The announcement of the saving measures comes as research by local authority support body, the Waste Improvement Network, showed that local authorities in the UK managed to cut the costs of environment services by a total of £317 million in 2007/08 through efficiency savings.
Cotswold district council's cabinet last week (August 13) approved plans to divide the district into 10 collection zones from February 2010, in a move which will affect 80% of all households in the local authority area in a bid to boost the efficiency of its collection service.
The Gloucestershire council plans to use a method called ‘round zoning', which will see its collection contractor SITA UK complete refuse and recycling collections within a certain zone on one day of a working week. The collection crews will then complete the other nine zones over the rest of the fortnight.
The change comes just two months after it was revealed that the council had achieved a provisional recycling figure of 60.95% under its existing waste and recycling collection service, which was introduced in June 2008, for 2008/09, which is expected to make it the second best-performing council for recycling and composting in England (see letsrecycle.com story).
Councillor Mark Tufnell, cabinet member for environment and communities at Cotswold district council, said: “The council's waste service has been operating for a full year and residents' participation has greatly exceeded our expectations, which has resulted in the council achieving the second highest recycling rate in the country.
“This success has resulted in the council having to introduce this minor change which, once implemented, will result in an even more efficient waste collection service for residents. These plans will not only offer financial savings for the council but should also provide residents with a regular and standardised day of the week when they know their rubbish will be collected,” he added.
A similar move was undertaken by the London borough of Merton in January this year when the council introduced zonal collections as part of a plan to improve the efficiency of its service and save it £50,000-a-year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Zones
Cotswold district council currently provides alternate weekly collections of household residual waste and dry recyclables, including card – which is collected in a sack – and paper, cans and glass bottles, which are collected in a black box. This runs alongside weekly collections of food and garden waste.
The revision of the existing service will also involve modifying the collection vehicles being used by SITA UK in response to the volumes of cardboard being collected at the kerbside.
SITA UK currently collects cardboard separately from glass and cans but will trial two types of vehicles capable of collecting all the material at once this month and in September. The council intends to adopt the relevant vehicle if a trial proves successful and also intends to reduce the number of operatives in each vehicle.
Any definitive changes to the collection service will have to be jointly approved by Cotswold district council and SITA UK.
WIN
The decision to cut costs in the Cotswolds comes as the Waste Improvement Network (WIN) announced that councils across the UK had managed to save over £317 million on environmental services over 2007/08.
One of the councils to make the biggest savings was Cumbria county council, which saved £10.2 million through an overall decrease in waste arisings and a rise in recycling rates. The second best performing was Kent county council which managed to save just over £8 million through reductions in waste growth and also through diverting material away from landfill to the Allington energy-from-waste facility.
Other councils reported to have made substantial savings were: Leicestershire city council, which saved £6.9 million through the commencement of its long-term waste PFI contract; Essex county council, which also saved £6.9 million thanks, in large part, to the renegotiation of its landfill and household waste and recycling centre contracts; and, Brighton & Hove city council, which saved £5.2 million by extending its wheeled bin collection service to more residents.
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