This represents a 1% decrease from the previous quarter, but a 0.4% rise from the same period last year.
The 40% figure includes all waste streams the partnership handles, including non-household waste.
The SLWP, which manages waste for the London boroughs of Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton, published the data last week ahead of a partnership meeting on 16 December.
Kington was the highest performing borough, recording a 46% recycling rate, while Croydon was the lowest, at 35%.
These were the same figures as recorded in the previous quarter.
EfW
In the second quarter, the Partnership delivered just over 107,000 tonnes of residual waste to its Beddington energy from waste (EfW) facility, which is operated by Viridor.
This represented 58% of total waste arisings.
The SLWP reported that 4% of residual waste was sent to landfill, however this was “in most part” due to a planned maintenance shut-down of Beddington undertaken in quarter one.
It added that Kingston delivered waste into a local waste transfer station for onward bulk-transfer and so during Beddington’s downtime, the borough’s waste was transferred to alternative outlets.
HWRCs
At the end of quarter 2 the combined performance of household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs) across the partnership was 67%, which was the same figure reported as quarter one, but a small improvement on the same period last year.
The Kingston Villiers Road HWRC was the highest performing, with a 72% recycling rate.
The partnership added that following the suspension of some recycling and reuse initiatives during COVID restrictions, several new measures aimed at increasing recycling have been implemented at HWRC’s.
This includes a new Reuse Shop at Fishers Farm Croydon and the continuation of a booking system at HWRC’s in Kingston, Merton and Sutton.
Budget
The report also sets out a proposed budget for 2022/23 compared with the budget in 2021/22.
It also sets out the cost of work to develop a new strategy for the SLWP and prepare for the end of a number of contracts in 2025.
In 2025, due to a breakpoint in several SLWP contracts, “significant work” is required to develop a new strategy for the partnership, “to agree and commission future infrastructure requirements.”
The SLWP reports that this is an opportunity to “invest in improvement activity” that will reduce the overall cost of operations.
Total savings in the region of £1.1m are projected from the improvement work.
The savings from the improvement work is also projected to cover the cost of delivering these projects, the cost of the strategy development and service commissioning work and return a saving to the partnership authorities of around £580,000 in 2022/23.
Viridor
Viridor currently manages the partnerships recycling, green and food waste, under a contract which expires on 31 August 2022.
The partnership said that this contract is “operating effectively and there are no issues to report”.
It is also in the process of appointing a new contractor for the management of organic waste once it expires.
Viridor is unable to extend its contract because planning permission for the receipt of these wastes at Beddington expires at the end of December 2022, and the company owns no suitable alternative site (see letsrecycle.com story).
Veolia
The report analysed the recycling performance of Veolia, which manages the partnership’s HWRCs, by comparing the quarter 2 data from September 2019 ‘pre-Covid’.
The analysis shows that the Merton Garth Road HWRC is now performing at 1% above the September 2019 pre-COVID recycling performance levels, and the combined recycling performance at the Croydon sites is 2% below quarter 2 pre-Covid performance levels.
Sutton’s Kimpton Park Way is 1% below September 2019, and Kingston’s Villiers Road is 2% below quarter 2 pre-Covid performance.
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