The Cabinet Member for Environmental and Rural Affairs and the Head of Commissioning and Customer Contact have been invited to attend for this item.

The Chairman welcomed the Cabinet Member for Environment and Rural Affairs, the Interim Head of Commissioning and Customer Contact, and the Senior Contracts Monitoring Officer to the meeting.

The Cabinet Member reminded Members that the collection of waste was the responsibility of Swale Borough Council (SBC) but the disposal of waste was a matter for Kent County Council (KCC).  He spoke of the benefits of the Mid Kent Waste Partnership with Maidstone, Ashford and KCC, and the tremendous efforts that were made to provide the waste collection service although there was always room for improvement.

The Interim Head of Commissioning and Customer Contact gave a presentation on waste collection, focusing in particular on recycling as this was an area where Key Performance Indicators had been of concern to Members.

The presentation covered:

·        national policy and focus, referring to the increasing importance and emphasis on recycling following the Blue Planet series; the recycling targets for 45% kerbside collection to be recycled by 2015 and 50% by 2020; and the success of national schemes such as the introduction of a charge for carrier bags. 

·        the arrangements in place across the county which gave opportunities for good practice to be shared; the areas that KCC were responsible for, namely Household Waste Recycling Centres and transfer stations.  The presentation also identified the ‘end destinations’ for waste collected under the SBC service.

·        The reasons why the recycling performance statistics were low in 2013 and the steady improvements that had been made since that time (except for a slight dip in 2015/16)  with partnership arrangements and a new contract, as well as a new post of Environmental Projects Officer to focus on educational campaigns to promote recycling in a variety of ways and to different groups.

·        Food waste recycling had been introduced in 2014 and the garden waste service, which subscribers paid an additional £37 a year for, had increased from approximately 7000 in 2013, to over 13,000 now.

·        Statistics to compare SBC to other authorities in Kent which showed that the recycling rate for SBC was 43%, which was below the target for 2017/18.  The target was to reach 50% by 2020.

·        The issues and setbacks that had led to the current performance indicator being under-target which included closure of recycling sites; the days on which public holidays fell during the year (mainly Christmas); inclement weather and contamination of recycling.

·        The measures that were being taken to address this, which included a waste and recycling communications plan; a focus on reducing contamination as well as encouraging recycling; the promotion of the garden waste service; consideration of changing collection methods in areas not currently on a wheeled bin system; and learning from other authorities.

Members were then invited to ask questions, the responses to which are summarised below.

Household waste and recycling sites – these were managed by KCC, and Swale was fortunate to have three sites in the Borough, although the goods taken there for recycling were not included in SBC’s recycling statistics.  Suggestions were made that the height barrier and restrictions on the type of vehicles had an impact on fly-tipping, and whether it would be possible for one of the three sites to be made accessible to businesses at a charge. The services provided at the sites were within the remit of KCC.

Parish Clean-ups – these were organised by and funded by the Parish Council.  There had been some joint initiatives with the Community Safety Unit in areas such as Minster and Kemsley, but Queenborough Town Council organised their own clean-up event.

Targets – there was discussion around the accuracy of the figures and the fact that Swale was not meeting the 45% recycling target, which would make it difficult to meet the 50% target by 2020, unless radical changes were made.  It was confirmed that the collection figures were accurate as the amount collected was weighed on a weighbridge, and so this allowed for fair comparisons to be made.  It was also confirmed that 43% went to recycling, 1.3% to landfill, and the remainder was burnt and turned into electricity at ‘energy from waste’ plants.  Energy from waste was not considered recycling as the material was not re-used.  The Interim Head of Commissioning and Customer Contact had recently visited the site, and encouraged Members to visit if possible.

Good practice – Members welcomed that there were opportunities to learn from others via the Kent Resource Partnership, but asked what had been learnt from other authorities and whether differences in areas, such as demographics, were considered.  Ashford was cited as a good example, as the design of new developments allowed for properties to be accessible for collections.  Swale had a number of non-standard properties (i.e. they could not have wheeled bins due to access arrangements and type of property such as flats which had less storage space).  These properties currently had sacks instead of bins.  Swale also had a higher rate of clinical collections than other authorities.

Non – Standard properties – Members suggested that there could be blue sacks and green sacks provided to non-standard properties, and that food caddies should be introduced where possible, but consideration had to be given to space for storage.  The classification of the ‘exempt’ properties was being reviewed, for example some may have adequate space to store bins, but there would not be any requirement for wheeled bins to be taken through a house. Marine Town was the main area that had non-standard properties, but officers would provide further detail of the location of other areas where there were communal properties.  The team were consulted on all new planning applications around accessibility for collections.

Recovery Plan - lessons had been learnt from the recent experience of snow, and different options would need to be considered regarding this and communication methods.  The recovery arrangements had been more difficult, due to the way in which the service was operated with ‘Week 1’ and ‘Week 2’ collections, rather than all properties being all recycling or all waste collection, as they were in Ashford. 

Education about what can be recycled – Members asked questions regarding whether the following items were recyclable: shredded paper, bubble wrap, polystyrene, plastic wrap, plastic bags, paint tins, food trays, yoghurt pots, and the need to wash them up before putting in the blue bin.  They agreed that further education was needed on this area.  Electrical goods could also be recycled, and this would be a key area of the communications plan.  It was recognised that different areas had different rules, and so the announcement by Michael Gove MP that the Government were looking at a national standard was to be welcomed.  Members welcomed the ‘Waste Wizard’ on the website, but asked that it was made more prominent and was searchable. 

Cost – the waste collection service cost £2.4m each year, and £1.1m of that was for recycling collection.  The end destinations were commercial concerns, but they did give recycling credits to KCC.   There was no financial consequence of not meeting the national performance targets as they were for guidance only.

Collection points - The collections taken to Ridham Docks were turned to compost which was used by local farmers.  In respect of Church Marshes, officers were asked to put pressure on KCC to ensure that lorries leaving the site had adequate netting to avoid rubbish falling out of the lorry along the journey (in particular along the A249).  It was confirmed that in 2016/17 over 79% of recycled materials stayed in Kent, 14.1% stayed in the UK and only 6.9% was sent abroad.

Suggestions were made for officers to consider such as:

·        Changing the frequency of collection of refuse, and to add more recycling collections, to encourage recycling;

·        A promotional campaign to stop recycling being contaminated, and  designating areas as ‘clean areas’;

·        Improving availability of bags for caddies for food recycling, or providing them periodically to encourage take-up;

·        Making the ‘waste wizard’ more prominent on the website;

·        Changing the size of the standard ‘normal’ bin to encourage people to recycle more;

·        Putting pressure on supermarkets and the food packaging industry to reduce unnecessary packaging;

·        Looking at introducing ‘communal areas’ for recycling for areas with non-standard properties.

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Member, the Interim Head of Commissioning and Customer Contact and the Senior Contracts Monitoring Officer for attending the meeting. 

Resolved:

(1) That officers be asked to organise a visit to a recycling site for Committee Members.

(2) That officers be invited to report back to the Committee in six months to give an update on progress; at that time, consideration be given to inviting the contractors (Biffa) and KCC officers to give their views.