Waste management and recycling firms were invited to submit expressions of interest for the deal to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympics Games (LOCOG) earlier this year. The LOCOG was due to announce the successful firm on November 5 2010.
Under the contract, a successful contractor will be expected to provide waste services across 40 venues over the course of the games which run from July 27 to September 9 2012. The LOCOG describes the deal, which is set to be worth over £5 million, as a “unique challenge” and applies to both general and special waste.
The successful tenderer will also have to meet the LOCOG's ambition of hosting the ‘greenest Games ever', which would ensuring that there is zero waste to landfill. The contract, once awarded, is set to come into effect from December 1 2010.
SITA UK has a track record of working at events, having provided waste and recycling solutions to both the 2010 Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham and the 2010 Notting Hill Carnival as well as local government conferences.
A spokesman for SITA UK said: “We cannot comment at this point.”
Construction
Veolia ES is already working at the Olympics site providing waste management facilities during the construction stage.
A spokesman for Veolia confirmed for letsrecycle.com that it was a contender for the waste services contract and would look to complement its existing work removing and recycling construction and demolition waste from the Olympic Park site (see letsrecycle.com story).
“We are definitely going for it but your guess is as good as mine when it comes to the preferred bidder,” said the spokesman. “It would make sense for us given our work already out there in East London.”
A spokesman for the LOCOG committee declined to comment on whether there was yet a preferred bidder for the deal. He said: “No appointment has been made yet and discussions are ongoing.”
Other waste management firms, which also operate waste and recycling collections with a large presence in the capital include services firm Enterprise and Bywaters which has a materials recycling facility near the Olympics site which could be used for the event.
The kudos of the contract is outlined in the LOCOG tender document, which states that the successful bidder for the contract will be recognised as an official sponsor of the 2012 Games. The committee claims this is “an unprecedented opportunity” in order to showcase a firm's expertise and capability to a world audience.
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