Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor B Bushell (City of Lincoln Council), Councillor M Head (North Kesteven District Council), Simon Mitchell (Environment Agency), Councillor Dr P Moseley (South Kesteven District Council) and Emily Spicer (South Holland District Council).

There were no declarations of interest.

It was agreed that the following amendment be made to Minute 6 – Partner Updates:

East Lindsey District Council update – 'Both had been issued with 31000 fines' be amended to read 'Both had been issued with £1000 fines'.

RESOLVED:

          That the minutes of the meeting held on the 11 July 2019 be approved         as a correct record and signed by the Chairman, subject to the above   amendments. 

(An opportunity for Partners to update the rest of the Partnership on any matters which may be of interest)

Each Partner Authority was invited to provide an update to the Partnership on the work undertaken by each authority since the last meeting of the Partnership.

South Holland District Council

The Council had been focussed on the paper and card trial. Officers were also dealing with an increase in fly tipping.

In response to a question, Officers clarified that they were investigating the report that fly tipping had increased by 32% in South Holland.

Boston Borough Council

Since the last meeting, Boston Borough Council had ordered a replacement refuse fleet which was due to be delivered in 2020.

Boston Borough Council had also signed up a new enforcement contractor – Local Authority Support Services, which had commenced in August 2019.

The main focus over recent months had been preparing for the paper and card trial.

West Lindsey District Council

Representatives announced that they had been working to reduce and tackle fly tipping across the district and welcomed the SCRAP fly tipping initiative.

There had been unanimous support by households for the paper and card trial in the districts taking part and WLDC had a huge ambition to move quicker and achieve the benefits available across the whole county.

City Of Lincoln Council

Officers advised that a contract with Biffa was ending in 2022. Work had been focussed on evaluating the options for these contracts. It was hoped that decisions would be made imminently

East Lindsey District Council

The Partnership were informed that bin collection days were due to change in April 2020. Work  being carried out to communicate the changes to calendar collection days and accepted items.

North Kesteven District Council

It was noted that work was being carried out to assess and evaluate number of contracts which were up for renewal in 2020.

The council were exploring new opportunities that their new depot offered; as a result, a decision had been made to bring vehicle maintenance back in-house.

Work was on-going for the paper and card trial.

(To receive a powerpoint presentation and update from Rachel Stamp, Lincolnshire Waste Partnership Programme Delivery Manager, on the progress of the paper and card trial)

The Partnership received a presentation from the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership (LWP) Programme Delivery Manager, which provided an update on Lincolnshire's Paper and Card Recycling Trial.

The presentation outlined the following:

·         The desired outcomes of the  paper and card trial – to improve the quality and            volume of paper & card recycled; the repurposing many times, rather than just      into a single use product; and to change customers behaviours

·         The trial areas and number of households within the trial

·         The key dates in which information was being provided

·         The process undertaken for bin or bag collections

·         The materials that were accepted in the bins/bags

·         The amount of recycling collected so far as part of the trial and the quality of   the  recycling collected

·         The future plans and aspirations for the trial

The LWP Programme Delivery Manager advised that there had been a lot of work to engage with the public to encourage, provide awareness and educate the public of the benefits of recycling and what could be recycled in their Mixed Dry Recycling bins. 

The LWP Programme Delivery Manager thanked partners for their time and effort to help get the trial operational.

Overall, the paper and card trial had been positively received and successful so far. 

Members and Officers were provided to ask questions, in which the following points were noted:

·       Concerns were raised that the design of the bin being used in the trial allowed water to pool on top of and leak into the bin, resulting in moisture levels in the recycling. The LWP Programme Delivery Manager informed that Partnership that robust tests had been carried out on the bins which had determined that only a very minor amount of water leakage was possible. It had been concluded that the amount of possible leakage would not compromise the quality of recycling. Officers would consider an alternative bin design if they were to purchase any more bins at a future date.

·       There had been some unforeseen issues with the suitability of some of items for recycling. Following a large number of potato sacks being recycled, Officers were investigating whether potato sacks and various other items were suitable to be recycled. 

·       One school was currently taking part in the trial which was situated in the South Holland district.

·       It was noted that communications received by Members had suggested that the public were very interested in the trial and that the trial was successful so far. It was essential to maintain the high level of quality and participation.

·       It was recognised that there was a high level of waste and recycling produced over the Christmas Period and that people may make genuine mistakes when recycling during this period.

·       The Partnership emphasised the need for clear communication as to what could be recycled over the Christmas period and beyond. It was confirmed that this had been discussed as part of the strategic officer working group, with a key message to be mindful of foil and glitter in the recycling.

·       Councils were also relaying the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

(To receive a powerpoint presentation and update from Rachel Stamp, Lincolnshire Waste Partnership Programme Delivery Manager, on mixed dry recycling standardised materials and contamination)

Consideration was given to a presentation by the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership Programme Manager, which provided an update on the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership Mixed Dry Recycling (MDR) and Contamination.

The presentation outlined the information which was being provided to the public on the materials that could be recycled across the county, the condition of these items and the types of items accepted and not acceptable the Mixed Dry Recycling.

Councils were also working hard to communicate the key messages about what was acceptable to be placed in Residual, garden waste and household bins across the county.

The Partnership were advised that leaflets and communications advising of recyclable materials would now be consistent across all partner councils. 

Councils were continuing to sample all waste streams and gather information on this which would measure the impact of contamination in mixed dry recycling.

The key message being communicated over the Christmas period was that no grease, grub or glitter.

The Partnership were invited to ask questions, in which the following points were noted:

·       The public were being advised to remove caps from bottles before placing them in their recycling bins/bags.

·       It was clarified that sealed bottles with liquid inside did not cause an issue with recycling. Contamination occurred when a bottle was unsealed and still had liquid inside.

·       Members raised concern over the message that bottles needed to be 'empty, clean and dry' before being recycled. In particular, concern was raised with regard to the 'dry' aspect of this advice. It was suggested that this could deter people from recycling if they felt that they had to partake in a time-consuming process of drying bottles before recycling.   

·       It was agreed that the Partnership should continue for the time being to advise that empty bottles needed to be 'empty, clean and dry' before being recycled. However, it was suggested that when the next iteration of leaflets were produced, 'dry' was removed from the advice.

·       Officers agreed to investigate the level of moisture found in paper and card in the mixed dry recycling and whether there was a large impact as a result.

·       It was hoped that the sampling process would provide further information on what the main contaminants were in order to ensure effective communication with the public on these.

·       The Partnership agreed that a shared communications strategy across the Partnership and all Districts and the County Council.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the presentation be noted;

2.    That it be agreed that all council's across the Partnership adopt a shared communications strategy.

(To receive a report from Rachel Stamp, Lincolnshire Waste Partnership Programme Delivery Manager, which provides an update on the Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy action plan)

Consideration was given to a report by the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership Programme Delivery Manager, which provided the Partnership with an updated version of the Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy Action Plan. 

The Partnership were informed that a draft annual report was due to be reported to the next meeting of the Partnership.

The Partnership highlighted the importance of all the outcomes of all trials being considered collectively to form a more joined up strategy for the future.

RESOLVED:

          That the updated action plan be noted.

(To receive an update from John Coates, Head of Waste (LCC), which provides the Partnership with an update on the SCRAP fly tipping campaign)

The Lincolnshire Waste Partnership Programme Delivery Manager informed the Partnership that West Lindsey District Council had been the Lead Authority in the SCRAP Fly Tipping Campaign.

It was noted that a communications plan for the campaign was currently being written by enforcement officers.

The Partnership welcomed the Waste Crime Engagement Specialist (Environment Agency), who provided a further update on the SCRAP Fly Tipping Campaign.

As part of the campaign, the Environment Agency had begun carrying out intervention days in collaboration with Lincolnshire Police West Lindsey policing team, in which Officers carried out road side stops in conjunction with waste sites. 50% of the vehicles stopped had received a sanction of some form.

District Council's across the county had shown interest in partaking in the SCRAP campaign. Days of action were planned in West Lindsey through November, December and January, before commencing in East Lindsey with collaboration between the Environment Agency, The Wolds Policing Team and East Lindsey District Council. The Waste Crime Engagement Specialist planned to meet with representatives of Lincolnshire Police to agree collaboration on a county-wide operation.  It was hoped that Lincolnshire Police would support robust proactive action against fly tipping that would be undertaken by across the county by all local policing teams.

It was noted that West Lindsey District Council were the first local authority in England to adopt a prevention and disruption response in support of the SCRAP fly-tipping campaign. 

Members were invited to ask questions, in which the following points were noted:

·       It was confirmed that the campaign would include the involvement of licensing and trading standards teams who would be investigating at illegal waste sites.

·       It was noted that the days of action would involve collaboration with planning officers, trading standards officers and licensing officers.

·       The Partnership welcomed the approach set out in the SCRAP campaign. It was hoped that the visibly proactive approach would provide assurance to the public and encourage more incidents to be reported.

·       It was highlighted that the Waste Crime Engagement Specialist role had been created to bring partners and projects together and educate partners about overlapping issues such as the fly tipping through the use of the SCRAP campaign.

RESOLVED:

          That the update be noted. 

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(To receive a report by Matthew Michell, LCC Senior Commissioning Officer (Waste), which sets out a proposed suite of performance measures with suggested targets for the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership to work towards)

Consideration was given to a report by the LCC Senior Commissioning Officer (Waste), which set out the proposed new measures and targets for waste related environmental performance.

The UK Government had identified the need to find appropriate ways to measure environmental performance. The recently-adopted Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy (JMWMS) for Lincolnshire also made clear the importance of having effective ways to measure progress against the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership's strategic objectives.

In response to these factors, the LWP's strategic officer working group had proposed the following new Key Performance Measures (KPI's) which were considered both 'useful' and 'readily available':

·       Recycling rate of 'waste from households' – which includes recycling, reuse and composting from all sources, not just kerbside.

·       Household Waste collection (kilograms per household) – includes all sources, not just kerbside collections.

The Senior Commissioning Officer (Waste) set out the proposed targets for the proposed new measures.

In addition, the Partnership were informed that the strategic officer working group were working to develop a number of other KPI's to measure progress against other aspects of the JMWMS vision and objectives. It was planned that measures relating to the following themes, identified as 'useful' but not yet 'readily available', would be introduced at a later date:

·    Contamination – Recycling contamination rate (kerbside recyclables)

·    Carbon – Overall LWP waste management carbon footprint

·    Customer Friendly –

-       Satisfaction with waste collections

-       Satisfaction with HWRC's

It was noted that the initial KPI's show that there had been a reduction in recyclables reported in kerbside Mixed Dry Recycling; less composing of green waste; and thus a reduction of the overall recycling rate.

The Partnership were invited to ask questions, in which the following points were noted:

·       It was confirmed that there had been an overall reduction in waste per household over the last ten years.

·       It was clarified that achieiving the proposed target of 55% recycling rate from 'waste from households' by 2025/26 would most likely rely on the fact that the government would bring in mandatory food waste collections for every household.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the use of the two initial KPI's as on-going measures of the performance against the JMWMS be approved;

2.    The proposed targets, as set out in the report, for the new KPI's be approved;

3.    That the proposed themes for the additional KPI's that will follow later – contamination, carbon, customer friendly, be noted.