South Cambridgeshire district council has selected specialist vehicle firm TransLinc as the provider for new refuse and recycling collection vehicles as part of the local authority's plans to take its dry recycling collections in-house.
South Cambridgeshire is working to bring its kerbside recycling collections in-house after its contract with waste management firm Veolia Environmental Services came to an end on October 11 2010, with the majority of Veolia staff being retained by the council.
The move to take dry recyclables in-house comes five years after South Cambridgeshire opted to carry out refuse collections through an in-house service.
As part of bringing the recycling collections in-house the council also opted to introduce 240 litre blue wheeled bins – with an interior caddy to hold paper – in order to replace the existing green box system. The revised system included an expansion of the materials collected to include mixed plastics, plastic films and Tetrapaks.
South Cambridgeshire said the changed service would save it £100,000 in its first year of operation, 2010/11, rising to £400,000-a-year by 2013/14.
Vehicles
TransLinc worked with South Cambridgeshire to develop the necessary aspects of the equipment and vehicle specifications, as well as liasing with manufacturers on behalf of the council. The firm also managed the contract mobilisation and roll-out process of the deal.
Commenting on the contract, Robin Moore, fleet supervisor for South Cambridgeshire district council, said: “We are looking for a competitive organisation that would be flexible and adapt to our needs, as well as respond accurately to our tender and vehicle specifications. TransLinc ticked all the boxes. If we say help, we want a response and TransLinc provide itself to be the kind of organisation we could do business with.”
TransLinc has already delivered the first order of vehicles to the local authority, eight 26-tonne Mercedes Econics with Heil Powertrack 70/30 Twin Pack body and Terberg OmniDE Xtra bin lift, as well as one 12-tonne DAF chassis with Eco Far 50/50 split body.
The second part of the contract will see a further seven 26-tonne Mercedes Econic RCVs with Heil Powerlink 21 standard body and Terberg OmniDE Xtra bin lifts delivered.
Dave Overton, regional contracts manager for TransLinc, said: “South Cambridgeshire are committed to working closely with local businesses where at all possible. They have a long-standing and effective working relationship with a number of local garages and a specialist tyre company.”
Mr Overton added that TransLinc had worked in a “flexible” way to enable local enterprises to be involved in the contract and managers and fleet engineers were on site to ensure a smooth transition when the first order of vehicles was received.
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