Agenda item

Presentation from the Recycling and Waste Team

Minutes:

Members of the Committee received a presentation from Andrew Hancock, Service Lead – Street Scene and John Golding, Strategic Lead - Housing, Health & Environment on aspects of the Waste and Recycling contract. Members noted that all the materials collected were valuable resources which were put to good use to give both environmental and economic benefits. They were used as secondary raw materials for manufacturing, used to make products for agriculture or used to generate electricity.

 

Members noted that the system produced segregated materials which were of good quality with good levels of demand despite volatile market conditions. The total material sales income in 2018-19 was £902,022 and the total recycling credits income for 2018-19 was £852,714. The District recycling rates were just under 60% which put East Devon in the top twenty districts for recycling in the country. We were also the second lowest producer of residual waste in the country. The arrangements for vetting the processors who bought the recycled materials were also discussed and a webpage on the East Devon website giving details of end destinations highlighted.

 

During discussions the following points were noted:

 

·       All of the recycling materials were at the moment traded in the UK. Infrastructure does not exist at present in the south west to recycle much of the material.

·       End destinations are recorded through a statutory reporting mechanism. Once our materials are sold, we don’t have the legal or technical ability to track material from East Devon, but all processors are vetted to ensure they are EA compliant and that we are doing the right thing with our material; legally, ethically and environmentally.

·       Information on our environmental responsibility and end destinations is now published on our website.

·       The cost of the waste and recycling service was circa £6M and this was reduced to £4M by monies from the sale of recycling materials.

·       What happens to black plastics? Black plastics were not picked up by some optical sorters and were often left in recycling stream. Any which were not sorted for recycling were put to energy from waste production.

·       Our system was all about the quality of our recyclables.

·       People should be encouraged to buy drinks in aluminium cans rather than plastic bottles as this would reduce plastic and also give us a valuable recycling income.

·       There was a very low price for recycled glass at the moment, 0.2p per tonne.

·       Damp cardboard could still be recycled.

·       A large amount of smaller electrical items, such as mobile phones and computer screens could be recycled as long as they fitted in the green box.

·       The service was working with ‘Recycle Devon’ to encourage home composting. Information would soon be on the East Devon website as a well as recycledevon.org.

·       There was zero waste being sent to landfill at present.

·       It was more carbon neutral to send crisp packets to the energy from waste centre than recycle them through Terracycle.

·       The contents of the dog waste bins were currently being sent to the energy from waste centre in Exeter.

·       Around 30% of waste in the black wheelie bins was still recyclable. What was the service doing to educate people to improve recycling rates further? Targeted material campaigns are being used to remind, nudge and educate people about recycling the high % materials still going in rubbish bins.

·       The possibility of more education and marketing around Refuse, Reduce, Refill and Re-use to improve recycling rates was being investigated, but this would come at a cost of more staffing.

·       An additional 1% of recycling in the district would produce another £20k of income, but require a lot of marketing and education input.

·       Issue of producers/retailers putting packaging on all their products, such as cabbages. It was understood that it would be government policy to make producers pay for this unnecessary packaging.

·       What happens when through ill health or incapability, households were not able to recycle? There was capability within the service to offer assistance to such households with their recycling.

·       Possibility of EDDC adopting the End Destination of Recycling Charter, which would be an excellent achievement and chartermark.

·       The quarterly report to Councillors by Karen Simpkins, Strategic Lead – could include greater details of recycling information that was provided at this meeting.

·       It was likely that due to increased costs, there would be a need to increase the Waste & Recycling budget by £500k in 2020/21 (half from expected contract increases tied to property growth and half resulting from falling recyclate income due to volatile market conditions). Which would provide more problems with the Council meeting a balanced budget.

·       EDDC recycling was a success story that should be more widely advertised.

·       What needed to happen to achieve first place residual waste? Further education and participation marketing (tied to more capacity/FTEs to ‘door step’ residents).

 

 

RESOLVED:1. that the officers be thanked for their excellent presentation and also thanks be sent to all recycling staff for the excellent service, the level of recycling they achieved and work with the Alexa app.

                       2.  that the ommittee wishes to indicate its support for the various educational proposals to increase the recycling rates.

                     3. that, where possible more graphics be introduced to explain recycling rates and procedures.

                    4.  that the team be congratulated on the success of the green waste service.

                    5.  that the service pursue achievement of the End Destination of Recycling Charter.

                    6.  that the presentation slides be circulated to all Councillors.