To receive a verbal update on Bin-It 123 from the Head of People, Performance and Waste and the Operations Manager for Street Scene and Open Spaces.
Minutes:
The Group received a verbal update on Bin-It 123 from the Head of People, Performance and Waste and the Operations Manager for Street Scene and Open Spaces.
This included the following information:
· Performance statistics gave a lot of cause for celebration. The Council had come 12th and 9th out of 197 district councils respectively for its recycling and residual tonnage that put us in the top 6% of all councils for its recycling rate and top 5% for the least residual tonnage placed out for collection per household. In addition the Waste Service was shortlisted for the LGC Environmental Award and although it didn't win it was a great achievement to get shortlisted and more importantly testament to the excellent service that it provided day in and day out to residents. Congratulations were due to all operatives and to the wider street scene team.
· The challenge was now to move from a message of compliance to greater recycling and there was a number of ways that the service was looking at how to do this particularly around engaging with residents to further increase their recycling and reduce residual tonnage.
· One of the ways Bin-It 123 had worked was by the capturing of hearts and minds and motivating the community to do it. Involvement with town and parish representatives has been key. Site tours, including the infamous opening of the black bag to show food and plastic and all sorts of other things including paper cupboard that should be in the proper recycling container, radio adverts and a lot of other different work as well had been undertaken.
· An open workshop was held a several weeks ago to talk about future appetite and direction. There were some really good ideas from Members including stickering of recycling containers. The service needed to look at how it enhanced its permanent education resource using a team of recycling advisers. A reassessment of enforcement would be undertaken to potentially bring in more stringent practise utilising new strategies, for example, CCTV.
· The service needed to ensure it was effectively positioned to take the above challenges forward. There were a number of external challenges on the service at the moment including Environment Agency regulations which basically stipulate what the service needed to store waste and recycling in cab technology, new EPR funding arrangements, managing collection of plastics and other materials from March 2027 and all of this work was underway.
· The communication strategy was really important including messages to emphasise to the district not only the importance of recycling but also the individual responsibility and contribution to this environment mission so that every household had an opportunity to contribute to reducing its carbon footprint.
· The more that was recycled, the more income that the Council received and therefore this not only made the running of the service cheaper, but also allowed it to invest more money into other areas and other services which was vital.
· Local Government Reorganisation provided an excellent opportunity for the Council to speak to its neighbouring authorities about their own collection practise and the education enforcement and resident engagement strategies that they use and which Mid Devon may want to look at and utilise.
Consideration was given to:
· The importance of keeping an open mind with regard to how the service could be run in the future having assessed how it was run by other neighbouring local authorities, for example in East Devon and other models used in Wales. Financial pressures needed to be borne in mind as well as having an understanding of the different ‘types’ of geographical area’s.
· The need for greater recycling and an aspiration to do away with the black bin altogether at some stage in the future.
The Chair requested that the Group’s thanks and congratulations be forwarded to the entire Street Scene Team for their impressive achievements and continued hard work.