Agenda item

(To receive a report which provides key performance information that is relevant to the work of the Environmental Scrutiny Committee)

Consideration was given to a report which provided the key performance information which was relevant to the work of the Environmental Scrutiny Committee.

Members were advised that the Value for Money Scrutiny Committee, which as part of its remit reviewed all the Council's business plan indicators, had formally requested that this Committee seek assurances on the waste Sent to Landfill indicator, as set out on pages 19 and 20 of the agenda pack.

The Chairman was also asked at the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee held on 26 November 2015 to look at this indicator in detail and it was believed that other councillors had raised this issue directly with the Council's officers.

The concern was that the tonnage of waste sent to landfill in Quarter 2 was much higher than the target.  The commentary on page 19 provided an explanation, but people had been seeking more information, for example, would there be a budgetary impact, and would it be on target by the end of the year.

The Group Manager Environmental Services, advised that answers had been circulated to those members who had raised these questions, and it was thought it would be helpful to summarise these answers for the benefit of the Committee. 

The Committee was reassured that the vast majority of this tonnage was sent when the EfW was closed for planned maintenance.  Since that was an annual event, landfill tonnages had now returned to their usual very low levels and it was expected to be within target for the year as a whole.  Also, it was reported that approval had been recently received to increase the capacity of the EfW, which should enable more waste to be diverted away from landfill in future.

It was also noted that the recycling rate forecast for the year was considerably short of the 55% target, and was also lower than the previous year.  Whilst there were specific reasons for this year's lower performance, work was underway with Lincolnshire waste Partnership colleagues to develop new strategic ways forward.

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 included the following:

·         It was reported that there were two waste streams to the EfW – waste was delivered direct to the facility from the City of Lincoln and North Kesteven, and for the remaining districts, waste was sent to the waste transfer stations (WTS's) before being delivered to the EfW.  Prior to the shutdown the bunker at the EfW was emptied to allow for waste from the City of Lincoln and North Kesteven to continue to be delivered there, the waste collected at the WTS's was diverted to landfill as the Environment Agency did not allow for waste to be stored at WTS's for more than 72 hours;

·         It was queried whether the capacity of the WTS's could be increased to allow for more waste to be stored during the times of outage, and members were advised that the WTS's had been designed to feed the EfW;

·         It was commented that there was a lot of confusion with residents regarding what could be recycled, and members were advised that work was ongoing with the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership in order to develop a simplified and consistent message across the county;

·         In relation to the performance target for the waste sent to landfill, it was noted that this was looked at as a whole year target, as it was calculated by how much waste was collected per year and how much could be processed by the EfW, the remainder was 13,000 tonnes which was then divided between the four quarters.  It was not known exactly when the outage would take place, and in this year it had fallen on the border of quarter 2 and quarter 3 and so it would have been difficult to programme this into the quarterly targets.  Members were assured that the performance for this quarter was much lower than target, and since the facility had restarted, nothing had been sent to landfill;

·         It was clarified that although the outage had been planned for 14 days, it had actually been completed within 12 days;

·         The purpose of a 'Clinker Weir' had been clarified for members;

·         It was queried whether the planned outage could have been scheduled for the Christmas period;

·         It was requested whether officers could look into what the costs of providing a hanger for storage of waste during these outages would be and how these compared to the costs of sending waste to landfill during these periods;

·         It was also queried what the costs would be of an unexpected fault which caused a shutdown, and what costs would be incurred for disposal, as well as who would be responsible for this.  Members were advised that the Group Manager Environmental Services would respond to this query outside of the meeting as it involved contractual issues;

·         Members were satisfied with the response that there was no option but for waste from some of the districts to be sent to landfill during the planned outage;

·         It was noted that all districts were in agreement that there was work to be done to ensure that the message in recycling was simple in order to make it easier for residents to recycle;

·         Members were advised that collected pre-sorted recycling from households would not necessarily improve the recycling issues, as there would be a need for materials to be stored and collected separately.  It was also noted that there were material recovery facilities (MRF's) had the ability to sort the recycling which was collected;

·         Officers noted that the number of complaints received regarding HWRC's was relatively low when compared with the number of people who used them;

·         Councillor Marriott wished it to be recorded that he was very impressed with the level of service he received from the staff at both the Whisby and Great Northern Terrace HWRC's.

RESOLVED

            That the information presented be noted.