Agenda item

Discussion paper of the Director of Operations

The Director of Operations introduced the paper, highlighting that the garden waste scheme was just one part of a package of measures to divert waste from landfill.  The scheme had been in operation for 9 months and as such a review of the scheme was considered timely. 

Take-up of the new scheme had been lower than anticipated based on the experiences of other authorities, with currently, just over 11,000 households having subscribed to the service and an average of 30 new orders being received each week since August.  There was an expectation that more householders would subscribe in spring 2012, but forecasting the level of subscriptions had proved difficult.  Importantly, whilst the income received was less than anticipate, the running costs were lower than budgeted.

As part of the review of the scheme Officers had surveyed 281 householders and obtained their views on the garden waste recycling service and potential alternatives.  He talked Members through some of the results set out in the paper. 

In response to concerns about price, it was felt that it would be reasonable and affordable to offer a discount for a fixed period to existing customers upon renewing their subscription or as an incentive to new customers.  Other authorities who had offered a small discount believed that this had a positive impact.

There was potential for a bag service in addition to the wheeled bins, but the waste would have to be separated as the bagged waste needed to be treated via a more expensive process and as such it would be less cost effective.  As a result the service would be limited to the streets listed in Appendix A, the hard to access areas with limited storage.  Using 75 litres compostable paper sacks, provided on a pay as you go basis and available for purchase at the Municipal Offices and the Depot or could be delivered for a charge.  The new or revised scheme would be publicised directly to those households to whom it would be available by a leaflet drop. 

The Director of Operations gave the following responses to questions from Members;

• It had been anticipated that 20,000 subscriptions would be achieved in the first financial year, however there was currently a 9,000 shortfall.  The monetary shortfall associated with lower subscriptions than forecast had been offset by increased recycling income.
• It was not expected that there would be a huge demand for the bag service given limited sized gardens in the streets to whom the service would be offered and as such smaller vehicles would be used in these hard to access areas.
• Consideration had been given to reducing the frequency of garden waste wheeled bin collections during the winter months but there was still a considerable demand and as such, it would be hard to justify this to all subscribers.
• The ability to charge for garden waste remained, despite the Localism Bill.
• Based on other authorities experiences it was originally felt that there would be little or no demand for a bag scheme.  However, since the wheeled bin scheme had been launched, some residents had put forward requests for a bag alternative and this was now being considered.
• The wheeled bins had a 240 litre capacity, compared to the bags which had a capacity of 75 litres.  Potentially requests for bags could come from areas that could have bins but overall the feedback on the wheeled bins had been positive.  Members were given assurances that the income received covered the cost of providing the service but exact figures would be provided outside of the meeting.
• Admittedly there was little to stop someone purchasing a sack and putting it in a street from which it would be collected.  Equally this would cost far too much to police to any further extent than monitoring who was purchasing the sacks.
• The Council had been actively promoting home composting for many years and to support this had made subsidised home compost bins available, which had been very successful and would be repeated again soon.  However, the figure of 169 for the first 6 months did not take account of those people that were using other means of home composting and therefore could be a wild underestimate of the number of people actually doing this in Cheltenham.

The Chair thanked the Director of Operations for his attendance and asked that the comments of the committee be formally acknowledged by Cabinet when it considered the final report on the Garden Waste Scheme on the 6 December 2011.