Swansea city council has revealed that it is running loss leader contracts in order to win trade waste work as well as not taking any action if customers tear up annual contracts.
And, the authority has accused the private sector generally of ripping off commercial waste customers.
But, the Welsh Government has warned that local authorities in Wales which are operating trade waste contracts should charge full cost price.
The revelation that Swansea is willing to run loss making contracts in order to secure more business for the local authority came at last weeks meeting of Welsh branch of LARAC, the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee, in Wales.
Swansea city recycling officer Trish Flint explained the range of services provided by the local authority to local businesses as well as a recent push by the council to get businesses to recycle materials. The charge for collecting residual waste was put up considerably in April unless businesses chose to have their recycling collected as well, she explained.
She said: We are trying to push recycling to businesses and will take cardboard for free with residual waste.
And, Ms Flint explained that as part of the move to encourage recycling, food waste is being collected free in 360 litre bins. Yes it costs us. It is a loss leader, we kind of did that with food waste.
Brand
The Swansea recycling officer also reflected how for businesses in the area, the local authority was a trusted brand.
She continued: People, they do think we are trustworthy and that we do not try to rip them off so they tend to come to the council which is something we can use.
She said that the authority is advertising in the local press, and using the Love Food Hate Waste campaign which is aimed at restaurants.
And Ms Flint accused the private sector of misleading its customers over charges. What a lot of the biggest waste businesses tend to do is to offer a very sexy figure for their customers and then they charge a huge amount for waste transfer notes and they generally rip them off.
“What a lot of the biggest waste businesses tend to do is to offer a very sexy figure for their customers and then they charge a huge amount for waste transfer notes”
Trish Flint, Swansea council
In terms of contractual arrangements between the city council and its trade customers, Ms Flint explained that the authority does not mind if the customer leaves the contract early. They do sign a contract but we dont actually hold them to it. They will come back when they realise that the grass is not greener on the other side.
Looking ahead, she said that the authority is planning to develop new services including offering a nappy collection service to nurseries and will be continuing with the rebranding of its service to promote more recycling.
The authority will also be more proactive in attracting new customers through methods such as dropping off flyers to businesses. And, under the Swansea BID (Business Improvement District) scheme, companies will be offed free cardboard collection even if they are not receiving residual waste services from the council.
Welsh Government
Also speaking at the LARAC Wales conference, Dr Andy Rees, head of waste strategy for the Welsh Government, emphasised the importance of tackling business waste. We need to tackle commercial waste and increase SME recycling now that the municipal recycling rate has overtaken commercial and industrial recycling. We have to work with local authorities and industry but it is difficult to find representatives of the 200-300 companies in waste collecting material.
He said that the waste industry in Wales thinks about waste rather than recycling or making use of resources, which was very much the theme of the CIWM conference.
Dr Rees highlighted the advantages of the separate collection of paper, cardboard, glass, food, metal, plastic and wood from businesses. He said: We are looking at legislation to keep materials separate and aim to eliminate food and dry recyclables from residual waste through separate collections at source.
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He suggested that a role for local authorities in providing recycling facilities for SMEs could involve offering true separate collection of food, paper, card metals and the opening up of CA sites and HWRCs for business use.
And, he noted that local authority services should be charged at full cost price.
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