Warwickshire County Council, Daventry District Council, Kettering Borough Council, Leicestershire County Council, Northamptonshire County Council and HM Young Offenders Institution Onley and to sign an agreement next Tuesday in Daventry.
The agreement will see the formation of the Midlands Recycling Consortium (MRC), which will be open to any public sector organisation in the Midlands to join.
The consortium believes that by working together, members will gain “greater commercial strength” and will be able to “secure advantageous economies of scale in the sale of recyclable materials”. The partnership will also enable Best Practice to be shared and should see administration costs for the members reduced.
The MRC will be led by Warwickshire county council in the first 12 months. Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation, a local authority purchasing consortium operating throughout the Midlands and East Anglia, will manage the tender process on behalf of the members.
Tender
The first tender for the sale of collected paper and the servicing of a number of paperbanks is expected to be issued by the consortium within the next few weeks.
The formation of the MRC has been carried out in association with the Waste and Resources Action Programme.
Chris Davey, WRAP's quality sourcing manager, said: “The MRC represents a real improvement in the way that recyclable materials are sold for recycling in the area. This new consortium will enable members to sell their recyclable materials in a way which will give them the benefits of economies of scale resulting in lower administration costs. It should also save reprocessors money as they will not have to respond to lots of smaller tenders, which should result in higher prices being offered for the material.”
Industry opinions on the new consortium are still to be gauged, but issues could arise over the large volumes of materials generated by such a group and the potential influence of a consortium on market prices, open competition and stability.
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