first swwrf newsletter - autumn 2016
TRANSCRIPT
SWWRF Newsletter
First Newsletter Announcement
SWWRF (South West Waste and Recycling Forum) brings together representatives from local authorities, private and third sector organisations, waste partnerships and public authorities based in the South West, who all have a specialist interest in recycling and waste issues.
The aims of the first SWWRF newsletter are to celebrate, share and raise the profile of the achievements of SWWRF members. This will help achieve SWWRF’s goals to enable further networking and idea sharing opportunities; to enable all SWWRF members to improve environmental performance; and to make efficiency savings within their organisation.
The intention is that this newsletter will be published on the SWWRF website in the autumn and spring of each year. It will be readily available for all members and will help to promote a variety of recycling and waste minimisation activities across the South West and encourage new organisations to become members enabling them to reap the benefits SWWRF has to offer.
For further information on SWWRF and summaries of previous events visit www.swwrf.org.uk.
Membership benefits
SWWRF holds at least four events a year. Events cover a range of ‘hot topics’ in the fields of waste prevention, reuse, recycling, treatment and disposal, and include tours to facilities in the South West and futher afield. There are plenty of networking opportunities to aid staff personal development and to build business relationships.
‘SWWRF provides excellent value for money and has many benefits that include opportunities to raise staff knowledge and awareness on topical themes in waste management and networking
opportunities, as well as develop and establish new business partnerships’ Dave Moore, Chariman
SWWRF is now in its tenth year and always has excellent guest speakers covering topics such as communications campaigns, ‘circular economy’, and waste minimisation and enforcement strategies adopted by organisations throughout the UK. Additionally, SWWRF has excellent working relationships with the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) who promote training workshops through SWWRF all over the South West.
To complement excellent guest speakers, SWWRF events also include tours around fully operational waste management technologies. Recently SWWRF has organised tours around Energy from Waste, Mechanical and Biological Treatment and Anaerobic Digestion plants as well as Material Recovery Facilities and recycling operations.
1
SWWRF gathered in Portland for its summer conference and asked ‘is the tide turning on waste and recycling?’
Our most recent SWWRF event took place at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy for SWWRF’s 10th Annual Waste and Recycling Conference.
The ‘coastal-themed’ event was held on 22 June and included speakers from organisations such as Refill Bristol, Eunomia, Falkirk Council, Dorset Coast Forum, the Marine Conservation Society and Fishing for Litter amongst others.
SWWRF Chairman, Dave Moore said: ‘The summer conference is always well attended by our membership but we are keen to get even more people to come along to future events. There was a packed agenda so there was something for everyone, whether their interests lie in waste and
recycling or litter prevention.’
‘In the morning delegates heard about a range of litter prevention measures and initiatives with a particular focus on marine and coastal environments, while the
afternoon session provided opportunities to learn about the effect that three and four weekly refuse collections can have on boosting recycling performance and reducing waste to landfill.’
He continued: ‘The forum itself offers a great opportunity to
network with like-minded people in a relaxed and informal atmosphere
and learn more about what is going on in the waste and recycling industry.’
Delegates also had the opportunity to visit trade stands from Newport Paper, Glasdon, Taylor Bins, Spedian, CIWM, Ace-UK and Collecteco all of which supported the event.
2
All guest speakers were greatly appreciated. The presentation slides are available to members on request from the Agenda Secretary.
Our next event is at:
You are invited to attend a SWWRF site visit to Taylor Bins plant near Kidderminster on Tuesday 8th November 2016.
The agenda for the day will be as follows-
7.00am – collection from Exeter – collections at Taunton and Bristol on the way 10.00am – Arrive at Taylor, tea and coffee 10.30am – Introduction by Taylors 10.50am – Ray Georgeson on the future of waste and resources in post-Brexit Britain 11.30 – Big Belly Bins – speaker to be confirmed 12.00 – Lunch and networking 12.45pm – Tour of the facility 13.30pm – Leave and return journey
Membership recruitment and feedback
SWWRF is a not-for-profit organisation that always welcomes new members working with waste and resources from across the private; public and third sectors.
A year’s standard membership is £70 and enables two members from each organisation to visit each of our events, plus other training workshops that SWWRF facilitates on the behalf of other organisations such as WRAP. We see this as excellent value for money and the events all include catering throughout the day. Some of our events are recognised by CIWM and can therefore be put towards your annual continual professional development. For further information about joining contact
To ensure we fulfil the requirements and expectations of our members we welcome feedback to continuously improve the service we provide.
3
Private Sector Member Updates
Eunomia
It has been a busy few months at Eunomia, with the company continuing to expand, both in the range of work we take on and our staff numbers.
We’ve strengthened our capacity in resource efficiency advice, and development of circular economy business models, through recruiting experienced staff into a new Manchester office. We’ve also increased our staffing in our London office, and our Bristol head office, so that we now have over 70 consultants working on waste, low carbon energy and related topics.
We’ve been advising the European Commission on the revised Circular Economy Package and suggesting design features for a deposit refund system in Scotland. With a project in Hong Kong just started, and one in the UAE just completed, we’re really gaining recognition in some new places.
Closer to home, we’ve making proposals to help reduce the volatility of the recycling markets, working on residual waste treatment planning for the West of England authorities, and on procurements for North Somerset Council and the Somerset Waste Partnership. We’ve also been working on an innovative interseasonal heat storage project in Bristol.
The breadth of work is stimulating, ranging from environmental fiscal reform, through to payments for ecosystem services, to addressing the thorny problem of marine litter and the hot topic of fire prevention plans for permitted waste facilities. And there’s much more we want to do.....
For more information contact Peter Jones at [email protected] or 0117 917 2273.
4
Local Authority Member Updates
Torbay Council
Torbay residents earn money for local charities when they recycle more
Torbay Green Points launched in August 2015 to all households in Torbay, encouraging people to reduce, reuse and recycle in order to win donations for five local charities.
To take part in the Torbay Council scheme, residents needed to activate their accounts. This is done easily online at www.torbaygreenpoints.com, or by calling 0207 326 5055.
After activating their account, residents are put into one of five communities – depending on when their rubbish and recycling are collected. Residents can then earn ‘Green Points’ for their community by reducing, reusing and recycling. These communities will compete to earn the most Green Points; the more Green Points each community earns, the more money they will earn for local charity projects. A total of £6,000 will be split between five charities
at the end of 12 months, with each charity guaranteed to receive at least £500.
The charities being supported this year are:
Rowcroft Hospice; Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust;
Anode;
RNLI; and
Special Care Baby Unit at Torbay Hospital.
An added bonus for residents who activate their account for the scheme is the Torbay Green Points card and key fob, which gives discounts and special offers in over 60 local businesses. All residents have to do to get their discount is to show their card in store! A full list of participating businesses can be found online at www.torbaygreenpoints.com and the free Local Rewards app at www.localgreenpoints.com/app
5
All households in Torbay are eligible for the scheme and have received a welcome pack in the post containing more information. For further information contact Carol Arthur [email protected] or 01803 207734.
Forest of Dean District Council
Forest of Dean District Council’s Cabinet agrees to expand kerbside recycling service
Residents in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire will be able to recycle more of their household waste from the kerbside from the summer.
At its meeting on 19 November 2015, the Forest of Dean District Council’s Cabinet agreed to changes to the district kerbside recycling service meaning that householders will soon be able to add plastic bottles, cardboard, small electrical and electronic items and textiles to the range of items which can be presented for collection.
The changes will also see the Council’s dry recycling service move from a fortnightly collection to a weekly collection - with the exception of textiles which will be collected fortnightly from the kerb.
A new fleet of ten resource recovery vehicles will be used by the Council’s waste contractor, Biffa, to maximise collection efficiency of household recyclables. The new Romaquip Kerbside bodied vehicles can collect food waste and dry recyclables at the same time helping reduce both road miles and diesel consumption.
Currently the Forest of Dean District Council recycles and composts 48% of waste collected from homes in the district and through the network of recycling banks.
The weekly food waste recycling service and the fortnightly garden waste and refuse collections will remain unchanged.
To discuss further please contact [email protected] or 01594 812428.
North Somerset Council
Award of new recycling and waste collection contract
From the 1st of March 2017 the recycling, waste and HWRC contract will be carried out by Biffa. The service will include changes to improve North Somerset Councils recycling rate of 60 per cent and provide cost effectiveness.
The kerbside collection scheme will remain a source separated collection service enabling the authority to capture the same recycling materials as the current KIER contract. In addition it will include the recycling of small electrical items and second (different colour) recycling boxes will be phased in to help residents separate their recycling to provide a quicker more efficient collection service.
6
To provide safer working conditions for contractor staff the garden waste collection service will change from 120L sacks to 140, 180L and 240L bins with each property wanting to receive the service paying a £20 registration fee. Every property will have the option of having up to two bins.
The introduction of a food waste collection service will be provided for flats and this will enable the Authority to change refuse collections at flats from a weekly to a fortnightly basis to help reduce the authority’s £4m waste disposal and treatment bill. Additionally, North Somerset Council will be working with a local charity to provide a bulky waste collection service and maximise reuse value. The authority’s commercial waste collection service will also expand with their also being the option for small and medium enterprises to pay to use two of the recycling centres.
At the recycling centres a designated reuse centre will be available at all three sites with the additional facilities for recycling hard plastics and plate glass. A residents permit scheme will be introduced within the first 9 months of the contract to ensure the sites are only used by North Somerset residents. Web cams will enable residents to view how busy the sites are via the website. To reduce budget expenditure, a public consultation on reducing opening hours and the amount to be charged for DIY waste is taking place until 24 October.
The contract will include the council’s £8 million investment on vehicles, machinery and depot facilities. This will include vehicle telematics to enable improved data collection. North Somerset Council will continue to work with all existing social enterprise partners and also has the aspirations of 90 per cent of the workforce living in North Somerset and 3-5 per cent of Biffa’s workforce must be in apprentices or in traineeships.
For further details contact Andy Prestt on 07917 265 602 or [email protected].
West of England Partnership
‘Feed Me and Win’ is a food recycling campaign which has been running in the West of England Partnership region since July 2015. Funded by DCLG the campaign aims to increase food recycling participation through use of financial incentives and extensive publicity - www.feedmeandwin.co.uk.
This 38 week campaign offers rewards of at least £50 to one randomly selected household in each of the 4 authority areas every week. Higher value and frequency rewards were available over
December, and double value rewards in January. Winners are allowed to select any shopping voucher suitable for the council to purchase online or make a donation to a British charity.
Waste composition analysis (WCA) and participation monitoring (PM) was carried out prior to commencement and food tonnages are being monitored
7
throughout. All four council areas have seen an increase in food tonnages collected per household. The wider effect of this will be assessed as the campaign ends mid-March 2016, when WCA and PM will be repeated for comparative purposes.
The campaign is being publicised throughout the region including use of radio, local press, buses, online content and social media, roadshows and council publications. Feedback collated may help indicate which communication strategy (if any) had best impact.
The campaign is run by the four Unitary Authorities in the West of England - Bath and North East Somerset Council, Bristol City Council, North Somerset Council and South Gloucestershire Council.
Project manager – [email protected] or 01225 395065.
Bath and North East Somerset Council
Trial to understand where cost-efficiencies can be made through a range of collections methods from the kerbside….
We have been awarded funding from the Local Government Association (LGA) to look for efficiencies in the way we collect recycling from households. This will involve trialling four different collection methods looking to save money on the number of vehicles visiting properties and capturing more materials.
Option one (left) will involve providing a diverse range of properties receiving three fully labelled recycling boxes to identify whether this increases resident participation, including the capture of more
cardboard as households in the trial area will now receive council-issued bags for their cardboard.
Additionally a mixture of properties will be receiving ‘trolley blocks’ (right) where three boxes are separated into material types with each property additionally receiving a wheeled trolley to aid residents with the ease of collection.
Other trial collection methods include changing properties from a mini recycling centre collection service (wheeled bin for different recycling materials) and incorporating them into our household kerbside collections schemes by providing trial properties with ten labelled green recycling boxes in a frame. This will provide cost and carbon efficiencies by reducing the number of vehicles to collect the recycling from four vehicles to two each week.
The final trial recycling collection method will take place in Bath City Centre properties to provide a node bin (4 x 800L wheeled bins fully labelled and locked on a central plinth). This will provide efficiencies by
8
merging these collections in with the same collection vehicle that undertakes the commercial recycling collections.
Information – [email protected] or 01225 395205.
Future newsletters
If your organisation has a good news story, case study or is starting a new campaign or project and you would like to share this with all other SWWRF member organisations please contact Andy Prestt – SWWRF Website Officer on 01934 426 195 or [email protected].
9