The county council is now carrying out a public consultation on possible plans for the treatment of household waste, with a series of roadshow events to be held this weekend.
”Having a number of different contracts has worked well for us, so it's not likely to be an integrated contract. “
– Andrew Pau, Oxfordshire CC
From the autumn, Oxfordshire expects to begin approaching waste companies to invite proposals to build and run new waste treatment facilities.
The county council currently holds waste management contracts with the Waste Recycling Group, Viridor, SITA and Grundon. On possible treatment options, officers say the county is “technology neutral”, with the current consultation considering a range of options including energy from waste, advanced thermal treatment and mechanical biological treatment (MBT).
Andrew Pau, head of waste management at Oxfordshire county council, indicated that the contract would be broken down into sections. He told letsrecycle.com: “The contract will be separated into a treatment, landfill and recycling lot. Having a number of different contracts has worked well for us, so it's not likely to be an integrated contract.”
Mr Pau added that the council was leaning towards a Public Private Partnership, rather than seeking financial support from the government via the Private Finance Initiative.
He said: “The council would prefer Public Private Partnership over PFI, because of the constraints in terms of time and value for money that PFI puts on local authorities.”
Strategy
The Oxfordshire Waste Partnership, made up of the county council and district councils in Oxfordshire, is currently putting the finishing touches to its new waste strategy for 2010-2035, which will pave the way for the procurement.
Oxfordshire currently recycles 33% of the 300,000 tonnes of waste generated each year. It is facing fines as high as 3 million landfill diversion targets are not met.
The strategy will replace the existing plan drawn up in the year 2000, and will “bring implementation to the forefront”, including recycling targets and action plans for each district.
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The partnership received 1,000 from the Defra's local authority unit to help develop the new strategy.
Mr Pau said: “The old strategy just said that recycling was a good thing. The waste partnership now hopes to bring implementation right to the forefront and to start introducing changes straight away.”
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