The council’s current weekly kerbside sort contract with Amey runs until 2022 with the option to extend to 2027. Dry recycling is collected each week in green boxes, alongside a weekly food waste collection and fortnightly black wheeled bin collections of residual waste.
However, in view of an “unprecedented reduction in budget” and the need to boost recycling participation rates, the two parties are looking to make a “significant change” to the current service.
The council will review the possible legal implications to make sure a move to commingling is both compliant with the legal requirements for separate collections, and also does not constitute too significant a change as to require the Amey contract to be re-tendered under EU procurement law.
Council documents state that research across England and Wales “clearly suggests that the type of service we currently deliver is not conducive to achieving recycling rates in excess of 50% due to the fact that residents consider it complicated, time consuming and messy”.
And, the report to the council’s cabinet meeting last month adds that recycling participation rates are “critical if we are to achieve targets”, while budget reductions have left a need to reduce the value of the contract through an ongoing savings plan.
Therefore, according to the report, after initial meetings with Amey it was agreed that to manage cost pressures a “significant change” to the service should be considered which is “likely to involve moving to comingled recycling and a reduction in recycling collection frequency from weekly to fortnightly”.
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As a result, the council and Amey are currently undertaking a review with the intention to present a preferred option to the council’s cabinet in August 2015, before final approval by the council in September 2015.
Review
Documents reveal that the review of Gloucester’s current recycling service will include the modelling of a preferred comingled option and an assessment of whether the change in service would TEEP compliant.
The council report concedes that its current kerbside sort service provides “a clean recyclate that achieves both a high end and consistent income stream”.
However, it estimates that changing to a commingled service in January 2016 would result in net savings of £138,000 in 2015/16, with additional costs and loss of income resulting from the change “off-set by the fact that recycling rates are likely to increase, resulting in recycling credits”.
According to the council, the review has been timed so that a decision is made before the “bulk” of the collection vehicles are replaced in December 2016, with five out of the eight vehicles approaching 10 years old and requiring an “increasing amount of maintenance to keep them on the road”.
The review will also consider contractual implications of such a change, as according to the report, moving to commingled may constitute a “material variation” to the original service contract with Amey under EU procurement law, which could potentially require the council to re-tender the contract, or face the risk of legal challenge from previously unsuccessful bidders.
In addition, the council will “explore the opportunities available to work more closely” with Gloucestershire county council, neighbouring district councils and the charity sector to reduce duplication of services.
Several councils in England, including East Cambridgeshire (see letsrecycle.com story), have carried out TEEP assessments in an attempt to safeguard existing commingled collection services, but few have previously sought to justify a possible new change to a commingled service.
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