Wiltshire council is to name one or more successful bidders for its 165-190 million waste and recycling services contract in September 2014, with interested parties to submit detailed bids this month.
A list of potential suppliers has been drawn up by Wiltshire council after applications were received in October last year, with the eight-year contract divided into a total of five lots.
Wiltshire has confirmed that it will either award the contract to one provider if a suitable bidder is found, although each lot may be awarded to a separate contractor in order to encourage competition among the bidders.
The council has also confirmed that the contracts may be extended for up to a further eight years, which would see the combined value increase to as much as an estimated 330-380 million.
A tender evaluation report delivered by the Wiltshire council cabinet late last year stated: The services to be delivered from 1 August 2016 largely reflect those provided today. However, to encourage competition within a changing market, services are being specified within five separate contract lots. This should generate from one to five principal suppliers (not including sub-contractors) delivering services from August 2016.
The lots to be tendered by the council include:
management of recycling and transfer services
management of Council owned household recycling centres
garden waste composting services
treatment and disposal of residual waste (not suitable for treatment under the council’s contracts for energy from waste and MBT)
waste collection services
Prior to becoming a unitary authority in 2009, refuse and recycling collections were carried out separately by four district councils in Wiltshire, and the council currently operates its residual, garden, plastic bottle and cardboard wheeled-bin collections in-house in North, South and East Wiltshire.
Hills
Meanwhile, waste management firm Hills holds a contract to operate kerbside recycling box collections which includes paper, glass, cans, foil and textiles across the county as a whole, which was awarded by the former county council in 1996 and is due to expire in 2016. Hills has confirmed that it will be submitting a bid for the new contract.
Until recently, the council remained undecided whether to extend its current contract with FCC Environment by an extra two years, which currently operates fortnightly garden and residual waste collections in West Wiltshire (see letsrecycle.com story).
‘We believe that our reputation for innovative service and delivery over the past 18 years will stand us in good stead and that we can offer Wiltshire council the best solutions to its waste management requirements.’
– Mike Webster, group director of Hills Waste Solutions
But, in September 2013, the council confirmed it would extend the deal to expire alongside the Hills Waste contract to enable the council to invite tenders for an integrated waste and recycling collection service to be delivered by a single provider.
Commenting on the new tender, Hills group director Mike Webster said: We have taken the landfill diversion rate in Wiltshire from around 5% at the start of the contract to over 72% (2012/13) and with the addition of the tonnages processed at the new Northacre RRC using mechanical biological treatment this will increase to over 93% (2013/14).
We believe that our reputation for innovative service and delivery over the past 18 years will stand us in good stead and that we can offer Wiltshire council the best solutions to its waste management requirements.
The tender will not affect Hills two existing contracts with Wiltshire Council that for the delivery of 50,000 tonnes per year of household waste to the Lakeside Energy from Waste plant at Slough, and the other for 60,000 tonnes per year of household waste to the Northacre resource recovery centre in Westbury.
TEEP
The move to tender follows the councils waste management strategy to boost its overall recycling and composting rate of 46.10% with a high specification level service for Wiltshire that responds to TEEP requirements, despite projected cuts in central government funding of 22 million over the next four years.
The report adds: The councils approach to seeking tenders for both collection methods is designed to help mitigate the risks of failing to ensure adequate quality recyclables for the reprocessing market, leading to legal challenge. This approach was lent further support by recent correspondence from Lord de Mauley.
The report also mentions that the procurement process poses an opportunity for the council to collect a wider range of plastics beyond 2015 in order to comply with the EU Waste Framework Directive. At present, Wiltshire collect plastic bottles only at kerbside while rigid plastics have to go to household recycling centres.
A spokesman for the council said: We have gone through the high quality procurement process and shortlisted a number of suppliers. It is our intention to now tender the contract this month and award it in September.
Collections
In December last year, the council resolved to roll out new collection rounds in two phases under the current Hills contract, with the first due in April and the second in September 2014.
It hopes that the collections will increase efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, while creating total net savings of 350,000 for phase one and between 700,000 and 875,000 for phase two.
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