Issue - meetings

Question from Councillor Ashley Baxter:

Over the last five years, recycling rates in Lincolnshire have fallen from 52.8% down to 47.0% and in South Kesteven District they have fallen from 48.6% down to 43.2% which is almost as low as the national average.

In household recycling league tables, Lincolnshire’s ranking out of 351 local authorities has fallen from 44^th to 118^th. South Kesteven’s ranking has fallen from 88^th down to 172^nd.

Can the Scrutiny Committee please investigate why SKDC recycling rates have fallen so dramatically and what practical steps can be taken to promote waste prevention, recycling and composting in the District?”

Information taken from the following website: http://www.letsrecycle.com/councils/league-tables/201516-overall-performance/:

A question without discussion had been referred to the Scrutiny Committee from Council on 2^nd March 2017 from Councillor Baxter concerning the fall in recycling rates in Lincolnshire. He had asked that the Scrutiny Committee investigate why they had fallen in SKDC and any practical steps that could be taken to promote waste prevention, recycling and composting.

The Executive Manager Environment introduced the Business Manager Street Care Services who dealt with the operational side of waste services.  In order to understand the context of waste and recycling figures and the reason that they had fallen he gave Members some background information on wasteflows and what happens to waste, black bin, silver bin and green bin.  He circulated to Members three slides which showed residual waste, reuse, recycling/composting for the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership over a rolling 12 month period between March 2013 and March/June 2016.

The first slide showed a significant amount of residual waste going to landfill before the Energy from Waste (EfW) plant was built towards the end of 2013 at Hykeham. Once the plant was opened in Autumn there was a gradual increase in the amount of tonnage to the EfW and less to landfill to the extent that now the EfW was at capacity. Some materials which did not go to the EfW or landfill went to alternative facilities such as Ketton cement where they were still used as energy from waste and this total tonnage was increasing.  Tonnage that went to landfill was expensive at around £100 per tonne.

The next slide referred to recycling and composting/green waste figures which showed a decline of below 50% to 47%.   The next slide indicated the amount of recycling both from homes and including household waste recycling centres. Again there was a drop in recycling collected from homes but a slight increase in the amount of recycling sent to household recycling centres.

The recycling figures demonstrated a fall for the whole of those within the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership, SKDC was not an exception.

A range of reasons could be responsible for the decline.  The District Council used to receive recycling credits for the collection and treatment of waste which was an incentive from the County Council. However, the County decided to scrap recycling credits across Lincolnshire which reduced SKDC’s budget from between £500,000 and £750,000 per annum.  This was a significant impact to funding of the service at District level but which saved the County in the region on £2.7M.  The County let the contract but was responsible for marketing, promotion and education. 

One of the key issues with waste was contamination, when the District Council had the contract for the recycling service there was 10% contamination rate. Contamination figures currently stood at 25%.  New regulations and a new contract made it a challenge although the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership was trying to address the contamination issue.  Regulations governing quality control had been tightened and even a small amount of contamination had a significant impact.  Education was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45