The Commission's line on waste minimisation comes in a best value review of Sandwell's waste management service. The inspection team concluded: “Crucially the council does not have a strategy for waste minimisation. This is important, as recycling waste is only part of the story; efforts to reduce the amount of waste generated are equally, if not more, important.”
The inspectors said that the council provided a “fair”, one star service but said that there was room for improvement in both recycling and waste minimisation. They also said they were “uncertain” if the service would improve.
1994 recycling plan
This is because, the council was still following a 1994 recycling plan and recycling performance fell from 5.2% in 1999/2000 to 4.2% in 2000/01. The inspectors said that the council must give priority to producing a new waste plan as while the council has set some challenging targets that exceed statutory targets there is no strategy for their delivery. “Despite clear commitment and a willingness to change, the lack of clear decisions and a stated direction create uncertainty for the future.”
The lack of a strategy has meant that many of the council's own targets are unlikely to be met. The council set a maximum target for waste collected in the current year of 408.6kg per head of population. But provisional data for the first half of the year suggests that this target is unlikely to be achieved. And while the council set a target to recover 25.28% of household waste by incineration in 2001/02, it is clear that this target will not be achieved and neither will the council’s target to reduce the percentage of waste landfilled to 73.43%.
The council also set a target of 5.58% for the current year and provisional data suggests that this could be met but with more than 87% of household waste still going to landfill this is costing the council 1.5million in landfill tax.
The situation is not helped by the fact that the council has minimum tonnage disposal contracts with local landfill operators which do not expire until 2005, which restricts the opportunity for significant diversion of waste prior to then.
And the inspectors also found problems with the council's agreement with Community Recycling Venture (CRV) a not-for-profit organisation which runs the kerbside scheme. The council provides financial support to CRV through recycling credits and deficit funding to provide a weekly kerbside recycling service for paper, cans and reusable household items to 50,000 households in the borough. CRV also sells useable household items for reuse. But participation in the kerbside scheme is low at about 20% of households.
Concerned
The report concluded: “We are concerned as to the status of Sandwell’s relationship with CRV Ltd. Sandwell’s current recycling performance is heavily reliant on the organisation and yet there is no contractual relationship only a recent service level agreement.”
The Commission praised the council for working with neighbouring authorities through the Black Country Waste Management Forum, which covers Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton and aims to develop an integrated waste management strategy. But they said that the council must make contingency plans in case the Black Country Strategy does not proceed quickly enough.
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