Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED

            That Councillor J Smith be elected as Vice-Chairman of the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership for the ensuing year.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors S Newton (East Lindsey District Council) and Mrs I Parrott (West Lindsey District Council).

An apology for absence was also received from Simon Mitchell (Environment Agency)

RESOLVED

          That the minutes of the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership meeting held on     28 February 2013, be agreed and signed by the Chairman as a correct          record.

It was noted that in relation to a point raised at the above meeting (minute 23 refers), regarding letting the public know how much energy was being generated by solar panels at the Waste Transfer Stations (WTS), the next edition of County News would include the front page and a double page covering the Energy from Waste (EfW) facility and WTS's as well as other good news stories in relation to waste, and districts were encouraged to feed in anything from their areas.

It was considered important that the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership was included in the article as it showed the benefits of working together as a partnership.

In relation to minute 26 from the above meeting, it was reported that it was felt by the Officer Working Group that the 'recycling straplines' should form part of the Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy and should be launched as part of that document.  It was also noted that a lot of the publicity was carried out using the existing straplines and there would be concerns about replacing these as they were already quite well known.

Further to minute 27 – Partner Updates, the Partnership was informed that Councillor Mrs I Parrott was no longer able to be part of the waste review sub-group, and Councillor J Smith volunteered to take her place.

RESOLVED

          That the proposed meeting dates, as set out in the report, be approved subject to the pre-meeting on 30 September 2013 being moved to 1 October 2013 starting at 4.00pm and the pre-meeting on 16 December being moved to 18 December 2013 at 3.00pm.

(To receive a verbal update from Assistant Director Environment, Planning and Customer Service and the Head of Environmental Management)

The Lincolnshire Waste Partnership received an update from the Assistant Director Environment, Planning and Customer Services in relation to the Energy from Waste (EfW) facility and Waste Transfer Stations (WTS).

It was reported that there was a possibility of a month's delay before testing could start at the EfW facility, but this had now almost been recovered and the hot commissioning was scheduled to start on Monday, 29 July 2013, and it would become fully operational in December 2013.

In relation to the Waste Transfer Stations, all five had now been completed, and they would all have some form of solar panels included.  Work was taking place in relation to a new Household Waste Recycling Centre at Sleaford and it should be going to Planning later this year.  It was hoped that the build would be completed by March/April 2014.

The EfW was also reported to be broadly on budget and broadly on time.

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information presented to them and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         Would it be possible to have a 'fact panel' in every issue of County News to update residents on outputs from the solar panels, tonnage going to the EfW, energy outputs, waste diverted from landfilll etc.? It was important that residents were aware of the long term benefits of this project;

·         The County Council was contracted to present 120,000 tonnes of waste to the EfW in a year, with a total limit of 150,000 tonnes, the 30,000 tonnes difference was available to the County Council or would be made up by commercial waste if that option was not exercised;

·         Waste services had been in discussions with economic development teams to try an identify end users for the heat that would be produced.  It was highlighted that this was a priority for the County Council;

·         It was possible that the heat could be taken all the way to Lincoln and still be effective;

·         It was thought that as the government's policy towards energy was changing, this could be a positive step in getting more developers interested in the heat which would be produced;

RESOLVED

            That the update be noted.

(To receive a report from the Environmental Services Team Leader (Waste Services))

Consideration was given to a report which set out the 12 recommendations from a Local Government Association (LGA) report which had been released recently entitled "Wealth from Waste" which was the key output from their local waste review exercise.  The report acknowledged that waste and recycling were economic as well as environmental issues.  It was also expected that the report would be the basis for the LGA to lobby central government for support and resourcing, as well as an opportunity to re-state support for a number of existing policies.

The Partnership was provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         It would be important to work together so that economies of scale could be developed;

·         Concerns were expressed regarding recommendation 12 as it was felt that this could remove the responsibility of the government to do research which would help and support local authorities.  However, it was also felt that this could be positive as it would allow local councils to collect as much as they were able to;

·         It was commented that Lincolnshire could do more to make use of reusable goods;

·         There were concerns about the unintended consequences of some of these recommendations such as restrictions and bans on certain items being collected;

·         There were plans to widen the type of good which were collected through reuse contracts when the contracts next went out;

·         Recommendation 6 would not be relevant to Lincolnshire, as the majority of non-recyclable waste would go to the EfW facility;

RESOLVED

1.    That the Strategy Review Group take account of the LGA recommendations in the Wealth from Waste report during preparation of the new Strategy;

2.    That the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership lobby Government to support the LGA recommendations;

(To receive a report from the City of Lincoln Council)

The Partnership received a report presented by the City of Lincoln Council which set out its new waste policy to reduce the presence of black sacks in the dry recycling waste stream.  The Committee was advised that this course of action had had to be taken in order to reduce the amount of contamination which was being found in the dry recyclables.

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during the discussion included the following:

·         This policy was welcomed and should be fed into the Joint Waste Strategy;

·         If the overall aim was to increase the quality of the recyclables which were collected, this was a step in the right direction;

·         This was a very helpful report to share with the Partnership;

·         The policy of allowing people to place recyclables in black sacks alongside their recycling bins had been in place for a number of years and had worked well, it would be a challenge to get people to change their behaviour;

·         It was thought that this was a very useful document and it was likely that other districts would be using it as a template for their own similar policies, but it was important that the partners tried to work towards a common approach;

·         The Partnership should be used to share practices that work as well as those that don't;

RESOLVED

            That the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership note the contents of the report     and other district councils consider adopting a similar policy and stance           with regard to the collection of black sacks in the dry recycling stream,            where this is not already the case.

(To receive a report from the Environmental Services Team Leader (Waste Services))

Consideration was given to a report which provided further information to the partnership in relation to the proposal from Municipal Media to provide a mobile phone application which would allow local authorities to pass information to residents concerning waste and recycling services.  Following the meeting on 6 December 2012 when this report was first presented to the Partnership, it emerged that those authorities who were in the process of replacing their fleet vehicles were being offered a similar application as part of the 'Bartec' vehicle management system. 

The report before the Partnership provided comparative information in relation to the two systems and the options that were available to the districts as well as the associated costs.  Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report, and some of the points raised during discussion of the options available included the following:

·         South Holland would be supporting the option to have both applications available as they were currently working with Bartec to develop their application as it fitted in with what they wanted to achieve.  But felt there was no reason why they would not support the county wide version as well, as it would give people a choice;

·         The Municipal Media application would solely provide information and would not be interactive;

·         Districts would provide the information to be uploaded to the application;

·         There was the issue that duplication of information could take place during the initial set up;

·         Concerns were raised regarding the amount of back office support which would be required for the Bartec system;

·         The county wide system being offered would be free to the districts and there would be little or no administrative support required;

·         Those districts which wished to pursue the Bartec option would be free to do so at their own cost;

RESOLVED

            That the County Council continue to work with Municipal Media for            those districts which were interested, but allow for individual districts to       work with Bartec, at their own cost.

(To receive a report from the Environmental Services Team Leader (Waste Services))

The Partnership received a report which provided information in relation to the 2011 Judicial Review launched against Defra and the Welsh Government by the Campaign for Real Recycling which challenged the way UK regulations transposed provisions of the EU waste Framework Directive related to the separate collection of paper, metal, plastic and glass.  The Judicial Review focused on whether co-mingled collections met the requirements of the EU Legislation.  This application was dismissed on Wednesday, 6 March 2013, which was met with relief within local authorities, as the implications of the ruling, if it had not gone favourably would have required radical changes to the way that recyclable materials were collected.  .

The judgement stated that whilst it was recognised that glass was a potential contaminant, metal and plastic could be separated easily at a later stage following kerbside collection, therefore there was a possibility that a requirement would be introduced by Defra to remove glass from the current kerbside scheme, and make separate arrangements to collect it, most likely through glass banks.

In light of this possible development it was thought that it would be useful to bring this report to the attention of the Partnership due to the impact it could have on recycling in Lincolnshire.

Members of the Partnership were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion including the following:

·         This could have a significant impact on recycling performance;

·         If there were fewer contaminants in the recycling collected it would be worth more;

·         It was likely that if people were not able to put glass in the recycling bin, it would be put into the residual waste instead;

·         When glass was introduced to the co-mingled collection in Boston, the recycling rate went up more than the amount of glass collected in the glass banks went down.  Therefore this showed that a lot more people recycled their glass when they were able to put it in the co-mingled recycling;

·         Separate glass collections in rural locations would be expensive;

·         Lobbying should continue to ensure that glass remained in co-mingled collections.

RESOLVED

            That the Partnership note the contents of the report and the Officer Working Group monitor Defra's position and duly report back to the Partnership.

(To provide Members of the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership with an opportunity to update the rest of the Partnership on any developments within their areas which may affect or be of interest to the Partnership as a whole)

Members of the Partnership were provided with the opportunity to update the rest of the Partners on any developments within their individual districts which may be of interest, and the following was reported:

North Kesteven District Council – green waste take up had been high, with 28,000 households signed up.  This was better than expected.

The district had also been nominated for a national marketing award for their 'dead pheasant' campaign, it was noted that they were the only local authority to be nominated in this category.

City of Lincoln Council – charging for green waste collected had now commenced, and officers had been pleasantly surprised with the 46% take up.  Most people had been understanding about the need to introduce this charge.

South Holland District Council – no complaints had been received from the operational staff at the new Waste Transfer Station.  There was still some waste going to landfill.

Several changes were being implemented which would result in savings.

Two new officers had been employed who would be looking at recycling quality and waste reduction.  It was suggested that officers could bring a report back to the next meeting in relation to this work.

The possibility of offering a green waste collection was being examined and visits to other authorities were scheduled in order to research this.  It was requested whether the results of this research could be brought back to a later meeting?

The authority was still struggling with early presentation of both types of communal bin, and it was requested that if any of the other had experienced similar problems officers would be grateful for any assistance that could be provided.

West Lindsey District Council – the WTS was now operational, and the faster turnaround time had been noted.

East Lindsey District Council – charging for green waste would be introduced from March 2014, and it was planned to return to an all year round collection.  It seemed that the intention to commence charging was unpopular with residents at the moment. 

The district would be working closely with colleagues in Boston and the County Council with the intention of integrating collections.

Contamination of dry recyclables was a key issue, particularly as the market was starting to see the value in recyclables.

Operational changes, such as a longer operating day were also being considered.

Boston Borough Council – were looking at joint working with ELDC in terms of collections.  Now the WTS was operational, there had been a drastic improvement in turnaround times, and there had also been a reduction in the amount of damage to fleet vehicles as they did not have to go onto the landfill sites.

Since the kerbside recycling had been implemented in the last year, recycling rates had gone up from 28% to over 50%.

Lincolnshire County Council – there would soon be two operational asbestos collection points within the County, one at Whisby and the other at Boston.  This would be for residents to dispose of small amounts of asbestos, anything  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.