The council has submitted the contract to the Official Journal of the European Commission last week, having received a 25m Private Finance Initiative (PFI) grant from the government to support the contract in June 2003 (see letsrecycle.com story).
On September 10, the council held a bidders open day and is now accepting “expressions of interest” from companies.
The new integrated waste management contract will replace existing contracts currently held by council-owned County Environmental Services. The successful bidder will have the option to purchase the local authority waste disposal company as part of the deal.
The contract includes the management of civic amenity sites, new waste transfer stations, composting plants and materials recycling facilities with the possible option of an energy-from-waste plant in the future. Collections of waste will continue to be carried out by the district councils.
Because it has PFI backing, the contract will include a target above the statutory recycling rate targets for the county. The private contractor who successfully bids for the contract will have to reach a target of 40% recycling by 2010-11. Cornwall currently recycles and composts about 12% of the 263,000 tonnes of domestic waste collected each year.
David Owens, a waste officer on the council's PFI team, said: “The deadline for companies to express their interest in the contract is November 18. It's early days but we have already had some expressions of interest.”
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