Veolia wins seven-year High Peak contract

The deal with Veolia, which kicks-off on April 1, includes the management of High Peak's Binnovation scheme – a fortnightly collection of household refuse alternating with collections of green-lidded bins containing cardboard and green waste.

There will also be a fortnightly collection of glass, paper and cans put out by the most of the borough's 90,000 residents for collection in a green box. Food waste collections are also being considered.

Veolia, which also has other contracts in Derbyshire including Chesterfield and Amber Valley, will be aiming to improve on the 2006/07 recycling/composting rate of 20%.

The company beat off competition from Focsa UK, Verdant Group and an in-house service to secure the contract.

Veolia Environmental Services UK chief executive, Jean-Dominique Mallet, said: “I am delighted that we have won this new contract which was awarded after an exhaustive evaluation by the council of the borough's refuse and recycling needs.

“Veolia is committed to providing the borough with an efficient and effective service which will help the Council reach statutory recycling targets. The potential to include a kitchen waste collection at a future date will further help the borough maximise its landfill diversion capability.”

Plastics

Council waste chiefs have said Veolia's service will allow the borough to make savings of £114,000 a year but expressed disappointment that cost barriers prevented them from introducing plastic bottles to the commingled collections.

Executive member for environment Cllr John Haken said: “The council wanted to include the kerbside collection of plastic bottles from people's homes in the service, but even the cheapest bidder wanted £1.5 million extra for this service over the duration of the contract. This translates to a 4% rise in council tax on its own.”

Cllr Haken explained that a tax hike would be necessary because the price plastic bottles are sold for, was outweighed by transport and processing costs.

“Currently, mixed plastic bottle recycling in the UK is under-developed, costly and creates a big carbon footprint. Bottles collected in High Peak are bulked up in Stockport and sold on the open market, with 70% of our bottles being shipped to China, to be handled by low paid workers.

“It costs over £1,000 per tonne to empty the bottle banks in the High Peak, we then pay to transport it around the world where it may only achieve a final scrap price of £250 per tonne,” he explained.

Paper from High Peak is baled and sent to the Abitibi-Consolidated Bridgewater paper mill in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and turned back into newsprint for the UK market within seven days.

Glass bottles are sent to Rockware Glass in Knottingley, Yorkshire, where they are remade into glass containers.

And aluminium cans are baled and sent to Novelis in Warrington, Cheshire, where they are turned into aluminium ingots for re-use in industry.