Agenda item
Waste and Street Cleansing Review
The Select Committee requested a briefing note on this item focusing on proposals for efficiency savings and the purposes of the consultation.
The Lead Member and lead officer have also been invited to the meeting to respond to Members’ questions.
Executive report to follow.
Minutes:
Councillor Powney (Lead Member for Environment, Culture and Planning) introduced the briefing note, stating that the main objective of the Waste Strategy Review was to increase the recycling rate significantly. The financial implications of the review meant that in the first year, invest to save measures would be introduced, and in the second year savings of approximately £766,000 would be made as the measures were introduced and reduce the level of landfill tax being paid. The introduction of a three bin system for the majority of Brent households would be introduced to help achieve this. Councillor Powney stated that the order of priority for the Strategy was:-
1. Reduce waste
2. Use waste
3. Recycling waste
4. Recovering waste
5. Waste to landfill
Councillor Powney confirmed that the £25 bulky waste charge would be abolished.
The Chair agreed to allow Councillor Choudhary to address the Select Committee. He highlighted incidences of bins being taken away and not being replaced in his ward and overflowing bins. He felt that residents needed to be provided with more bins.
During discussion, Councillor Hirani enquired about the number of requests to collect bulky waste since the charge was introduced and reported incidences of fly tipping during the same period. He felt that withdrawing the charge for bulky waste collection would be popular with residents. Councillor Van Kalwala enquired whether the Waste Strategy Review addressed the issue of providing appropriate recycling facilities on estates. Councillor Lorber, in noting the cost of approximately £393,000 in withdrawing the bulky waste charge, suggested that this would fail to reduce incidences of fly tipping. With regard to the three bin system, he commented that there were a number of type of bins already in circulation, including, for example, two different shades of green bins. He suggested that it could be an appropriate time to introduce standardised bins in order to avoid confusing residents, or replace green boxes and bins with a colour not used before.
In reply, Councillor Powney stated that residents he had spoken to were against the bulky waste charge and the scrapping of the charge was popular with residents in his ward. He stated that bulky waste collection requests went down by approximately 67% soon after the charge was introduced in July 2007 and continued to dwindle thereafter. Although there was no specific evidence, Councillor Powney suggested that more bulky waste was being fly tipped and this raised the issue of whether fly tipping was being tracked properly. With regard to estates, Councillor Powney advised that it had been proposed to introduce a fully co-mingled dry recycling service to all suitable flats during a rolling programme starting in 2010/11. Communal bins for collection of food waste would also be introduced.
Councillor John advised that collection of bulky waste items on some estates was usually the responsibility of the landlord. In the case of St Raphael’s Estate, where there had been reported fly tipping, Brent Housing Partnership had removed the items. Councillor John felt that the costs of removing bulky waste in such situations should be factored in. She suggested that other housing associations should be encouraged to assist in removing bulky waste items and encouraging residents to recycle. Councillor John also drew to Members’ attention to customer care issues that needed to be addressed in relation to Veolia, including not returning bins to their point of collection in Chalkhill and leaving bin lids off in Stonebridge. She stressed the importance of increasing recycling as a top priority and in increasing residents’ participation to achieve this.
Keith Balmer (Director of StreetCare, Environment and Culture) added that an overriding objective was to provide a recycling service to every resident in Brent, with an emphasis on difficult to reach properties and in educating residents of the need to participate in recycling and a realisation of the consequences if they did not. He acknowledged that there were some issues with regard to Veolia’s waste collection and these were being looked at. Keith Balmer advised that every effort would be made to make it clear to residents what type of waste was meant for each bin, stating that replacing bins would bear high costs.
RESOLVED:-
that the briefing note on the Waste and Street Cleansing Review be noted.
Supporting documents:
- bn-waste-strategy-review, item 6c PDF 78 KB
- e&c_waste_strategy_v 5 1 final, item 6c PDF 150 KB
- e&c_waste_strategy_AppA_v2, item 6c PDF 16 MB
- e&c_waste_strategy_appB_v 5 1 final, item 6c PDF 60 KB