If only the council had some money to invest!

Derby used to have an events venue called the Assembly Rooms which was closed after a fire in the attached car park and so Derby now lacks a suitable venue for theatre and music because the council claimed the venue needed to much work doing to it after the fire. This has been the subject of great debate since the fire. The council proposes to replace the venue but is not able to say when due to lack of funds.

The local newspaper the Derby Telegraph ran this story on the venues closure and proposed replacement.

 http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/3-000-capacity-concert-venue-1-600-seat-theatre/story-28928499-detail/story.html 

 

IF ONLY THE CITY HAD SOME MONEY TO INVEST!

 

Derby used to have two large swimming venues open to the public and supporting local aquatic clubs allowing them to compete at local and international level.

Sadly due to suggested government cuts this has led to the council closing the Moorways swimming facility - a corner stone of local swimming provision dating back decades. The pool closed to the public at the end of March 2016 and residents are now struggling to continue their swimming as the cities other main venue has a faulty roof.

The local newspaper the Derby Telegraph ran this story on the pools closure

http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Sadness-Moorways-pool-closes-public/story-29028675-detail/story.html

 

IF ONLY THE CITY HAD SOME MONEY TO INVEST!

The city of Derby is slowly collapsing due to claimed government cuts forcing the council to reduce its budget to make savings. Money has to come out of specific pots to fund things which is regularly pointed out by the council.

IF ONLY THE CITY HAD SOME MONEY TO INVEST!

Well the reality is the council WOULD have money to invest in either of the projects if it had not jumped in with both feet with the Sinfin waste incineration plant project which first raised its head in public circles in late 2008.
A joint contract between the city and Derbyshire County Council will see Derby hosting the plant AND paying £25 MILLION towards the plants construction - which is 50% of the council build cost.
Now is it fair that the cities residents have to host the controversial plant AND pay 50% of the council payment for construction?
But it gets worse as the city does not collect enough residual waste to provide 50% of the plants feedstock and as recycling increases that in turn stops the city from being able to provide 50% of the feedstock.
You can read one of my previous blog posts to learn more about that situation by following this link

http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/derby-city-council-public-are-being.html

But what does it actually mean to us in the city? what it means is at the time the proposal was born the council - and so whoever was in charge sold the residents down the river by agreeing a joint contract that was in the County Councils favour and this continued up until the councils signed the full contracts - meaning that political parties of various colours in the city have played a part.
Someone in power somewhere was told city waste would spiral upwards and it would be good value for the city. At the same time the council was potentially in a better financial position than it is now but clearly potential changes in waste prediction or council finances were not considered carefully enough leading to the position we are now in.

SO WHAT ABOUT THE MONEY?

Derby is paying £25 million for a 25 year contract period at the start of the waste incineration plants operation which is a payment towards the plants construction. That's obviously £1 million per year for the processing of 95,000 tonnes of waste - 50% of the plants through put if you consider Derby is paying 50% of the build payment.
Based on 2014/15 data from DEFRA the city only collected 79,320 tonnes of residual waste leaving the city 15,680 tonnes short. At a rate of £10.53 (£1,000,000 divided by 95,000 tonnes) we as a city are paying £165,110.40 per year to much for the project - or £4,127,760 over the 25 year investment.

SO LETS GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING!

We need a new performance venue and we need a new swimming pool but the city has no money!

WELL WE COULD HAVE HAD £4.1 MILLION TO INVEST WITH BETTER PLANNING AND NEGOTIATIONS.

In an example of why we are in the mess that we are in in the city I attended the Derby City Council Full Council meeting on March 2nd 2016 to ask Cllr Asaf Afzal specific questions on the unfair share the city is paying. Even when the £4 million over payment was highlighted to Cllr Afzal he still considered that it was good value for the council - ignoring the fact that we share those claimed savings with Derbyshire County Council we are STILL over £4 million worse off.

WITH A COUNCIL WITH ITS HEAD IN THE SAND ON THE ISSUE THERE IS LITTLE WONDER WE ARE PAYING AN UNFAIR SHARE AND SO LITTLE WONDER WE HAVE NO MONEY FOR EVENTS VENUES AND SWIMMING POOLS!

©SIMON BACON 2016

If you dont pay - Derby City Council wont take it away!

In the past the residents of Derby UK as part of their council tax payment got a free garden waste collection service allowing them to dispose of garden and food waste all year. Sent to an in-vessel composting plant (IVC) at Vital Earth in Ashbourne, Derbyshire garden and food waste was then processed in a controlled manner to produce compost and soil improver products.

You can read more about that here http://vitalearth.tv/index.html

 

Sadly in an attempt to save money - which the council maintains it has done the council removed the free service in late 2013 and replaced it with a garden waste only April - November service from 2014 onwards. To date the material continued to be sent to Vital Earth at Ashbourne but the impact on the cities recycling rate has been devastating leading to a drop to just 32.9% for the year 2014/15 from a high of 48% in 2010/11.

The killer part of this is the service is no longer free costing £40 per service year with any further bins costing £20 for collection. The council expected to gain 20,000 customers by 2015 for the service but only gained 12,083 customers.

 

There are other options to consider and those include taking your garden waste to the Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) site at Raynesway but this is not always convenient compared to a kerbside collection and on weekend days it is known that the site rapidly develops a long queue winding its way out to the main road - another example of the council not considering all the issues when implementing their money saving plan! To find out more about Raynesway HWRC site take a look here http://www.derby.gov.uk/environment-and-planning/recycling-rubbish-and-waste/recycling-sites/

But wouldn't it be better to take control of your own garden and food waste and to turn it into a free usable compost and soil improver to use at home in your garden? why spend £40 a year on a garden waste collection that does not last all year and does not accept food waste when you could spend that money on a compost bin or even just on materials to make your own compost bin that fits into your own garden.

Take my home example!

 

in my case I use an old garden incinerator which holds a reasonable volume of garden waste for a small garden and has air holes to allow your composting process to breathe! Holes in the container are open to debate but personally I like to have a few - plus in this case I was reusing a 2nd hand container.

 

 



When composting it is important to allow the heap to breathe by keeping the mix open to some degree. Don't just fill your heap with grass clippings and other squishy green material, try and make a blend of greenery from your house and garden mixed with some drier woodier materials - which can include paper and card, tissue, shredded paper etc which may in themselves not be ideal for recycling if they are shredded or contain some food contamination for example.

 

As part of a mix they can play a key role in making your compost a success.

 

Be careful when composting certain materials such as weeds and veg peelings because unlike an in-vessel composting plant which reaches high temperatures ideal for killing off perennial weed roots, seeds and things such as potato peelings which try and sprout a home composter may not reach the required temperature to kill off these more aggressive items. You don't want to spread your new compost on the garden only to find every weed seed germinates so try not to put large perennial weed routes in the compost bin or seed heads containing viable seeds. Another important thing to remember is the mix often needs some water to give all the beneficial bacteria the right damp environment to start munching all that garden waste.

For larger gardens you may well need more than one compost bin as the composting process can be a long job and you don't want to find your full up half way through the year!

 

So when is the compost ready you may ask - and thats a good question!

 

 A general rule of thumb is when the material is crumbly and black and you can no longer identify what it was before composting then its usually ready to use. Don't be surprised if the mix still contains some degree of twiggy material as this is not a problem if you are using the compost as a soil improver where it is dug in to improve soil structure and increase nutrient levels.

One thing to note is the term compost! compost can mean more than one thing and leads to confusion and errors when growing plants. You basically have compost you purchase from a shop which will be a blend of suitable materials and fertilisers and is suitable to use on a range of plants. Then you have compost from your compost heap which might better be described as soil conditioner or soil improver because its main use is as the name suggests is to improve the gardens soil structure while adding nutrients - it can be dug in or used as a mulch around plants and the best bit being its FREE!

 

Now you COULD also make use of it as a compost for potting but that is when greater care is needed as often the compost from your heap is to rich to be used on its own and it is common practice to blend it with other materials such as loam and leaf mould so as to make a more stable useable material. You basically have to experiment a bit if you want to use it for such uses.

 

What you can do with your newly produced compost is to run it through a garden sieve to grade out all the bigger material - returning it to further compost leaving you with a rich fine mixture which if kept out of the rain can be used when ever you want to plant in your garden.

 

 

The compost can then be applied to your garden to aid drainage, hold water in dry weather and provide nutrients and beneficial bacteria to aid plant growth.

 

 

You can find out lots more from the internet regarding composting but a fine place to start is here

http://www.homecomposting.org.uk/home-composting-mainmenu-26

 

 

©SIMON BACON 2016

A game of tag thats tag the recycling bin!

When it comes to waste disposal in Derby UK there can be nothing worse than going out to fetch your bin in only to find the green tag of doom attached to the lid!

 

 

 

This is the tag that the council binmen attach to your bin if you have done something wrong - you may have overfilled it or you may have made it to heavy or you may have put things in you shouldn't. Don't expect the bin man to mark what the issue is - you are expected to guess what the problem is.

 

Back in 2014 I published another blog post that focused on the proposal to remove kerbside collections from areas of the city due to claims of contamination which can be viewed here http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-decay-of-recycling-in-derby.html 

 

My blog has highlighted media coverage on the subject where kerbside collections were removed in areas such as Mackworth, Arboretum and Normanton wards of the city. The justification was that bins were contaminated leading to rejection of loads by Biffa the councils recycling provider. When I exposed that loads were not being rejected shortly afterwards Biffa conveniently started rejecting material.

Back in September 2014 my FOI request number 6346 showed that the contamination rate for the city was less than 6% at 5.8% and is shown below.

 

"How many loads of blue bin recyclables have been rejected by your contractor BIFFA at its Victory Road sorting facility in 2013/14

ANSWER: None, rejects are taken out during the sorting process. The average percentage of rejected material from the start of the new blue bin collection system on June 4^th 2013 to 31^st March 2014 was 5.8% "

NOW REMEMBER THAT PERCENTAGE - 5.8% CONTAMINATION FOR LATER !

     Where blue bin kerbside recycling was removed the replacement service - a restricted set of bring sites just became prime hot spots for fly tipping as shown below.

 

In recent weeks once again the council bin men in the Normanton ward of the city have been tagging bins in the streets. Some for lids being left up - where people try and recycle to much !

 

 

Others for questionable amounts of incorrect materials in the bins - or contamination to use the councils words. What the council misses is when tagging the bins they put that bin into limbo. The resident doesn't not know what they have done wrong because the council does not identify the actual issue but the council also will not empty the bin until the issue is addressed. What happens is we end up blighting communities with bins in limbo where the residents don't sort the issue and the council doesn't act. Is that really the way forward to improve recycling in the city - which has crashed to around 33%?

 





The council cabinet member when challenged on the extended tagging of bins in Normanton said that officers would look into it and empty those tagged in error but that they needed to maintain their stance on quality of material collected - siting recent load rejection by its contractor Biffa. I have not seen any bins being reviewed in this way.

So the council have removed kerbside blue bin collections from many streets in a number of communities to help reduce recycling contamination. Lets just remember that contamination rate for 2013/14 - 5.8% so what is it now ? remove the poor recyclers and surely that rate improves further.

 

ERRRR NO!

its now

16%

 

SO IT HAS INCREASED BY OVER 10%

This is confirmed in an email last week from the cabinet member for waste Councillor Asaf Afzal where he states

"Over the last 3 reporting quarters the average contamination was 16 per cent. "

 

CLEARLY THE COUNCIL DOES NOT HAVE A GRIP ON RECYCLING IN THE CITY.

 



 



©SIMON BACON 2016

 

Plastics fantastic - but always work to reduce and recycle it!

It was back in November 2015 I first engaged with Asaf Afzal - the cabinet member for waste at Derby City Council in relation to the recycling of plastic film material at the Raynesway Household Waste Recycling Centre. After all the media coverage of the carrier bag tax - the 5 pence charge for carrier bags at larger stores it got me thinking if such material can be recycled - and it can as other councils already accept such material at the kerbside or at bring sites then why is Derby not doing so?

It is now widely noted that the recycling rate in Derby has collapsed - much of it due to the garden waste scheme becoming a charged for service but then the cities rate has actually been falling for years since a high in 2010/11. More on that can be read about here

http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/recycling-going-dooooowwwnnn.html

This calls for an increase in the drive to recycle otherwise the council will fail to meet its 55% target by 2020 - a figure they already seem to be downgrading to 50% because they can see they wont make their enhanced target which it set with the County Council when coming together in a joint waste contract.

Now plastic film can be made from a number of plastic types but is commonly low density polyethylene commonly known as LDPE. This can be anything from a humble plastic carrier bag through to larger pieces of material such as what protects large white goods etc. It is important to recycle this material which replaces the use of new natural resources and also stops it from being landfilled or incinerated.

I therefore attended the Full Council meeting in Derby on November 25th 2015 to raise the issue of recycling such material in the city - which would boost the flagging recycling rate in Derby.

The question was as follows

 Question from Simon Bacon to Councillor Afzal 

The city council does not accept plastic film in the kerbside recycling scheme unlike some other councils in the UK. Plastic film needs to be recycled to keep it out of landfill or incineration.  
Can the public recycle plastic film types of plastic at the Raynesway HWRC site? 

The response was as follows

 

No, the public cannot recycle plastic film types at Raynesway The material is of very low value, is usually in small pieces and contaminated with food waste. This type of material can also lead to maintenance problems at the materials recovery facility (where materials are sorted and processed); the film becomes entangled in the belts and rollers leading to breakdowns on the processing lines.

The problem with Cllr Afzals reply was he was looking at the issue from a kerbside collection aspect instead of a dedicated plastic film skip at the Rayneway site sent to a dedicated plastic film recycler.

I followed up my question with a supplementary question placing greater focus on a dedicated skip sent to a dedicated plastic film recycler and he said he would look into it and speak to me outside the meeting.

 

THINGS WERE LOOKING POSITIVE!

OR SO I THOUGHT!

 

Giving it a few days I emailed Cllr Afzal in early December with views and information on the subject - including links to the recycling of such material at Suffolk HWRC sites. I got no response until late December when Cllr Afzal claimed he had not got my email. It was January 12th before he came back to me with a full response on the proposal.

He declined to put in place plastic film recycling at Raynesway and stated he had spoken to their contractors (the site is run under a contract with Resource Recovery Solutions Derbyshire Ltd who just happen to be building a controversial waste incineration plant in the city) and they had concluded that as it was low value and low in weight it was not viable to recycle the material and this issue was compounded by a suggested lack of space at the site.

It seems that Councillor Afzal and Derby City Council have lost sight of why we recycle! we do so to reuse materials to stop their disposal via landfill and incineration, to protect natural resources and to boost recycling figures - which are already in a dire position. 

In an interesting twist while reviewing the joint waste contract between the councils and Resource Recovery Solutions it was found that there was even a requirement to collect plastics separately INCLUDING plastic film at HWRC sites. Schedule 1 of the contract stated as follows.

 

Schedule 1 states

6.10.3 The Contractor shall provide capacity to segregate the following non exhaustive list of Contract Waste types for Re-Use, Recycling, Composting or Recovery:

 

6.10.3.10 Other plastic including film and carrier bags

 

So in black and white in the very contract that is controlling so much of the cities waste these days we have a requirement for the waste contractor to segregate plastic film and carrier bags.

What has been Councillor Afzals response when the waste contract was raised in relation to plastic film?

At this moment in time it is not viable to recycle this material. 

 

Once again an example of the council failing to grasp the need to recycle and so failing to reap the rewards of an increased recycling rate - which Derby is crying out for!

 





©SIMON BACON 2016

 





Derby City Council - The public are being robbed! Derby and its unfair share!

With just over a year to go until the Resource Recovery Solutions (RRS) waste gasification incineration plant is completed on the ex tannery site on Sinfin Lane, Sinfin, Derby we find that Derby City Council's thoughts are turning to the payment they will be due to make to their contractor Shanks as their share of the build costs from the joint waste contract with Derbyshire County Council. Due to enter service on April 1st 2017 - no seriously April Fools day the plants construction is well under way with the recent construction of the plants 55 metre high smoke stack that now dominates the local community - even glowing a sinister shade of red at night.

The stack is to the left end of the storage container

The new stack looms over the local bowling alley at night

 

A Derby City Council document submitted for the 20th January 2016 cabinet meeting shows that the council are already lining up their payment of £25 MILLION

 

So that's £25 million to be paid in just over a years time when the plant starts accepting contract waste - the total payment by the councils being £50 million paid as an equal share by both councils.

We know its being paid as an equal share because the waste contract tells us this - in the image below.

Now when paying an equal share in a relationship such as this you would expect the councils to be equal partners. Derby City Council - and so its residents already have to host the controversial waste incineration plant while the county faces none of the controversial issues such a plant brings.

SO IS THIS AN EQUAL PARTNERSHIP?

IT WOULD APPEAR NOT!

The Inter Authority Agreement between the councils sets out issues around what they call the NWTF which is the New Waste Treatment Facility - which is being built on Sinfin Lane. Most of us call it what it is - an incineration plant.

An equal partnership would be a 50/50 split in everything - from the payments the councils are to make through to the plants projected use.

While the councils are indeed paying equal shares do they get equal benefit?

 

Paying 50% of the council payment towards the build cost of the plant - £25 million should allow Derby City Council to send 50% of the waste to the 190,000 tonne a year plant.

BUT!

Derby City Council DOES NOT collect 95,000 tonnes of residual waste! 

DEFRA waste findings published in December 2015 for the year 2014/15 highlight that the city council collected 114,800 tonnes of waste BUT after recycling is taken into account it only collected 79,320 tonnes of residual waste! leaving the council over 15,600 tonnes short!

 

So why are Derby City Council and its residents getting the raw deal here!

PAY 50% OF THE BUILD CHARGE WITHOUT THE SAME BENEFITS OF YOUR PARTNER!

Once again the residents of Derby are being short changed - and at the agreement of their council! 

 

©SIMON BACON 2016

 

 

 

 

 

Recycling going DOOOOOWWWNNN !

Waste is a major issue across the UK, across Europe and beyond as globally we fight to save natural resources via recycling and composting. Europe has set a 2020 recycling target of 50% and is about to set an increased target of 65% by 2030 as part of its circular economy package. Here in Derby UK the city council joined forces with Derbyshire County Council to set a 2020 recycling target of 55% although it isn't clear if the councils will meet that target. For their part in this Derby City is consistently failing to boost recycling by removing the free garden waste collection and now removing blue bin recycling from areas of the city which has led to a dramatic decline in the recycling rate for the city which you can read more about here http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-decay-of-recycling-in-derby.html  .
The graph below shows the recycling rate for Derby UK since 2005/6 -

Reaching a high of 48% in 2010/11 the cities recycling rate entered a steady decline before falling an impressive 9% once recycling restrictions were put in place. This places Derby recycling back to pre 2007/8 rates. Lets Recycle magazine are now reporting that the recycling rate in Derby fell faster in 2014/15 than any other council in England ! You can read more about it here ! http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/derby-recycling-nosedives-after-council-axes-service/
The council really has managed to turn its recycling rate around because god forbid for them they were almost getting pretty good at it before someone realised with a waste incineration contract to be provided for recycling didn't really sit comfortably with such projects due to the requirement to procure waste to feed the beast.
The councils poor attempt to turn round the recycling by providing bring sites for the communities recycling was removed from has simply led to the development of fly tipping hubs

Even when people try and recycle at the bring sites they are restricted by the small opening for materials to be put in - meaning larger material such as cardboard boxes get dumped around the facility - which then attracts any amount of non recyclable waste.

Derby has a recycling target! when will the council wake up to this?

 

©SIMON BACON 2016

 

FOI - Freedom Of Information or Fear Of Informing the public

Freedom of information often known as FOI is currently a commonly used method of finding out aspects of your local councils business. We as council tax payers have a right to know what our taxes are being spent on.
It was with this in mind having noted recently that Derby City Council was facing charges from its recycler Biffa for contamination (which previously was not the case) that I set about requesting a copy of the contracts linked to the blue bin recycling scheme which I thought was a simple thing to do and expected few problems.
I asked for the following-

a copy of all current contracts relating to the blue bin material collected and its onward treatment - ie BIFFA etc.

The council had 20 working days to provide the requested information and I sat back and waited.
This is when the council started to play hard to get because on day 18 they decided they didn't know which contract I wanted and asked me to clarify this for them - I concluded this was a delaying tactic and so lodged a formal complaint - and clarified which contract I was interested in when responding to the councils FOI dept.
They then wheeled out another excuse to delay issuing what is only a contract linked to some recycling ! this time they said the following -
"In accordance with the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 - Regulation 7, Question 1 due to the volume and complexity of the request , we will need to extend the period to respond from 20 to 40 working days.  The revised deadline for our response is 21 October 2015."
So they had managed to stretch their response time to 40 days! what were they trying to hide!
Finally they gave their response - and it wasn't good news ! they partly declined to answer my requests siting commercial interests.
They said the following

"Your request has now been considered and part of the information you have requested in Question 1 is covered by an exemption under Freedom of Information.  We have attached part of the information however, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this part of the email acts as a part Refusal Notice.
The exemption applied is Section 43 – Commercial Interests  
We have applied this exemption because detailed costs cannot be disclosed as this would prejudice the commercial interests of both the Council and third parties.
Disclosure of this information would compromise future tenders and the cost of providing this service in the future could increase, as a result. Also, third parties could be commercially disadvantaged if their detailed pricing information was in the public domain.   
On balance we feel that the potential prejudice to the commercial interests of the Council and the other parties in disclosing this information outweighs the public interest in making it available in the public domain. It is therefore, not considered in the public interest to release this information because the cost of providing this service could increase in the future which could affect public services provided by the Council."

Now what struck me straight away was that this was a contract processing my rubbish using my money and I had a right to the facts. I already view the councils accounts so would know many of the facts they were looking to withhold.
So what did they do? well they issued a few documents relating to the processing of recyclables but then redacted large parts of the most recent correspondence between the council and Biffa - as shown below.

As you can see not only did they redact figures in the letter - which incidentally was relating to the contracts extension but also redacted whole paragraphs - so it wasn't possible to even work out what was being redacted.
These things are sent to try us but it is our right to know so there was only one thing to do - make an appeal to the council about the redaction.
If you make an FOI on a subject don't just accept the first result - they don't want to tell you their secrets so will try and fudge you with a redaction so set out why you should be issued a full copy of what you have asked for. In my case in the end I was successful when the Principal Information Governance Officer at Derby City Council found in my favour.
So what were they trying to hide? nothing more it would appear than the fact the more recycling that goes into the blue bin the less the council - and so us as residents pay via our taxes!
You would think this would be exactly what the council SHOULD be promoting to its residents - to inspire residents to recycle more but instead it hides the facts from the public by redacting aspects of the contract!
The unredacted letter appears below -

 

Why do the council fear telling the public the truth ! why do they fear FOI !

©SIMON BACON 2016