The council says it hopes to “raise service standards and improve the recycling and waste collection services that residents currently receive” through the new arrangement. Operations transferred to Lampton 360 on Monday (31 October) following the end of the council’s contract with Suez last Friday.
Recycling and waste services will be delivered in the borough through a subsidiary of Lampton 360 – Recycle 360.
Households in Hounslow are keeping a kerbside-sort recycling collection system under the new arrangement – after the council considered a switch to commingled recycling collections when the service changeover was considered in December 2015 (see letsrecycle.com story).
System
Currently the system involves a weekly bag collection of paper, a weekly box collection of metals, glass, cardboard, cartons and textiles, a fortnightly sack collection of plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, and an alternating a fortnightly sack collection of garden waste. Separate food waste and residual waste collections are conducted weekly.
However, the current mix of bags and boxes will be replaced in the new year by a boxes-only system with weekly collections of all items.
A new fleet of Romaquip kerbside sort collection vehicles has also been rolled out as part of the contract change, housed at the council’s Space Waye HWRC. A facility for the delivery, sorting and collection of recyclable waste is currently being developed at Southall Lane and is expected to open in mid-2017.
On performance levels – targets have been set to reduce the number of missed collections per 100,000 households to fewer than 100 – from a current level of around 565. The council has also promised ‘contractual improvements’ on the return of bins and boxes after collection, clearance of waste spillages and professional crew behaviour.
Spending
The council is also targeting cost savings through the new arrangement, with an overall aim to slash spending by up to £59 million across its budgets between 2015/16 and 2018/19. The local authority previously spent around £7.1 million per year in contract payments to Suez.
According to analysis by the consultancy firm Eunomia, in using a local authority company – Lampton 360 – the running of the service would be up to £600,000 cheaper than through an external contractor. This is because the local authority company would not need to contribute to the Local Government Pension Scheme or derive any profit from the service.
Councillor Amrit Mann, deputy leader of Hounslow council said: “This new contract is the first step towards an improved collection service for residents. The Recycle 360 team is committed to meeting our expectations and will be working hard to ensure the service residents receive, is a professional one.
“While the new contract will be an improvement on the previous one, as with any new venture, there are bound to be a few problems as the collection rounds progress. We have adequate measures in place to ensure if something does go wrong it will be put right as soon as possible.”
Hounslow achieved a 34.5% recycling rate in 2014/15 – with a target to reach 50% by 2019.
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