Agenda item

Ander Zabala, the Recycling Manager of Hackney Council gave a presentation on recycling in Hackney borough. A copy of the presentation is interleaved with the agenda.

In the discussion the following points were made:

·         Hackney Council provides a comprehensive service borough wide for both street level properties and estates. In 2013, the Council introduced green sacks to low rise properties.  There was a recognition that green boxes would not be suitable for over 14,000 properties without frontages.

·         The Recycling Manager advised the participation rate of green sacks across street level properties was an average of 84%, whereas participation rate for food waste was 34%.  He stated that it was noticeable that participation rates was low in deprived estates, which produce high levels of waste but recycle the least.

·         In response to a question about the vehicles collecting waste or recycled materials, the Manager informed the Committee that the decision to move from source separated collection to a commingle collection (green sack) allowed environmental waste operations to use older or used waste vehicles for recycling. These waste vehicles have one compartment. This has resulted in the extension on the life of the waste vehicles, as the older ones can be for recycling which is lighter than waste. The Recycling Manager acknowledged that the use of green sacks rather than green boxes had resulted in faster collections by the crew and a reduction in traffic congestion.

·         The Recycling Manager advised that Hackney Council employed the services of an external consultant to assist in developing five possible waste restriction collection, modelling scenarios with the aim of increasing the recycling rate, the operational resource impact and carbon impact.

·         Projects were undertaken to consider the participation rate, waste composition and restriction modelling. The analysis of data obtained from 300 households indicated that food tonnage remains the largest component by weight in the waste stream; the weight of recycling material had decreased since 2008 and that contamination was not an issue in dry and food streams on street level.

·         In light of the low recycling rate in estates or high rises which account for over 50 % of properties in the borough a corporate programme was set up in 2014/15 to improve low performance levels on estates. The Recycling Manager informed Members that the Estates Recycling Programme involved a range of interventions, from phase 1 to phase 3. Phase 2 being closing chutes and building new bin stores.  

·         In response to a question on the sustainability of recycling rates and participation on the Estates, the Recycling Manager advised that the outcomes from the pilots on the three estates involving 1000 residents would be reported in the spring of 2018. 

·         Members were advised that on the three estates where the trials are ongoing and the chutes have been removed, a decision was taken that both waste and recycling bins would be sited next to one another in other to change the behaviour of the residents. The Manager acknowledged that since the trial commenced it was noticeable from the available data, currently for one out of the three estate trials, that recycling rate had gone up and the amount of waste was down

·          The meeting was informed that the budget for the Estates programme is £0.5million per year, which is mainly to allow closure of the chutes and the building of new bin stores. The Manager advised that the other two estates trial tonnages are expected by Q4 of 2017/18.  However if the Council were to close all chutes, then 600 new bin stores would need to be built in the coming years.

·         In response to questions about fly tipping especially with large waste such as furniture and large goods in the public areas, the Recycling Manager informed the Committee that this was handled by the enforcement team. With regards to the littering and amenity of bin stores, he advised that cleansing of such storage areas was managed by the Housing services now that it had come back in-house. 

·         With regards to engaging with supermarket on recycling, the Recycling Manager advised that this was more of a central government issue although Hackney Council had worked with Tesco and Charities on recycling issues. However it was not regarded as core to their operations.

·         Members were advised that Hackney residents continue to receive green sacks every 3 months which are delivered by operatives/crew. Residents had the option of ordering the green sacks online when their stock of green sacks is depleted. In terms of community engagement, the recycling team delivers several events per year, engages with residents via Hackney Today, and they are now using social media advertising to engage with the younger generation.

·         With regards to special projects such as the food waste campaign, the Recycling Manager informed the meeting that Hackney Council undertook a borough wide outdoor advertising campaign in 2014/15 which resulted in a 30% increase in tonnage and the Council was recognised as the 2015 National Recycling Awards Winners.

·         In 2006 Hackney Council recruited Green Champions to promote the service to neighbours and record issues for the recycling team to act upon, however it has not been active for over 7 year. It is difficult to correlate the existence of green champions with increased recycling rates, but it can bring other benefits to the recycling team, such as increased interaction with residents, wider reach of recycling messages, and on-street recycling monitoring and reporting. Also it was noticeable that most of the champions had moved onto other green issues of interest. The Manager advised that lessons learnt from having champions was that appointment for such roles should be time specific, for example a green champion network to start and end within a 12 month period.

·         The meeting was informed that in October 2016 Hackney Council received £638,000 from DCLG to provide rewards scheme for residents who recycle. The three year programme resulted in 110,000 doors being knocked with a 35% contact rate and about 28,000 residents signing up to the programme. Residents were offered local discounts and cash offers of £40 & £100 vouchers and the option of supporting charities of their preference.

·         In response to concerns about penalising residents for failing to participate when compulsory recycling was brought in 2007, the meeting was advised that this was never applied.  In most instances the officers would engage with the residents and sanctions would only have been imposed as a last resource.  The Council has been successful in obtaining prosecutions in extreme instances of fly tipping. Members were informed that government legislation makes it more difficult for the Council to penalise residents but in any event Hackney Council prefers education and engagement.