Warwickshire county council is to tender the sale of its paper, card, and mixed soft plastics recyclate online, adding to the trend of local authorities that have begun selling material via the internet.
The e-auction, which is being staged by BravoSolution and funded by Improvement & Efficiency West Midlands, will see the council tender a three-year contract for the sale of recyclate from eight of nine household waste recycling centres.
Warwickshire county council had previously sold its material via the stock market, a process which the authority said was manageable when it operated just two in-house HWRCs.
However, the council now operates eight sites, with two facilities subcontracted to a social enterprise.
The authority is using its e-tendering system (In-Tend) for the administration of the procurement process, meaning contractors must register with the system to be able to express an interest.
Warwickshire follows Hertfordshire waste partnership and Harrow council as one of the first local authorities to tender a waste-related contract via e-auction.
Harrow used BravoSolution to sell 100% of its dry recyclables in a 12-month contract to Viridor in September 2012, with three contractors initially invited to submit sealed bids stating how much they were willing to pay per tonne for the material (see letsrecycle.com story).
And, in August 2012, Hertfordshire waste partnership used a forward e-auction to tender the receipt and processing of paper recovered from kerbside collections, which was awarded to UPM Kynmene for a minimum two-year contract.
Warwickshire hopes the competitive environment of an online auction will increase the bidding figures for the material; Hertfordshire achieved an income that was 25% more than the market average as a result of online bidding.
Competitive
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Warwickshire project manager David Whitehouse said the process would allow the council to generate a very competitive price for material.
He said: We were encouraged by regional investment by Improvement & Efficiency West Midlands, and we thought it would be quite interesting to pilot one of these e-auctions in Warwickshire. BravoSolution has been holding e-auctions for several years, and it is starting to gather pace.
We should be able to generate a very competitive price – the process is underway and we now have several notices of interest. If this is successful we will extend it to other materials such as ferrous and non-ferrous metals.
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I will be very interested to see what kind of reaction we will see if we get a competitive price, which could spur other councils to do the same.
The deadline for receipt of tender is March 3, with the auction scheduled to take place on April 1.
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