Wandsworth uses route map to assess TEEP compliance

A report to the council’s Housing and Community Services committee, which met last month, considered whether the council’s current collection service meets the requirements of the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011, which applied from the start of the year.

The regulations state that separate collections of at least paper, metal, plastic and glass for household and commercial waste are a legal requirement, unless it is not technically, environmentally or economically practicable (TEEP) or necessary to allow high quality recycling of the material.

The local authority carried out a thorough assessment of its collection services, following the process set out by the TEEP route map developed by the Waste Network Chairs and the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) last year (see letsrecycle.com story). The routemap was developed in the absence of formal guidance from the government on TEEP.

In its assessment, Wandsworth noted that it switched to a ‘single stream’ commingled service alongside the other councils which make up the Western Riverside Waste Authority in 2003, all of whom now send their recyclable materials to Cory’s Smugglers Way materials recycling facility.

Sorting

The council currently pays around £25 for every tonne of commingled recyclable material it sends to the MRF, and has concluded that the quality of the output of the material treated at the MRF does meet specifications.

Of the 100,263 tonnes of municipal waste handled by the borough in 2013/14, 20,380 tonnes was commingled recycling collected from households by the council’s contractor Serco using clear sacks or via on-street recycling banks or communal waste bins.

Of the material collected from low rise properties via the clear sack system, Wandsworth has calculated that around 85% was target material, while around 13.8% was contamination. From high rise properties, where on street banks or communal bins are used, the total target material collected is around 76%, with contamination at 23%.

Contamination

However, despite noting in 2011 that the level of contamination in commingled materials was “significantly higher” than the authority had previously believed, it is thought that the cost associated with changes to the authority’s £6 million per year collection contract is likely to be prohibitive to a switch in collection system.

The Wandsworth report noted: “The council’s current waste collection contract with Serco commenced in April 2012 and runs for eight years with an option to extend for a further eight. It is likely that making significant changes to the services provided under this contract before April 2020 would result in significant additional costs if they resulted in additional or different collection resources being required.”

Earlier in the report the local authority also noted that the threat of a legal challenge for non-compliance with the regulations is likely to be greater for councils which have recently switched to a commingled service.

In its assessment, Wandsworth council has noted that switching back to a source separated system is likely to result in a decrease in the quantity of target material collected, and only likely to lead to a “limited improvement” in the quality of material collected.