect of the postcode lottery as
to what service is provided to residents. This is already very
clearly in evidence for recycling collections with a large number
of variations in operation around the country.
There is also the issue that refuse collection
is regarded as the one service that all residents consider they
get for their council tax. Experience at promotional roadshows
in Lincoln has shown that there is little real understanding of
the actual costs involved in paying for waste services.
Therefore there may only be a small reduction
in actual council tax bills, with this being lost entirely within
a few years due to annual inflationary rise. Therefore the risk
is that the introduction of variable charging will be seen as
yet another "stealth" tax. This in turn could lead to
the whole effort to reduce waste being discredited or at the very
least drowned out in the clamour against the variable charging
scheme.
The practicality of waste charging by weight
will be difficult to monitor, and raises the spectre of either
locked bins (which would reduce crew productivity to an unacceptable
level) or that of disputes where residents accuse others of putting
waste in their bins. The solution is to revert to collections
of bins from the back door, but again that would seriously impact
on productivity especially if there was a perceived requirement
to return the bins in those areas using them.
A pay-per-lift is another option, but this is
hardly complementary to the ethos of waste reduction, as it will
encourage residents to fill their bins to get maximum value from
the service.
There is also the risk that such a scheme would
adversely impact on those least able to afford to pay for this
service, with possible health impacts if waste is retained on
a property or only a portion of it presented each collection.
A further issue is that of the cost of introducing
this methodology. The chips are being quoted at as much as £3.50
retrofitted to existing bins, and when the City of Lincoln Council
considered the issue of fitting chips to bins none of the chip
suppliers would give any guarantee as to the longetivity of their
product due to the violence to which they are exposed during the
bin emptying cycle.
There is a further danger that flytipping (which
is already a problem in rural and urban areas) will increase as
people seek to avoid paying for the service. The existence of
powers to fine people for this activity is unlikely to act as
a deterrent as the likelihood of being caught is very small. There
is a lot of countryside out there, and in a rural county such
as Lincolnshire there is an absolute plethora of small country
roads where illegal tipping could and indeed already does) take
place.
Whilst it would be easier to control in urban
areas where there are established smoke-free zones, there is the
prospect that in rural areas there would be a sharp increase in
the incidence of waste burning as an alternative to paying for
a collection service.
The variable charging approach is being widely
touted as the solution to the waste issue, but in reality it is
anything but the panacea it is being made out to be. Investigating
behind the bright headlines of the success of the trial schemes
tends to produce a more balanced outlook in terms of success and
failure.
Comparative evidence of how charging affects the
minimisation behaviour of businesses who pay for removal of commercial
waste
The City of Lincoln Council does not operate
any commercial waste services, as a private contractor undertakes
our refuse collection and there are a number of other waste companies
who operate in this area.
Contact with some businesses has revealed a
viewpoint that says recycling collections should be free as there
is no need to dispose of the waste but instead the money to cover
the collection service should be made from recycling the materials.
This leads to the bizarre situation where companies are prepared
to pay for waste to be thrown away but are not prepared to pay
for it to be recycled.
If this attitude is repeated across the country
and is not just unique to Lincoln then it reveals a need for some
serious education and awareness-raising, and the possibility of
some form of tax break being offered in a future budget to encourage
recycling as opposed to disposal.
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