Aberdeenshire council has handed its waste management contractor SITA UK a 15-year contract worth £200 million to deliver waste and recycling services.
We're delighted to have been given this opportunity and look forward to keep on working together in partnership with Aberdeenshire council
David Palmer-Jones, chief executive, SITA UK
The contract, which started yesterday (July 1), includes the potential for the deal between the French-owned waste and recycling firm and Aberdeenshire to be increased by a further five years.
A spokesman for SITA UK told letsrecycle.com that the £200 million deal represented “a new deal” but would build on existing arrangements between Aberdeenshire council and Peterhead-based Stoneyhill Waste Management, which was purchased by SITA in 2007.
Currently 100,000 tonnes of the 150,000 tonnes of waste produced annually in Aberdeenshire is sent to landfill, with 70,000 tonnes of that amount sent to the SITA-operated Stoneyhill landfill near Peterhead for disposal.
The spokesman said: “Stoneyhill signed a contract with Aberdeenshire in 2006 and that was for the disposal of waste at its landfill. The contract that we have now signed is a completely new deal, which covers the treatment and processing of waste and will lead to new facilities being built.”
And, the spokesman said that the waste management firm was currently in negotiations with the local authority about what new waste infrastructure would be developed.
“I can't really comment about the specifics of that right now but we are certainly discussing options,” he said.
Arrangements
The council, which named SITA as preferred bidder for the contract in March, has stressed that its existing recycling and refuse collection arrangements will not be impacted by the decision to award SITA the contract.
Aberdeenshire currently operates a twin-stream fortnightly collection in urban areas of dry recyclables, with cans, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles and batteries collected in a black box and fibrous material in a white sack. Rural areas currently have a four-weekly collection.
Commenting on the award of the contract extension, David Palmer-Jones, chief executive of SITA UK, said: “We're delighted to have been given this opportunity and look forward to keep on working together in partnership with Aberdeenshire council to provide its residents with the modern and robust resource recovery facilities they need.”
Cllr Peter Argyle, chairman of Aberdeenshire council's infrastructure services committee, said: “Significant work has already been done in recent years to make it easier for people to reduce, reuse and recycle, and this new arrangement will help us to ensure we meet our obligations regarding the safe and responsible management of waste.
“The contract with SITA UK marks a significant step forward in how we deal with waste in Aberdeenshire and we look forward to this project moving forward.”
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