The brown bin charge is dead! Long live free recycling!

The brown bin recycling charge has been binned in the city of Derby UK!

Turning the tide of charges for garden waste collection which is gradually crippling recycling in the UK

 (as recycling is based on weight and garden waste is a heavy component of any recycling scheme)
 

The Conservative council which was voted into power in the May local election put forward in their election manifesto a return to a free collection.

Prior to this the poor residents of the city had to pay £40 for the service which didn't even last all year!

Back in 2012/13 the council collected almost 20,000 tonnes of garden and food waste which was sent for in vessel composting outside of the city via a free service.

Fast forward to 2017/18 and that tonnage had shrunk to less that 4,400 tonnes of waste composted which was clearly linked to not just the £40 charge but also the fact food waste was no longer accepted and the service was restricted to specific 32 weeks of the year.
 

The charge had devastated the recycling rate at Derby City Council and it is now hoped this will help recycling turn a corner in the city.
 

The return of food waste collections in with the garden waste collection over the full 52 week year takes us back in a positive direction which was previously removed because food waste cannot be processed in a charged for service due to government regulation.
 

Recent residual waste surveys carried out in the city by the council identified that a massive 44% of waste gathered in the cities residual waste bins was garden and food waste.

In 2017/18 the city paid just £31.53 per tonne for its garden waste to be composted in an in vessel process at Ashbourne in Derbyshire.

This compares to the same waste entering the Resource Recovery Solutions residual waste contract where total contract waste costs for 2017/18 were roughly £91.57 per tonne -
a difference of around £60.
A return to a recycling rate of 20,000 tonnes could save the council over £900,000 per year! the council could save a great deal more if it diverted the 44% of compostable garden and food waste from the residual waste bin into the brown composting bin.
Well it could but there is a catch !

Currently the residual waste is sent to be burnt in a D10 disposal gasification incineration plant in Sinfin, Derby.
The council is paying a set fee of £25 million towards the plants construction - which is hopelessly behind schedule.
The less waste that the council sends to that plant the more per tonne fee that becomes when you add the cost to the per tonne charge the council will pay.
The council has contractually agreed to send waste of specific characteristics to be burnt in Sinfin and that includes an agreement to supply waste of a minimum biodegradable content - along with other specific requirements.
The following statement from the brown bin cabinet document shows how the incineration plant contract has its claws into the garden waste recycling project.

Any reduction in biodegradable content sent by the council to the Sinfin Lane plant in Derby will be looked on in a bad way by the operator of the residual waste contract - Resource Recovery Solutions (Derbyshire) or as we know them RRS because in a twist they have been awarded ROCs - Renewable Obligation Certificates for electricity generated from the burning of the biodegradable waste - ROCs have a value and RRS will be able to bank them!
Paying a government bung for burning such waste in an inefficient disposal plant basically rewards FAILURE!

 ©SIMON BACON 2018

 

 

 

 

 

Hidden contracts! the public strikes back!

On 22nd October 2015 I Simon Bacon the writer of this blog applied to Derby City Council in Derby UK via FOI / EIR requesting the following information relating to the controversial joint waste contract linked to the highly controversial Sinfin, Derby gasification incineration plant.

 1- ALL CONTRACTS BETWEEN DERBY CITY COUNCIL AND DERBYSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL RELATING TO THE JOINT WASTE CONTRACT.

 2- ALL CONTRACTS BETWEEN DERBY CITY COUNCIL AND ITS PARTNER DERBYSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL WITH RESOURCE RECOVERY SOLUTIONS (RRS) AND / OR ITS PARENT COMPANY SHANKS / INTERSERVE.

 3- ALL CONTRACTS RELATING TO THE USE OF THE SINFIN TANNERY SITE - OWNED BY DERBY CITY COUNCIL BY RESOURCE RECOVERY SOLUTIONS (RRS) OR OTHER PARTIES.

 Derby City Council responded on 17th December 2015 in which it disclosed some of the requested information but withheld some of the information in part 2 of the request claiming the adverse affect to the confidentiality of commercial information. What was provided was a series of documents with many redacted (blacked out pages) where the council and its supporters - Derbyshire County Council and Resource Recovery Solutions edited the documents to hide certain aspects of the documents which they did not want the public to see.
Here are a couple of examples from schedule 14 of the contract which covers the performance mechanism.

 

As you can see from the images when they redact information they really black it out!

 

I appealed this ruling and Derby City Council carried out an internal review and responded to me on December 24th 2015 that it maintained this position.

Having considered this battle of wills further I made a complaint against Derby City Council on 22nd February 2016 to the ICO - the Information Commissioner. The ICO then gave full consideration to my strongly put appeal while engaging with Derby City Council further.

The council and its fellow contract members attempted to paint a picture which included impacts on interests of Resource Recovery Solutions (RRS) siting that the withheld information included price mechanisms, volume allocations and proprietary contract tools and processes.

The council argued that RRS operated in a competitive waste market and disclosure would allow competitors to work out the deal and how it was structured resulting in a loss of its competitive edge.

The council went on to argue that the Sinfin waste sites novel nature has the capacity to become a "BEACON OF EXCELLENCE"

 

ENERGOS the developer of the incineration equipment being installed into this beacon of excellence had gone into administration in mid July 2016.
 

It was suggested that the competitors of RRS would benefit from the unique know how contained within the information and thus undermine the ability of RRS to utilise this for its own benefit damaging its commercial interests.

Other than the Derby, Glasgow and Milton Keynes projects that have moved ahead there is little evidence of other projects moving forward using such technology and in recent weeks a proposal to install similar tech on the Isle of Wight has been dropped - so not quite the beacon being suggested.

The ICO asked the council to provide a new schedule setting out in each instance the councils rationale for withholding information so that it matched the specific parts of the documents. Having been given further time to do so the council advised it had approached RRS and Derbyshire County Council but that they had declined to provide any further arguments or clarification.
The ICO in their ruling considered that the lack of clarity in the councils submissions suggests that the council either does not properly understand what the effects of disclosure would be or has struggled to meet the evidential and explanatory burden set by the exception.
 

 On 4th August 2016 the Information commissioner at the ICO RULED IN MY FAVOUR instructing Derby City Council to disclose the withheld information to myself as the complainant.

 

In early September 2016 Derby City Council was in no mood to lose their battle again a resident of Derby so instructed its legal team to appeal the ICO ruling and so work started on a legal appeal.

I as the original applicant was also in no mood to lose the battle and so registered as a party to the appeal which WAS set to be heard later in 2017 in London UK. After a delay of a number of months as two similar cases passed through the tribunal system the Derby case began to move forward.

In recent months a similar case relating to an incineration plant in Gloucestershire and its associated contract pretty much ruled in the original applicants favour - while the council in that case attempted to put a brave face on things while putting some spin on the ruling the applicants in Gloucestershire are very happy with the result of their battle. A similar ruling regarding an incineration plant contract in Worcestershire also placed pressure on Derby City Council who were then set a date by the General Regulatory Chamber who were running the appeal by Derby City Council where the council had to acknowledge if it proposed to continue with their appeal.

So two other appeals went against the local councils which forced Derby City Council into a corner over their appeal against the ICO ruling.

 Did they continue or did they rollover!

 

THEY ROLLED OVER AND BAILED OUT OF THEIR APPEAL ON MAY 11TH 2017

The councils legal team made the following statements when terminating the councils appeal.
"

"Our clients have been carrying out a fresh, detailed, careful and considered review of the disputed information with all interested parties taking into account the passage of time and developments since the initial request and the commencement of the Appeal.

Having concluded that reassessment and made recommendations accordingly, the interested parties have respectively reached agreed conclusions and advised the relevant public authority which has been able to make an updated decision on disclosure as a result.
Our clients have invested a great deal of time in reaching this decision and it is not one that has been taken lightly. Despite considering that much of the disputed information remains commercially sensitive and confidential, given the time that has now passed since the original request for information by the applicant and taking into consideration the current stage the facilities are now at, the likelihood of probable harm from disclosure of the disputed information into the public domain has reduced.
As a result our clients have asked us to confirm that the disputed information will be disclosed in its entirety. "
 

 Derby City Council admitted at a recent full council meeting that they and their supporters - Derbyshire County Council and RRS / SHANKS had already spent £20,000 on their fight to keep aspects of the Derby and Derbyshire waste contract secret - hidden away from the public. In a strange twist they appeared to be suggesting to the local newspaper the Derby Telegraph that they had NOT paid £20,000 to stop me from gaining a copy of the contracts as reported here http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/derby-man-wins-right-to-see-controversial-sinfin-incinerator-contract-but-council-to-appeal/story-30288364-detail/story.html

 

The council was simply playing with words - £20,000 was spent but the city council only paid a third of the payment!

What are they trying to hide from the residents of Derby and Derbyshire ? what is so controversial that they redact whole pages of their waste contract ?  In these times of austerity and government cuts surely the public have a right to know what their taxes are being spent on.

NOW WE HAVE THE CHANCE TO FIND OUT!

©SIMON BACON 2017

 

Are we permitted to comment ?

You may not have picked up on the fact that the Sinfin incineration plant - due to open in September 2017 after a delay due to the technology developer going into administration (fills you with confidence) has applied to the Environment Agency (EA) to burn nearly 18,000 tonnes more rubbish than it was granted to burn.

If your a local person - who may have objected in the past you would have expected the Governments Environment Agency to go out of their way to flag this proposal up to you because you have previously engaged with them on the sites permit.

Obviously there are grave concerns regarding this application to burn more waste - the site next to the air quality management area (AQMA) will have an even greater impact than is already proposed. Derby is now being targeted by DEFRA due to poor air quality and so surely greater scrutiny needs to take place with such applications.

 

Resource Recovery Solutions (RRS) / Shanks Waste claim it will not have a greater impact than was passed by the EA but all that consisted of was models of emissions - nobody will be carrying out real tests at ground level - the Environment Agency will not do so, Derby City Council - responsible for air quality in the city will not do so and the developer RRS / Shanks will not do so even after I requested they take on the example of UBB in Gloucestershire who are building an incineration plant and have agreed to fund air quality monitoring around their site before and after construction. When asked RRS/ Shanks refused.  

The important story here - other than something so controversial burning even more than planned and nobody will monitor the impact at ground level is that

 RESIDENTS HAVE NOT BEEN TOLD THAT THERE IS A CONSULTATION TAKING PLACE ON THIS WHICH RUNS TILL JANUARY 20TH 2017.

When the permit was first applied for a number of years ago - and later granted residents were able to have their say. The EA held local consultations and residents could write in with their views - so the EA should have their addresses which you would hope they would use to write to the residents to advise of this latest proposal. It was also advertised in the local press in the Public Notices etc. PEOPLE WERE AWARE !

Move onto late 2016 and out of the blue I heard from the UK Without Incineration Network (UKWIN) that they had seen an application on a government website.

I looked into this and sure enough found the following

https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/psc/de24-9gf-shanks-waste-management-ltd-consultation/

 What became very clear very quickly was that nobody was aware of this application - finalised in early December 2016 BUT ACTUALLY IT TURNS OUT submitted in JUNE as was later admitted by Will Spurr from Shanks Waste via the Community Liaison Group (CLG)

 they didn't even tell the CLG even though the CLG had met between June and December.

When challenged in recent weeks the EA have admitted that the only place the consultation is promoted is on their government website! HOW DOES THAT ENGAGE WITH THE PUBLIC ? hiding important consultations away on a government website that 99.99% of the population would never look at !

It shows that the councils, Shanks Waste / RRS and the Environment Agency have a total disregard for public views and opinions 

 WHY?

 

The councils knew because their contractor is Shanks Waste / RRS - but didn't tell the public!

 

Shanks Waste / RRS  knew because THEY were the applicant - but didn't tell the public!

 

The Environment Agency who knew have done the very least they could to tell the public!

CONSULTATION ANYONE !

 

©SIMON BACON 2017

Dont put it in the recovery position !

It was a simple innocent question that I put to Resource Recovery Solutions at a meeting of the Sinfin waste incineration plants Community Liaison Group (CLG) meeting back in early 2016.

 

We were part way though a presentation by a representative of RRS / SHANKS in relation to what they teach school children they visit at schools across Derby and Derbyshire or tours the construction site with and I was feeling somewhat uneasy that the councils were paying a company that was being employed to burn vast volumes of waste to then also educate school children what we should do with waste.

So at that point I thought hey ho lets just pop a question across to the the RRS / SHANKS  just to satisfy myself that they were in fact educating school children correctly and that I was being unfair to judge them. It was at this point that a representative of RRS / SHANKS (named in the meetings official minutes) told the meeting that they told children it was a recovery plant.

WOW THERE ! WOW THERE ! now hold on just a minute ! did they say it was a RECOVERY PLANT ? really ! a RECOVERY PLANT ?

 

Now burning waste is a funny old game because doing so can be considered to be one of two things when it comes to considering the process in the waste hierarchy it is considered a disposal process unless it can prove otherwise in which case it is a recovery process.

 The waste hierarchy just for clarity is a set of processes when dealing with the whole issue of waste that must be considered as it takes in best practices to deal with waste in the most sustainable way.

It starts with REDUCTION / PREVENTION where the aim is to reduce what waste we produce so managing materials in the best way - by not using them to start with ! Then we have RE-USE which is where whenever possible we take items that are now scrap and attempt to use them again in an innovative way to keep them out of landfill and incineration. Then comes RECYCLE which is when materials at the end of their life if not reused are reprocessed into new items by making use of the products raw material make up. As we head down the hierarchy we get closer to less sustainable methods of waste management such as incineration and landfill - neither of which are good methods of waste disposal. This brings us to RECOVERY which is when those handling waste start to use wastes for energy generation such as in incineration plants which meet an efficiency target called R1. These are plants which can show that their efficiency of energy generation meets a strict target and often requires such plants to export large volumes of heat or steam to customers to meet that efficiency rating. Finally we come to DISPOSAL which includes inefficient energy generation in incineration plants and also landfill.
In a twist to things a plant that meets R1 efficiency targets is STILL a disposal plant until it is granted recovery status.

Now rather conveniently for the UK government they use a waste hierarchy image as shown below which I consider to be incorrect as it blurs the lines between recovery and disposal in the waste hierarchy by using questionable wording.

The image shown below is the image in question and is used by DEFRA in their document

Energy from Waste a Guide to the Debate dated Feb 2014
 

 

Now reviewing the image it would be very easy to be misled into thinking that any incineration plant - including gasification is recovery in the waste hierarchy if it generates energy. The image appears to imply this is the case and as this image is commonly reproduced a gross misunderstanding takes place!

It is only when you take the chance to read other areas of the document that the issue of R1 and its application are considered and at that point you realise the difference between recovery and disposal. Obviously there are some who favour this blurring as it allows them to paint a picture of a project that makes it conveniently sound better than it is.

To aid you readers below is produced a series of statements from DEFRA from the document in relation to R1 and what is known as D10 disposal.

 

Recovery or disposal – the meaning of R1

47. As described above the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) sets out the waste hierarchy and enshrines it in law. It requires that a waste management route defined as recovery should be used ahead of an alternative that is classified as disposal. Exceptions can be made (see below) but this general principle makes it important to know whether a process is considered recovery or disposal. 

48. Historically the Waste Framework Directives have included annexes which set out lists of what are considered to be recovery or disposal operations. Each is given a number and a letter: R for recovery, D for disposal. In the current directive the classifications of particular relevance to energy from waste are: • R1 – Use principally as a fuel or other means to generate energy • D10 – Incineration on land 

49. What this means is that where waste is burnt as a fuel to generate energy it can potentially be considered a recovery operation (R1) but where the purpose of incineration is to get rid of waste, it is considered D10 and hence disposal.  All municipal waste incinerators were and are deemed as disposal activities (D10) unless and until they are shown to meet the requirements of R1. This is why the term R1 often crops up in the debate about how good an energy from waste plant might be and how it compares to other options. 

50. For municipal solid waste, which includes all the waste collected from households, the EU has gone further by defining what it considers to be sufficient for recovery status under R1. The WFD includes a formula relating to the efficiency of the combustion plant. A municipal waste combustion plant can only be considered to be a recovery operation under R1 if it generates energy and the plant meets the efficiency thresholds calculated using the R1 formula

SO THAT IS THE OFFICIAL BLURB FROM DEFRA ON RECOVERY OR DISPOSAL PLANTS AS GOVERNED BY EU DIRECTIVES - WHICH STILL GOVERN THE UK SINCE BREXIT.

So returning to what the RRS / SHANKS representative said they teach students the plant is. they stated they teach students that the plant is a RECOVERY plant - which raises the issue of R1 as noted above.
When we consider R1 and the claims of the RRS / SHANKS representative we know what they are teaching children is false because at the 2nd planning inquiry the developer had to admit that their plant fails the R1 test in its standard mode.
If you tell children something that is false then in general it is usually considered a lie.
It is a lie in this case because staff employed in waste disposal and waste management will know the requirements of the waste hierarchy

 IT IS THEIR JOB.


©SIMON BACON 2016

Reaching a tipping point !

The Raynesway tip in Derby has reached a tipping point in relation to usage.

The operation of tips - often know these days as Household Waste Recycling Centre sites or HWRC sites for short in Derby and Derbyshire was handed to Resource Recovery Solutions (Derbyshire) Ltd often referred to as RRS a number of years ago now. The operation of the sites which span the county of Derbyshire forms part of the joint waste contract which is linked to the controversial Sinfin waste incineration plant in Derby UK.
 

The councils pay RRS to run the sites and RRS dispose of the waste via whatever route they see fit. They hand that job to HW Martins who appear to run the sites for RRS. The councils pocket some money for waste electricals which are recycled but it appears any other income from recycling is not pocketed by the councils - and so we give money away.
 

The Raynesway HWRC site in Derby is the only recycling site the residents of Derby can take their waste for disposal to. As the city expands one thing that doesn't expand is the Raynesway tip but one thing that DOES expand are the queues that build outside the site of residents waiting to empty their cars. The reason behind these queues is open to debate but one thing is for sure, the controversial £40 brown garden bin charge applied to Derby residents has led to an increase in people looking to dispose of garden rubbish at the tip. This was predicted a number of years ago by myself at a Full Council meeting. The risks were ignored and now along with other issues such as an expanding city and residents from outside of the city using the tip, the HWRC site and the surrounding road structure can no longer cope.

The Derby Telegraph has given the subject of the traffic chaos at the tip pages of coverage over time highlighting the impacts it is having on local businesses with even the suggestion it is causing rubbish to be dumped in areas around the site. plans were published for a change on the site so that more cars would be able to queue on the site although this was recently dropped - mystery surrounds this but the council claim they are working on an alternative.
An out of the box suggestion was suggested by myself to help deal with the situation in the form of a webcam viewing the road to the tip - as is used in Birmingham so that residents can view the queue allowing them to decide if its an ideal time to attend the tip to beat the queues. While published in the Derby Telegraph the council does not appear to have run with this suggestion.

There are 10 HWRC sites in Derbyshire - 1 of those is in Derby and the other 9 are in the county - one of which is run by waste management company SITA - the rest being run by RRS.
Derby as a city continues to expand and areas surrounding the city which are technically in the county become parts of the city by default as residents consider themselves to be from Derby - even if technically they are not. As time passes this puts an ever greater strain on the cities single tip leading to ever greater queues at the tip. Residents in the county living lose to Derby may consider that it is better for them to visit the city tip instead of their own which may be many miles away. Only recently I met a South Derbyshire resident who uses the Raynesway site in Derby because technically her tip was many miles away in Bretby. She said "why would I drive that far when Raynesway is so close?"

Derbyshire County Council publish on their website population estimates for the county and city. They predicted that in 2014 the population would be

DERBYSHIRE 779,800 (with 9 tips)

DERBY 252,500 (with 1 tip)

This is shown here
http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/community/about_your_county/population/population_estimates/

So while Derby is struggling to get by with one tip for over a QUARTER OF A MILLION residents the county on the other hand is lording it up with one tip per 86,644 residents - based on County Council population claims.

BUT NOW IT GETS WORSE

The Derby Telegraph are now reporting in their latest reports that Derbyshire County Council are looking to ban Derby residents from county tips but the city does not propose a similar ban. To read more on that subject check out this Derby Telegraph story
http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/no-plans-to-ban-people-from-outside-derby-using-raynesway-tip/story-29571778-detail/story.html

BUT HOLD ON!

THIS IS THE SAME COUNTY COUNCIL THAT WANTS TO SHIP LARGE VOLUMES OF ITS WASTE TO BE BURNT IN THE CITY OF DERBY FOR THE NEXT 25 YEARS.
FUNNY HOW THE COUNTY DOESNT THINK TWICE ABOUT SENDING ITS WASTE TO THE CITY WHILE BANNING THE CITIES RESIDENTS FROM COUNTY TIPS.


©SIMON BACON 2016