Issue - decisions

Matter for Decision:  

As of March 2012 plastic bottles were the only plastics accepted for recycling in the council blue bin.

 

Cambridge City Council collected and recycled 44% of household waste through the blue bin, green bin and bring banks.

 

In November 2011 a resident’s waste collection survey was carried out. More than half of respondents to the online element of the survey said that being able to recycle a greater range of materials would encourage them to recycle more.

 

Officers negotiated with the current contractor for the inclusion of additional plastic material (i.e. plastic pots, tubs and trays), in the blue bin collections.

 

The contract between the City Council, two partner authorities (Huntingdonshire DC and Fenland DC) and Viridor Waste Services is due to expire November 2014. Partner authorities are supportive of the inclusion of this material.

 

The addition of this material has financial implications that are covered in Section 4 of the Officer’s report.

 

Decision of Executive Councillor for Environmental & Waste Services:

Agreed the inclusion of plastic pots, tubs and trays in the blue recycling bin scheme with our contract partner authorities Huntingdonshire DC and Fenland DC.

 

Reason for the Decision:

As set out in the Officer’s report.

 

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected:

Not applicable.

 

Scrutiny Considerations:

The committee received a report from the Head of Refuse and Environment plus the Waste Strategy Manager regarding the Future of Plastic Pots, Tubs and Trays in the Blue Bin.

 

The committee made the following comments in response to the report:

 

(i)                Welcomed the proposal to include additional plastic material in the blue bin collections to encourage recycling.

(ii)              Labour Councillors expressed the view that they would have preferred the expanded recycling scheme to have been implemented sooner; and had been pressing their Liberal Democrat colleagues to do so for some years.

 

In response to Member’s questions the Executive Councillor for Environmental & Waste Services, Head of Refuse and Environment plus the Waste Strategy Manager confirmed the following:

 

(i)                The value of recycled materials was based on national demand. The recycling scheme was expensive when the City Council first entered into the contract in November 2009. The value of recycled materials has since risen, thus generating more potential income for the Council. Financial implication details were set out in section 4a of the Officer’s report. This led to the recommendation to introduce more plastic recycling, so ‘waste’ material could now be seen as desirable material. The value of recycled materials for the City Council should be protected as the cost of disposal should be equal to, or less than, income from recycling additional plastics; so there would be no negative net change to the overall revenue.

(ii)              It is anticipated that the range of plastics to be recycled would increase in future.

(iii)            The Head of Refuse and Environment has been in discussion with Councillors and Officers from Huntingdonshire and Fenland Councils. He expected a favourable response to the joint contract proposal as all organisations would benefit.

(iv)            The current City Council contract terms would have to be reviewed and amended to implement additional plastic recycling. The Head of Refuse and Environment would discuss contract terms with the provider in future. Discussions had been on-going with Viridor since November 2009 when the contract began. It has only recently become economically viable for the City Council to recycle additional plastic materials. The Officer acknowledged that other councils had different recycling contract terms with the provider, and that members of the public would assume these to be universal.

(v)              The amended recycling scheme would be included in the (refuse collection) Route Optimisation Strategy if approved.

(vi)            The public were given recycling scheme information through a variety of media including leaflets and the Cambridge Matters magazine. Radio adverts had been used in the past, and there was provision in the budget for further radio adverts.

(vii)          Officers acknowledged the difficulty in engaging students and residents of multiple occupancy housing in recycling schemes due to the transient nature of the community. Communication and engagement schemes specifically targeting these groups would be reviewed in future. Cambridge Officers were liaising with their Oxford counterparts on methods to achieve better engagement.

(viii)        Materials for recycling were sent to a recycling facility for sorting and processing, then passed to another facility for further processing prior to export to China for recycling into other products. Recycled materials were sent to China at minimal cost, as they were put into containers that would be empty once imported goods were unloaded.

(ix)            There was no monitoring to limit the number of times items were sent for recycling. Items could potentially be processed multiple times before they degraded into low grade waste and were filtered out of the process.

 

The committee resolved unanimously to endorse the recommendation.

 

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendation.

 

Conflicts of interest declared by the Executive Councillor (and any dispensations granted)

Not applicable.