Agenda item

This report provides an update on the activity carried out by the three waste contractors to Medway Council within the second year of the waste services contracts. Representatives from Veolia and FCC will attend the meeting in order to answer questions from the committee.  

Decision:

The representatives from Veolia (Melanie Tong) and FCC (Steve Bell and Neil Jones) gave presentations and answered questions on the work carried out within the past year, which included:

Veolia

·        The council’s bid for DCLG funding

·        Introduction of a weekly recycling collection but overall there had been a reduction in the total tonnage collected for the year due to issues with the implementation of the scheme

·        Weekly garden and food waste collection, with an increase in the total tonnage collected

·        Launch of a WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) kerbside collection

·        Separation of waste and recyclable materials - plastic, cans and glass picked up by the manual street cleansing staff

·        Litter and detritus clearance were both above target, as was public satisfaction with refuse collection at an average of 92.75% (target of 90%)

·        Veolia was a very large employer nationally and provided local employment opportunities which last year in Medway included 12 apprenticeships and two NEETs (young people who were not in education, or employment or on a training scheme)

·        89 staff had given at least half a day’s voluntary service to a variety of projects in Medway.

FCC

·        FCC managed 220 licensed waste management facilities in the UK and 120 waste contracts for 60 Local Authorities, handling over 9 million tonnes of municipal, commercial and industrial waste per year

·        20,839 tonnes of materials were brought to the Medway Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC) in 2011/2012 and of this 12,875 tonnes were recycled

·        During 2011/2012 the Environment Agency had inspected all three sites and no breaches were found at any of the sites

·        During 2011/2012 there were no RIDDOR (health and safety) reportable incidents at any of Medway’s HWRC’s

·        Recycling rates had risen from 52% in 2010/2011 to over 61% in 2011/2012

·        Customer satisfaction levels were greater than 97%

·        A new re-use service had begun in partnership with a local reuse charity, Abacus, which was hoped could be developed further

·        FCC recognised that the council had to make savings and proposed to meet this challenge by:

-         increasing recycling rates which would result in reduced disposal costs

-         the development of a Trade Waste Service at one or more of the HWRC’s. The provision of such a service would help support local businesses and generate revenue

·                    Plans to enhance the existing service include:

      -     re-development of the Hoath Way HWRC

-            reduced trade waste abuse at the sites through the development of the Trade Waste Service. This would result in a reduction of disposal costs for the council

-            continued site layout improvements to encourage recycling activities and increased diversion of waste from landfill

-         continued training of staff in relation to customer services

-         undertaking six-monthly customer satisfaction surveys

-         incentivisation of staff to encourage high quality customer service standards

-         development of new opportunities to recycle materials, for example carpets.

The committee asked various questions, which included:

·        The apprenticeship scheme that Veolia ran for young people who were not in education, or employment or on a training scheme (NEET).

Members were advised that two young people had successfully completed the programme and they had been recruited as apprenticeships. Young people who were identified by the council as being NEET often displayed challenging behaviour and were assigned a mentor while working at Veolia. This meant they had a minimum of a weekly meeting with a report sheet.

·        Consideration of the fuel used by the Veolia fleet of vehicles due to their effect on the environment.

Veolia continually reviewed the fuels used by its vehicles which had included bio-fuel, liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and even algae. It was a big issue for the company, especially where it had an aging fleet of vehicles. New vehicles were much more efficient and it was hoped that new vehicles would soon be operational in Medway, as this had been included in the recent DCLG bid.

·        Could parked vehicles be moved to allow access for street cleaners to the edge of the road/pavement.

Cars and other vehicles often parked half way on the pavement and half way on the road, which caused great difficulties for the street cleaning teams but Veolia had no power to move any vehicle.

·        What happened to dead animals collected from the roads

Veolia had a microchip-reading machine and all domestic animals were checked to see if they had a microchip and the owners were contacted.

·        Why was it possible to take plasterboard to some of the household waste recycling centres (HWRC) but not the site located at Hoath Way.

Officers advised that there was currently limited space at the Hoath Way site but when this was re-developed the facilities provided there would be
re-considered, which could include plasterboard.

·        Quality of service provided by HWRC staff

The committee commented on the very high quality service provided by the HWRC staff and asked that the committee’s recognition and thanks was passed on to the staff.

·        Height of platforms in front of waste containers.

A Member asked that the height of the raised platform in front of each recycling container was looked at, as it was still difficult for elderly people to raise items up to the edge of the container.

·        At Capstone HWRC there was a conflict of people walking along the road to get to the recycling container for fluorescent lighting tubes beside the traffic going into the Capstone HWRC and there was concern that an accident would happen there. Also, that there was a large, deep puddle for pedestrians to negotiate in that area of the site after rainfall.

The representatives from FCC agreed to look at this and report back to the Head of Waste Services on this matter.

·        Members were encouraged that FCC was considering setting up a small area for trade waste goods to be recycled, especially at a time when Kent County Council was restricting access to some of its sites. However, the price to be set for this service was very important and not to be set too high, as this would only increase flytipping.

Decision:

The representatives from the waste contractors Veolia and FCC were thanked for their presentations and the answers they had provided to Member’s questions.