Copeland recycling in-house after community group pulls out

The group collected paper, glass and cans from 24,000 of Copeland's 32,500 homes each week using kerbside boxes. Doorstep Collections had also collected recyclable materials from 4,000 homes in neighbouring Allerdale.

” The waste team would like it remain a council service, an alternate weekly scheme stands or falls on its recyclable collection “
– Janice Carrol, Copeland BC
The community group announced in September that it was unable to continue the service “for financial reasons”.

Copeland borough council has now taken on the service itself until a decision can be made on the long-term future of the scheme – a decision now expected within the next three months. Casual staff were taken on initially as the service moved in-house, but staff from Doorstep Collections transferred last week to the council.

Copeland's waste team is hoping it can retain the service so that as many people in the borough can recycle their waste as possible.

Janice Carrol, waste services manager at Copeland, told letsrecycle.com, said: “It has gone better than I would have expected, particularly the first eight days when some of the staff had not done it before and we were following incomplete route lists.

“There were a few boxes missed, but then some people were surprised at having theirs collected – previously they had not had their boxes collected,” she added.

“Solvent”
Richard Cornish, project manager for Doorstep Collections, said the group was still viable as a going concern and that it was now seeking funding for a glass processing machine.

” They said that we had not achieved a 70% participation rate, but the rate was never measured to the industry standard. “
– Doorstep Collections Ltd
Mr Cornish said: “We are trying to keep the company running to process glass and are still solvent. Over the next two to three months we hope to take up a grant offer from a local funding organisation to purchase a glass reprocessing machine. We are trying to talk to the councils at the moment with a view to receiving glass from them.”

A report is now being put together on the Copeland service, with officers to make recommendations on whether the council should keep the scheme in-house or tender for a new collection contractor.

Ms Carrol said: “The waste team would like it remain a council service, an alternate weekly scheme stands or falls on its recyclable collection and we think we can be relied upon to make that work.”

Funding
Doorstep Collections Ltd had been running kerbside collections in Copeland since September 2003, but funding was withdrawn by its local authority partners because certain key targets were missed.

These missed targets included ensuring a participation rate above 70%. Doorstep Collections achieved only a 40% participation according to Copeland borough council. Public satisfaction with the service was also low, the authority said.

Doorstep Collections questioned the council's assessment of its participation targets, suggesting that Copeland had not measured participation correctly.

Mr Cornish said: “They said that we had not achieved a 70% participation rate, but the rate was never measured to the industry standard. Defra and WRAP say that it should be done by checking each route on three consecutive collections, but it was never measured in that way. One person went around and said that isn't 70%.”

Meetings
Mr Cornish claimed that the council had refused to meet with the group regarding the funding, and that at one point the group had continued the service with no payments made in return.

“We were carrying on doing it for nothing and they were happy for us to continue. But the sale of materials was not enough to continue collecting and we told them we would need money to carry on, they have since taken it in-house,” he added.

Copeland borough council told letsrecycle.com it had had meetings with Doorstep Collections from March, but that no changes had been made by the community group, and “the service continued to be of a low standard”.

The council achieved a recycling rate of 29% for household waste in 2005/06, easily meeting its 18% government-set target.

Ms Carrol said: “We are not bad at recycling if you look at our rate, but we could do better. We should be achieving 35% or more and that is the unofficial target the waste team has set.

“We are probably not going to achieve that this year, but all we can do is get the service back on track and then work towards meeting that target the following year,” she added.