The council is currently tendering a 25-year contract that has been pledged 23.7 million in Private Finance Initiative credits from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The contract will cover the collection of municipal waste including kerbside recycling and composting schemes, street cleaning, residual waste disposal and treatment, composting and civic amenity site management as well as public waste awareness activities.
In the tender information pack, the council said: “The concept of an Ecology Village/ Resource Park is considered to be important in achieving the council's objectives through education and encouraging a higher recycling participation rate. The council will be looking to the private sector to propose their own innovative solutions to the council's objectives.”
Andrew Deacon, project manager at the council, explained: “With the Ecology Village, we are looking to build all the waste managment facilities together onto one site.”
The deadline for expressions of interest from waste management companies interested in the PFI contract is June 2, 2004. The contract is expected to commence on April 1, 2006.
In 2003/04 West Berkshire estimates that nearly 80,000 tonnes of municipal waste was produced in the area. Of this 79,000 tonnes came from the 60,000 households who recycled and composted a total of 17% and the rest was landfilled.
Targets
In addition to the targets set out the Landfill Directive for the diversion of biodegradable waste from landfill, such as a reduction to 35% of 1995 levels by 2020, West Berkshire has been set a challenging recycling and composting target to meet the PFI requirements.
The council said: “In order to meet DEFRA's conditions for the approval of PFI waste schemes the council is also seeking for the service to achieve a minimum of 54% recycling and composting rate for contract waste by 2020.”
Working on the PFI project with West Berkshire council are consultancy firms Entec as technical advisors, Bevan Ashford as legal advisors and Ernst & Young as financial advisors.
There are already several private companies operating recycling and waste management services in the area, including Biffa which operates the refuse and recycling collections, Waste Recycling Group which has a disposal contract, with SITA and Grundons both providing additional recycling services.
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