Agenda and minutes

Due to the absence of the Chair, prior to the beginning of this item Members elected a temporary Chair for the meeting.

Councillor Boylan was proposed as the interim Chair. Upon being put to a vote it was:

RESOLVED that – Councillor Mark Boylan act as Chair for the remainder of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

RESOLVED that – the minutes of the meeting held on 14 December 2021 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

To receive the report of Dean Sargeant (Director: Neighbourhood & Enforcement Services).

The Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services, Regeneration and the High Street will also attend for this item.

The Service Delivery Manager: Waste & Neighbourhood Services Performance presented the report of the Director: Neighbourhood & Enforcement Services.

The presentation was an update on household waste and recycling in the Borough. The overall picture was one of improvement, with the Borough’s recycling rate improving against a backdrop of a national decline; Telford and Wrekin had a recycling rate of 48.2%, 4.4% higher than the England average. It was thought that this could, in part, be explained by the authority’s decision to maintain all collections throughout the pandemic when many others suspended services or diverted resources. In addition to this, the Borough was among the first to reopen Household Recycling Centres (HRCs) after their initial Covid-19 enforced closure.

Despite the positive picture presented, the Council continually strived to improve, a fact written into Veolia’s contract, with the waste contractor obligated to provide year-on-year improvements in terms of carbon reduction.

The contract with Veolia had begun in April 2014 and there had been significant capital investment in the time since. Examples included investing in easy-use recycling containers, a new vehicle fleet with improved IT, and a new waste transfer station. These investments had allowed the Council to improve in terms of its environmental impact, with bins improving recycling performance, new vehicle IT allowing smarter routing, and the waste transfer station allowing bulking of waste to reduce the number of waste shipments out of the Borough.

Members heard a number of statistics relating to the performance of the Council’s household waste collection service.

-       Any missed bins in collection rounds were collected the same day – in 2020 – 2021, just 0.06% were not collected on the stated collection day.

-       New container requests were fulfilled within 5 working days in 99.96% of cases in 2020 – 2021

-       In the three yearly satisfaction survey, undertaken in 2020, 92% of respondents were satisfied with waste services.

The Veolia contract included benefit requirements of £25,000 per year, £15,000 of this had gone to ‘Envirogrant’ community projects such as Telford Repair Café and Friends Of groups. The remainder had gone to other groups and initiatives, such as Job Box. A total of £200,000 had been allocated to 175 projects.

There was also added value in terms of communications and engagement activities. Veolia had run 33 school education workshops, for example, as well as an online programme, and providing 900 activity sheets through community hubs and breakfast schemes.

A number of actions that had been delivered were noted for Members:

-       Increased recycling;

-       Diversion of more waste from landfill;

-       Efficient collection rounds, utilising routing and IT;

-       Investment in energy efficient plant and vehicles;

-       A new weighbridge at Hortonwood HRC; and

-       More sustainable procurement.

Planned actions were also listed:

-       Continued recycling rate improvement;

-       Encouraging reuse;

-       Food waste campaigns; and

-       New recycling vehicles.

Following the presentation from officers there was a discussion, with Members posing a number of questions:

There was a 10% difference between the England statistics and the  ...  view the full minutes text for item ENVSC44

None.