North East advocate

When Jeff Moffitt takes early retirement at the end of March, in doing so the local authority waste management sector will lose one of its strongest advocates in the North East of England.

But Jeff, who is in his mid-fifties and currently waste, recycling and contracts manager at Gateshead council, will be staying on as Chair of the North East Recycling Forum until at least next year and is also hoping to take on new challenges in the waste and recycling sector in the future.

He is particularly proud of the work the North East Recycling Forum (NERF) which celebrates its 25^th anniversary this year. He says: The NERF has done really well in providing a focal point for local authorities, industry and the third sector in the region. We have always managed to obtain a high calibre of speaker to our events because of the reputation we have established over the years. It is important for the north east to have a voice and keep fully in touch with policy issues and their local impacts together with providing the only platform in the region from which to network.

In terms of local authority performance and current issues, Jeff Moffitt highlights the fact that recycling rates are levelling off. I think the region is a bit more optimistic as we appear to be coming out of recession. However we must continue to invest in effective communication and engagement programmes to combat user inertia. Recognition of achievement is vital and I think its really important to acknowledge what the public does in recycling.

Bottle banks

With his early retirement from local government, Mr Moffitt will have notched up 40 years at Gateshead and the last 23 years have been spent in waste. He recalls how in the early 1990s recycling was almost non-existent in the area, with the borough having only two can banks and five bottle banks. We were recycling less than a hundred tonnes of waste a year equivalent to under a quarter of a percent recycling.

In 1974, when he joined Gateshead, it had just been subject to local government reorganisation and a number of district councils were brought together under one umbrella.

In the early part of his career Mr Moffitt worked in Legal and Human Resources where he worked on organisational reviews and major project management assignments. One high profile project involved the commissioning, design and operation of a brand new Civic Centre accommodating over 1200 staff.

Metal dustbins

He remarks: The biggest change in local household waste management stems from conventional 90 litre metal dustbins that we manually collected from properties to the current provision of three standard wheeled bins with fortnightly collections of residual waste, dry recyclates and green waste. All this change evolved over a number of years and represents a huge level of investment for the council and has delivered significant efficiencies and performance improvements.

With a background in HR and labour relations Mr Moffitt led the introduction of a four day alternate weekly collection system that has transformed services, delivered savings and boosted recycling performance.

He believes that the provision of good quality civic amenity sites is important to the local community in encouraging recycling and offering value for money services. We are close to completely redeveloping our CA sites that provide modern state of the art facilities that will improve public user experience and significantly increase recycling.

Topics in which I take a particular interest include benchmarking, value for money, change management, effective contract procurement and administration, communications and engagement. These issues are important because it is not in our interest as an authority to become complacent. We are like other Councils under severe financial pressure so we have to push hard on all fronts.

Communications

He continues: We need to be particularly smart with communications. Years ago there was much less engagement and involvement with the public but now expectations are much higher and we have to take the public with us. We have adapted our approach to ensure we use a wide range of media. In the past we would have relied on hard copy materials like posters, leaflets, adverts and articles to reach the wider community. In going forward there will be greater reliance on new and emerging technologies including the internet, social media and apps to connect with younger members of society.

Another key activity Jeff has been heavily involved with is in taking a pro-active approach to tackling sickness management. He explains: you owe it to all personnel to eradicate unjustified sickness whilst being respectful to genuine legitimate absences.

He cites two other aspects of waste management that should never be overlooked and require a diligent approach. Health and safety requires a strong culture from top to bottom both in-house and through contracted operations and the monitoring and effective implementation of new technologies ranging from new waste treatment processes, new vehicles and supporting technologies like on board weighing and tracking.

Mr Moffitt is now is preparing for a short holiday in April with the aspiration of still playing a part within the waste and recycling sector and continuing to be in touch at future meetings of the NERF.