Speaking following the publication of the Welsh Assembly report, which showed that collections costs for councils in Wales ranged from £36 to over £1,000 a tonne in 2005/06 (see letsrecycle.com story), the Wales Community Recycling Network (CYLCH) said that enterprises in Newport, Torfaen, Monmouthshire, Blauneau Gwent and Powys ran “quality services at a fraction of the cost of other providers.”
In particular, Newport Wastesavers was reported to charge £40 a tonne and Monmouth Community Recycling to charge £89.50 a tonne -the lowest cost for a rural area.
Mal Williams, of CYLCH, said: “Newport leads at about £40 a tonne, Monmouthshire at about £80 per tonne and Torfaen at around £150 (and falling) compared to the local authority average of £250 a tonne.”
Newport Wastesavers is a charitable organisation which provides weekly collections of paper and textiles (blue box) and plastic bottles, metals and glass (black box).
Monmouth Community Recycling, meanwhile, is a social enterprise run by the ECT Group in partnership with the Monmouthshire Environmental Trust. It provides a weekly black box for paper, cans, glass, textiles and foil to 28,000 households in Monmouthshire.
The report was carried out by consultancy firm RPS Planning and Development on behalf of the Welsh Assembly. Following its publication, the community sector has challenged the belief that source-separated recycling collections are more costly than commingled collections which use a materials recycling facility (see letsrecycle.com story).
Andy Bond, ECT Recycling's managing director, said: “The report shows that the majority of local authorities are not getting a value for money recycling collection service. The best value for money is being provided by two community sector organisations including Monmouth Community Recycling, providing source separated collections.”
Included
However, in other parts of Wales, councils questioned the value of the study in identifying the best value recycling collections.
Cardiff city council, which is believed alongside Swansea, to have submitted some of the most expensive recycling collection cost figures, explained that their figure had been inflated by integrated costs of labour and vehicles.
A spokesman for Cardiff Council said: “The data supplied for this report makes it clear that Cardiff was unable to clearly separate the costs for recycling, residual and composting collections, as Cardiff runs an integrated service, including labour and vehicle costs.”
The spokesman added that, at the time of the study, it was also rolling out a kerbside collection system from scratch which had skewed its figures.
The spokesman explained: “The time period which the report relates to (May, 2006) also includes the start up costs for the city wide kerbside schemes, yet at this time the council was only collecting from a proportion of properties.
“The cost data for recycling in this report needs to be put in the correct context and we look forward to the 2007/08 data which will give a true reflection of collection costs, as the council has now fully implemented the recycling/composting schemes across the city,” he added.
Mike Roberts, head of streetcare and countryside at Neath Port Talbot council, agreed that even though his council offered a successful recycling collection service, costing just £117 a tonne last year, it was difficult to draw comparisons between councils.
He said: “Authorities resource and deliver their services in different ways and so direct comparison is often difficult.”
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