Norfolk Waste Partnership
Strategic Officer Group Minutes
2.00pm – 4.00pm, Tuesday6December 2016
Room 402, City Hall, Norwich City Council
Present / Sheila Oxtoby (SO) – Great Yarmouth BC
Glenn Buck (GB) – Great Yarmouth BC
Bob Wade (BW) – South NorfolkC
Barry Brandford (BB) – BC of Kings Lynn & West Norfolk / Adrian Akester (AA) – Norwich CC
David Collinson (DC) – Norfolk CC
Riana Rudland (RR) – Breckland C
Sarah Bruton (SB) – Broadland DC
Nick Baker (NB) – North Norfolk DC
Simon Partridge (SP) – notes
Apologies / Richard Block – Broadland DC
Item No / Item / Who
Minutes of last meeting – 10November 2016
SO suggested fuller presentation of NWP work to Leaders’ meeting in March 2017.
DC/AA to produce more succinct report re: direction of travel aimed at CEx and Norfolk Leaders. / DC/AA
Eunomia Report – Collection Frequency and Food Waste project
Eunomia are presenting at the NWP Board tomorrow – their ability to do in front of councillors was a consideration of their tender.
BB led SOG through the draft report.
Reservations expressed by Project Group and WRAP (Mike Gardner). Detail re: base findings are well covered as is reasoning why kerbside sort option not taken forward (additional boxes, bins and bags) due to Norfolk considerations.
Phase 2 modelling took Option 3(separate food waste with co-mingled recycling and residual collections of 240l bins) and modelled them as 3 and 4 weekly residual collections.
BB has suggested some amendments
- Why lower cost, kerbside sort in Phase 1 was rejected in light of Norfolk’s current waste collections should bein the technical report.
- There were various methods of kerbside sort – open containers sorted at the vehicle
SO asked, if we separately collect food, can we collect glass separately too. BB’s though it would not be and AA noted additional wear & tear on glass only vehicles.
The report will not be presented to the NWP Board, Eunomia will include a slide about whyOption 3 was taken forward; NorwCC KLWN have evidence that moving to separate vehicles (not pods) produces savings.
Modelling shows a 11 - 15%increase of dry recycling by moving to 3 weekly. And Eunomia have shown each WCA’s changes, though not a whole system impact, as requested.
NB queried additional contamination within that higher recycling rate. As textiles, nappies & WEEE are the weightiest items and there will be separate collections of these contamination should not increase.And case studies show little/no evidence of the impact on contamination from changing to 3 weekly collections.There is little 4 weeklydata available.
The report makes little reference to the displacement of waste, including garden waste into residual collections. Waste total reduces for 3 or 4 weekly bins; suggestion is that they displace20kg/hh/yr but not to. The section needs additional work/rewording to reduce the focus on NNDC.
GB suggested additional recycling capacity should be given, though SB noted other councils haven’t needed to increase recycling capacity.
Figures behind the report have not been provided, which BB has fed back to Eunomia and would like to see included.
BBDC wantto see the reduction of residualand impact on the WDA.
Uncertainty what Fig5 (whole cost saving impact) includes (recycling credit/reduced disposal costs?) when what we’re aiming for is an overall reduction, the benefits of which are shared.
Food waste contamination is low and processing cost accounts for this.
Eunomia looked at several additional questions, including modelling depots. The latter showed a £120ktheoretical saving on transport when they compared food waste collection per WCA against a joint, county-wide service.There is no indication of what the set up costs are.
NB noted that if food waste is the way we go, we can look at balancing the saving from driving food waste out of residualbins againstthe cost of setting up afood service.
BB has asked for addition information in the technical report.
RRSO noted that there needs to be enough benefit, compared to the conflict produced by any changes.
Of the food waste disposal costs, SO asked how we get to a £688,000 saving; is that based on all or just the 3 existing food collecting WCAs?
Caddy liners:this has been rewritten with JH & BB’sinput due to the costs (moving from £800,000 cost to break even, with no comms).The revised report now discusses corn starch v HDPE liners.
WEEE: generates income (unclear if this is recycling credits or sales), but not a major impact on recycling rate. Though NorwCCdoes not make an income from WEEE, it costs due to distance to a re-processor. Cages would be on all collection vehicles, so would take place as often as there is a residual or recycling collection (but not if podded vehicles).
Nappies: by a fortnightly transit van collection, that could be part of clinical waste collections that currently operates one day a week. This would assist to reduce the impact of reduced residual collections on adult and child nappies.It may also help avoid them going into recycling bins. There are additional rules re: nappies when collected separately.
GB noted a nappy collection would be an enhanced service and could make the move to 4 weekly more palatable.
Eunomia reports there is no need for Norfolk AD based on the market’s capacity. They details how to reduce gate fees (para 5.4 to be deleted).
SOGthinks the report is not complete and needs further work: there is uncertainty of how costs were arrived at; graph scales are not consistent nor add up and do not equal the savings in other charts. The reportseems to only look at WCA costs and not the WDA’s.
Income/expenditure details are not shown in the report, impacting the overall ‘prize’. The report should look at whole system costs (includinggarden and trade waste); the error bars in Fig9 graphs are too large.
SOG looked through Eunomia’s presentation and WRAP will be present to comment on their involvement. Multi-stream kerbside sort likely to be lowest cost, but no potential for NWP at this time.BB noted comments about changes to the presentation SOG would like: that KLNorwuse non-podded vehicles;impact on recycling rates andtoo little detail on cost modelling constituent parts of whole system costs.
At NWP Board, Eunomia will present and answer questions. Cllrs not being asked to make a decision beyond authorising officers to continue.
The sensitivities are financial (not political or geographical); NI192 should read ‘recycling rate’ in all tables.
WEEE and textiles in Norwich generate no income, but also no cost.This maynot be the same for others.What is the impact on avoided disposal?
BB & AA noted Eunomia’s model savings were close to what has been separately estimated.
SO – asked what the feelingis beyond NWP Cllrs:
- NorwCC: steer is to do this in partnership, not alone and first
- KLWN: cautious of ruling group accepting, but also not first and alone, but recognises need to save
- SNC: open minded, but mindful of reputation and budget. Remain to be convinced and discussion has not gone wider
- BroDC: Cllr F happy, but no wider discussion
- NNDC: there needs to be no extra cost or difficulty and is looking to the WDA to help share costs
- GYBC: supportive of research, but there are more groups to consult
- BreC: reputation and size of saving has to be realistic. The whole system cost needs to be understood
AOB
Governance
MRF admin governance to KLWN, with OLT chair to rotate every 6 months and BW to take from Jan 2017. OLT to meet four weekly, with the ‘off’ fortnight utilised other NWP project meetings.
MRF
Negotiated agreement now through each WCA’s decision making (BreC Exec Team has asked for transfer station sampling to be written in).
KLWN to facilitate variation docs through WalkerMorris, as they started whole process with NEWS. AA and DN to look at top-up gate fee from April 2017 using a similar calculation as currently in force.
Smoothing payments templates being worked on by SP & AA; contributors to pay NorwCC who will then pay outto relevant WCAs. This will cover 2 years of smoothing payments.
One Public Estate
Infrastructure (OPE) project team consists of BB, JH and Nicola Young. BB asked for additional officers and potential funding; BB to recirculate scoping. Knowledge of waste infrastructure and growth (planners?) isrequired to make better use of infrastructure and the future of depots, HWRCs and transfer stations – a wide ranging, cross border project.
Comms
SB asked if part of remaining WRAP communications funding (£42,000) could be used for Xmas messages (£2,500) – SOG rejected this.
SNC
SNC looking at a single hub for Highways, Fire Service and SNC’s depot.BW also contacted by Peter Briggs re: coffee pod recycling. / SP/AA
BB
Next meetings
NWP Board: Wed 7Dec: Trafford Room, BroDC, 4 – 6pm