Norse to overhaul Waveney collection scheme

Waveney district council hopes to cut around 200,000 from its waste services costs by implementing a reduced collections timetable with fewer vehicles, which will be rolled out across the borough from next month.

The councils collection contractor Waveney Norse a subsidiary of the facilities management firm Norse Group, which is itself wholly owned by Norfolk county council is to implement changes to its service that will see collections carried out over four days per week rather than five.

Following a full consultation with staff, Waveney Norse crews will work four day weeks, with longer hours each day, on different days between Monday and Friday. The new arrangements have also been formally agreed with and endorsed by trade union Unison.

Changes to the timetable are to come into effect from May 12.

Mark Emms, managing director of Waveney Norse, said: For this financial year we have agreed budget savings of 531,000 across a range of services and around 200,000 of these savings will come from the refuse budget. However I am very pleased that this has been achieved without adversely affecting the number of collections we provide for each and every household.

Norse

Norse currently operates a three bin scheme on behalf of the council which sees residual waste and recyclable material collected on alternate weeks.

Black wheeled bins are provided to residents for residual waste, while dry recyclables including plastic, paper, metal cans and glass are collected commingled in a blue wheeled bin, and a green bin is provided for garden and food waste.

Dry mixed recyclables collected throughout the borough will be sent to Viridors materials recycling facility (MRF) in Great Blakenham after it signed up to a joint contract with the other six local authority members of the Suffolk Waste Partnership and the waste contractor (see letsrecycle.com story). Previously the material had been sent to a facility in Norfolk.

Food and green waste is treated by Tamar Organics – at a site formerly owned by Countrystyle – under a ten-year contract which began in March 2006.

Councillor Stephen Ardley, deputy leader of Waveney district council, said: As our operational partner, Waveney Norse provides a number of important frontline services and a key priority for the partnership is to ensure that it can continue to deliver these services to the same standard but as efficiently as possible. This new scheme achieves that ambition and I am absolutely delighted that we have an arrangement in place that maintains these standards while easing pressure on the public purse.