The council claimed that it would spend around £4.25 million on landfill costs over the course of 2009/10 and estimated that this could double by 2016 if it did not change the existing waste management arrangements.
The proposed seven-year contract, which is intended to commence in March 2010 and has the option to be extended for a further seven years, would also see Norwich-based May Gurney taking over management of the three household waste and recycling centres in North Somerset.
The company would take over from Veolia Environmental Services (refuse collections) and Biffa (bring banks and recycling collections) when their current respective seven-year contracts expire at the end of February 2010.
Councillor Carl Francis-Pester, executive member with responsibility for environmental issues said: “As well as a vastly improved service, the new system will generate a £15 million saving in landfill costs over the duration of the seven-year contract.
“We are definitely not looking at a 'one size fits all' approach here either. We're really keen that every household has the right tools to enable them to recycle more. If wheeled bins aren't suitable for a property, we will provide that household with a supply of sacks instead. Alternatively, for a very large family, we'll investigate whether a larger wheeled bin would be more appropriate.”
May Gurney
May Gurney currently already offers refuse and recycling collections for the 228,000 households which have their waste managed by the Somerset Waste Partnership (comprised of five districts and the county council) and it also offers recycling collections for Bath and North East Somerset council.
The company said that it expected the deal with North Somerset to be worth an estimated £85 million if the entire 14 year option was taken up. The contract is set to be officially awarded at the end of October following the mandatory Alcatel period.
Philip Fellowes-Prynne, chief executive of May Gurney, said: “We are delighted to have been selected as preferred bidder by North Somerset council for this significant long-term contract for the delivery of essential front-line services.
“The council appointed us because of our ability to truly transform their recycling and waste services – they have called it a 'recycling revolution' – to deliver long-term environmental benefits and value-for-money.”
In addition to the announcement of May Gurney being named preferred bidder for waste and recycling collections, North Somerset also named London-based Cory Environmental as its preferred bidder for a contract for waste processing and disposal.
Arrangements
The new arrangements are said to be in response to residents demanding a better service and an extension of materials collected.
Recycling contractor Biffa currently collects paper, glass, tins and cans, textiles and shoes through the green box kerbside recycling programme but under the proposed May Gurney contract, the council intends to expand this to include plastics, cardboard, food and drinks cartons, mobile phones, spectacles and batteries.
The addition of weekly food waste collections is to tackle the perceived high levels of kitchen waste currently in North Somerset residents' residual waste bins and deemed it “crucial” to remove as much biodegradable waste from the residual stream as possible.
The kitchen caddies provided under the food waste service are projected to cost the council £2.815 million, with the council having set aside £2 million of non-earmarked resources.
However, the council has since decided to use this money on other “high priority capital projects” – which includes capital investment in the Weston-super-Mare household waste and recycling centre and transfer station.
The council now intends to acquire the capital for the containers from unsupported borrowing programmes and launch a tender process for a container supplier.
Contract
The council said the May Gurney offer was the most cost effective and would help promote the council's recycling rate to 55% by 2012/13 from its current rate of 36.8% and see the amount of biodegradable waste halved from 46,104 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes over the same time period.
Some of the projected increases in disposal costs are set to be mitigated with the launch of 'Phase 2' of the West of England Waste Strategy, which involves material being sent to a mechanical biological treatment facility being developed by organics firm New Earth Solutions to treat residual waste from five West of England councils over the next five years (see letsrecycle.com story).
North Somerset intends to send 18,100 tonnes-a-year of residual waste for treatment from April 1 2011, with the sum of the mitigation over seven years at around £5.4 million. Nevertheless, even with this, the council claims that the total cost of dealing with municipal waste is estimated to rise to £13.4 million by 2016/17, with £6.7 million (50%) of this being on landfill costs.
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