Suez Recycling and Recovery won two of the major contracts, worth £11 million, while the other smaller contracts were awarded to BioCollectors, Countrystyle and Olleco (full details below).
Previously, the SLWP had a contract with Viridor for the handling, haulage and treatment of food and green garden wastes produced by residents in the four South London Waste Partnership boroughs: Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton.
This was sent to Viridor’s AD plant in Beddington, with the contract due to run until August 2022.
However, the SLWP says Viridor is no longer interested in the deal because planning permission for the receipt of these wastes at Beddington expires at the end of December 2022, and the company owns no suitable alternative site.
Viridor recently exited the recycling infrastructure market, instead focusing on energy from waste and plastics recycling.
Lots
Due to be approved by the SLWP next month, the contracts would be for an initial period of 4 years and 7 months commencing on 1 September 2022, with possible extensions up to 31 March 2030 for a total contract value of £16 million for the full term.
According to the report to go before the SLWP next month, the food and green waste project is “complex”, and “high risk”. It said soft market testing had indicated that there was limited commercial interest in these contracts in their current form.
This was in part due to the shortage of local waste transfer facilities capable of accepting the waste on behalf of Croydon, Merton and Sutton.
For this reason, a “multiple lot tender” was developed, which enable other operators in the area to bid.
This approach enabled the smaller anaerobic digestion (AD) operators, for example, to bid directly to collect and treat the food waste and allowed the farmers to bid directly for the collection and treatment of the green.
Contract winners
The contract was split into nine lots with only five awarded, as outlined below. Food and garden waste from Kingston was separated and separately tendered.
Lot 1 was awarded to Bio Collectors with a value of £168,000. This covered the processing of 5,000 tonnes of food waste from Croydon, Merton, and Sutton to be sent to its AD plant in Mitcham.
Lot 3.1 was awarded to Countrystyle with a value of £1.8 million. This covered the collection of Kingston council’s green waste from a transfer station and for it to be treated at one of its networks of organics facilities in the South.
Lot 3.2 was for the treatment of Kingston council’s food waste and was awarded to Olleco, and valued at £536,000.
Lot 5.1 was the most expensive, at £11,085,000. This was awarded to Suez Recycling and Recovery UK and was for the treatment of green waste from Croydon, Merton and Sutton. This will be treated at its composting plant in Surrey.
Lot 5.2 was valued at £2.99 million and also bagged by Suez. This covered the food waste from Croydon Merton and Sutton.
As the contract has not been confirmed by the SLWP, the partnership said it is unable to comment at this time.
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