In October Brent Council will be introducing changes in its waste and recycling collection. This will include providing each eligible household with a sack for paper and card collection. During the trial there were complaints that the sacks were not robust enough. As a consequence the December 2022 Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee recommended Brent Council undertake a feasibility study on the potential for introducing a mixed approach to paper/card recycling collections, to explore whether any recycling collection rounds in the borough would be more suited to the use of bins rather than sacks.
The Council’s response (below) indicates that any such trial
will only take place after the new scheme has been operating for almost a year
and will only take place if that operation is unsuccessful. It also refers to the potential impact of the bottle Deposit Return Scheme to be introduced by October 2025.
Veolia will introduce a 1 year wheelie bin trial for around 6,000 street level households in total, divided into the five Brent Connect Areas, to start in September 2024. Veolia’s feasibility study did not enable them to accurately calculate the split between those properties that could receive an additional wheeled bin for paper/card and those that could only accommodate a reusable sack. Veolia concluded from their study that to minimise disruption to households and to measure the impact of introducing a wheeled bin for the
paper/card stream, a trial should take place. The rationale for the timing of the trial in September 2024 is summarised below:
· Allows for the introduction of the alternate weekly twin stream dry recycling collection service to fully settle down
· May reduce the impact of contamination from introducing wheeled bins as residents would have been segregating streams for a year allowing a more robust comparison of the data from the trial
· It could be the case that after a year, if the reusable sack is proven to be working and successful, then the bin trial wouldn’t be needed, resulting in cost savings for the Council
· Allows a full 12 month period of data for the new service, including seasonal variations relating to volume, participation and contamination
· Allows time for any legislation changes to be accounted for – the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for beverage containers will be introduced in England by October 2025. Drinks containers made from PET plastic, steel and aluminium cans are covered by DRS. This could lead to a migration of some volume of material streams away from the kerbside to the DRS. This migration could open up a number of possibilities for the Contract including but not limited to; switching streams for the paper/card sack and container mix wheeled bins, and downsizing residual bins and using existing residual bins for paper/card etc. Whilst this could be done earlier, undertaking these changes once the impact of DRS is known would be beneficial, this would include limiting the number of containerisation changes undertaken during the contract period.
· Allows for a significant period of time for the Council’s ECO team to carry out targeted communication, education and enforcement with those residents not using the service or not using the service correctly e.g. contamination etc.
· If the trial was to take place sooner, e.g. March 2024, a further disadvantage is that the planning for the rollout of the trial would take place during the mobilisation period for the new alternate weekly collection service, which would significantly add to the workload of Council staff and the Veolia Contract Management Team which could take the focus away from the key objectives of the new contract and services.
