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

 

 

 

 

 

BURNING COMPOSTABLE WASTE IS ROTTEN!

People who say it is good to burn compostable waste as it creates renewable energy are talking rot !

In the city of Derby UK a waste gasification incineration plant is under construction and one of the driving forces behind the development are government bungs known as ROCs for energy generated by burning biodegradable waste.
You can read more about ROCs and the Sinfin Lane waste gasification plant here-
 http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.com/2018/05/get-ya-rocs-off.html
 

Judging by the amount of odour complaints about the plant before the plant is fully operational there is certainly something rotten about the proposal.

The council in Derby changed to a Conservative administration in May 2018 and part of their electioneering was to state they would return to a free garden waste collection service - after the previous Labour council removed the free garden and food waste service which had run all year and replaced it with a charged for service (£40) for a garden waste only part year service.
With the prospect of a return to a free service brings with it the ability to also accept food waste in the cities brown bin recycling scheme. Ever since the free collection was removed the council still continued to send garden waste to Vital Earth at Ashbourne in Derbyshire which runs an in vessel composting process which produces a sterile product from garden and food waste.
The key point here however is that when there was a charged for service the council could not collect food waste in the same recycling bin because it would be considered that the council was also charging for food waste collections - which is not legal under government regulations on waste disposal. Common sense should say that the food waste was an extra to the charged for garden service - which could have been seen as good as it would have diverted biodegradable waste from landfill and incineration but here at the Rubbish Blog we don't set government regulation.
The public of Derby will now be expecting the election pledge by the now Conservative council in the city to be put in place as soon as possible and there is talk of this happening in 2019 however little evidence of this proposal is currently in the public domain.
Residual waste inspections carried out in the city in Summer 2017 have led to a better understanding of what is the composition of the waste Derby residents place in their black residual waste bins.
What we know is that around 44% of the waste heading to the Sinfin waste incineration plant is a mix of garden and food waste.
So what is likely sinking in with Derby City Council is that there is 44% of their waste being shipped to be burnt in Sinfin which could potentially be processed a lot cheaper at Vital Earth in Ashbourne where the councils garden waste was composted in 2017/18 for just £31.53 per tonne after the council got a generous rebate of £10 per tonne of waste shipped to the site.
But how can the council make use of this cheap service - which would also boost the cities recycling rate by a vast amount when they are contractually required to feed the Sinfin waste incineration plant?
They are not only required in the contract to procure waste of specific characteristics, organic content, moisture content etc but also when investing a lump sum of £25 million into the project the lower the amount of waste sent to Sinfin the higher the per tonne cost the council faces when we divide the payment by tonnage sent which then undermines the councils business case.
Almost ten years down the line with the incineration plant still not handed over not only does the plant itself stink but so does the project the council has signed up to.

©SIMON BACON 2018
 

 



Something is rotten in the brown bin!

THE £40 BROWN BIN CHARGE 
 A LOOK BACK AT THE DECISION TO BRING IN A CHARGE FOR GARDEN WASTE IN DERBY UK.
 FIRST WRITTEN AT THE TIME THE PROPOSAL WAS PUT IN PLACE BUT NOW INCLUDES UPDATES.

         Derby told DEFRA they had in use 89,215 brown bins in 2012/13.

It isn’t clear if that includes homes who had a 2^nd brown bin.

Council accountants confirmed to me that in 2012/13 19975.11 tonnes of waste was handled via the brown bin at a cost of £49.13 per tonne – As confirmed by Russell Sexton at Derby City Council.

This is a cost of £981,451.63 plus a collection cost of a claimed £880,000 as confirmed by Malcolm Price at Derby City Council via email giving a total of £1,861,451.63

If these figures are correct that produces a cost per household in the last financial year to the council of £20.86 for a full year including food waste which clearly isn’t £40 without food waste for a part year.

If we presume there are 100,000 bins as is often considered to be the case that becomes £18.61

That waste in general has to be collected whatever bin lorry collects it – once in the RRS / SHANKS residual waste contract that waste would cost at least £100 per tonne to handle – ie circa £1,997,500 WITHOUT THE COLLECTION COST.
 2015/16 costs were at least £107.40 per tonne and at a recent Full Council meeting it was quoted as £120.00 in 2016/17.

 An FOI request was made for all documents relating to the brown bin £40 charge proposal.

Documents show the council expected a 10% fall in recycling – based on the 2012/13 recycling rate of 45% will mean a plunge from 48% in 2010/11 to 35% in the future.
The 2015/16 recycling rate for the city was actually 32.3%

The image below shows the fall in garden waste composting via the brown bin - prior to the service termination this material included a percentage of food waste composted via the brown bin service.

 

The documents sourced via FOI show a planned charge of £20 per bin with £10 for the 2nd bin, this does not reflect the now applied £40 and £20 for the 2^nd bin charge.

The final options appraisal further noted a charge of £20 and £10 noting this is relatively low compared to other councils.

It notes that the city will FAIL to reach the 2020 government target of recycling 50% of waste.

The council had planned to move recycling to the black bin and residual waste to the small blue bin.

The council was aiming for a 20 - 30% uptake in the chargeable garden waste collection.

A number of options were put forward for waste management – it is suggested in the documents that option 6 be selected

 

“Option 6 To adopt a citywide garden waste charging policy based on 20% participation and implement a single bin comingled recycling collection service using the black bin. We would also rollout a weekly residual waste collection service using the smaller 140L blue bin

The blue bin supplied to residents has a capacity of 140 LTR which is relatively small and does not have the capacity to contain all of the recycling material currently presented at the kerbside. It is therefore proposed that the blue bin is swapped over with the black bin. The black 240 LTR bin will be used as the recycling bin and the blue bin will be used for the residual waste. A weekly residual waste collection service will be rolled out citywide.

A charging policy for the collection of garden waste is proposed which may prove unpopular with customers; however 30% of Local Authorities already charge with others coming on stream.

 This option will produce savings of £1.14m and will streamline our service delivery with the implementation of a single pass collection system for dry recyclables. This will prove very popular with our customers as they will no longer have to use red, orange and blue sacks. A weekly residual waste collection service will also prove very popular.

Recommendation

"Taking the four major factors into consideration it is recommended that Option 6 is introduced.”

The reality is NO considered option matches what has finally taken place as
 option 6 is not what actually happened.

The reality was that while the brown bin itself stayed the same, new larger blue bins were issued and small blue bins were removed. Dry recycling stayed in the blue bin and residual waste in the black bin.

FOI data showing a cost break down suddenly shows a £40 plus £20 charge for bin number 2 or more.
 No FOI papers show why this figure changed from the planned £20 and £10 charge.

The council in the FOI data consider that 20,000 residents would sign up for the £40 charge with 1 in 4 of those agreeing to pay a further £20 for a 2^nd bin.

IN 2015 CUSTOMERS FOR THE BROWN BIN SCHEME STOOD AT 12,083 AND NOT THE 20,000 CUSTOMERS THE COUNCIL EXPECTED.

CONCLUSION

It is quite clear that garden and food waste was being processed far cheaper than the charge proposed and later applied and the vastly higher rate if it moves as it has done to the black bin residual route. The charge is shown in council papers to be lower than that now applied. Large volumes of waste will now be diverted from recycling and composting driving down the cities recycling rate and diverting waste to landfill and incineration and will likely be fly tipped.

They have managed to select a waste option that was not even in the options considered.

THERE IS SOMETHING ROTTEN AND IT IS NOT JUST WHAT IS PUT IN THE BROWN BIN!

 

©SIMON BACON 2017