Community Liaison Group Minutes

Community Liaison Group - 13 May 2025

Notes from the meeting of the Community Liaison Group on Tuesday, 13 May 2025 at 6pm at the Manvers site.

Attendance

Non-members

Apologies

There were no apologies.

Written updates from Biffa, BDR, and the CELO had been circulated previously. Brief summaries and further updates were given verbally at the meeting and CLG members had the opportunity to ask questions.

1. Welcome and introductions

The acting chair welcomed everyone to the meeting The acting chair said he was happy to chair the meeting pending CLG agreeing a new chair from the group.

2. Notes from the last meeting on 3 December 2024

These were agreed as a true record.

3. Issues arising

There were no issues arising.

4. Biffa BDR update

The Biffa BDR Contract Director summarised and updated his written report. It was reported that the Council inputs year on year were increasing more than expected:

22/23 = 207,700t

23/24 = 209,400t

24/25 = 211,760t

The site had accepted just over 5,000 tonnes of third-party waste between October 2024 and March 2025. Recycling performance for FY24 was 13.9% and ended FY25 at 14.3%. The continued performance of organic fines recovery had been responsible for the improvement. This had led to slightly better green energy production from the CHP. Glass and stone recovery remained low due to the need to maintain high-quality levels.

Following the fire at the Barnsley transfer station in April 2024, the facility had returned to ‘normal’ (fully operational) operations in January 2025. All work had been completed on budget and with no interruption to service.

Ferrybridge FM1 had just completed an annual shutdown with some tonnage being sent to other off takers. This had been done to enable the facility to continue to operate and to maintain continuity of service to the councils. This was a normal and budgeted process that the councils accepted.

The transition into Biffa was well underway and the integration process was progressing well. Signage had been changed, branded work and PPE wear had been issued. The operation was now ‘Biffa BDR.’

Biffa, Contract Director

5. The Councils’ (BDR) Waste Team

The BDR Manager summarised and updated his written report. The BDR councils aimed to successfully deliver waste services and collect all waste streams as scheduled.

Heavy snowfall in early January had seen delays in collections within that week for Doncaster and Rotherham as they had to catch up some collections on later days. All collections had been made within the week.

Barnsley had been affected considerably more due to a combination of heavier snowfall and their introduction of new mandatory Driver Operational Safety procedures that had seen crews needing to take longer to complete rounds.

To compensate for the backlog Barnsley had postponed garden waste collection re-commencement from the originally planned 1/3/25 to 1/4/25. Barnsley was now back to normal collections, although the new mandatory Driver Operational Safety procedures were still seeing extended collection days.

All councils continued to seek improvements and efficiencies in their current collection service. These included: -

All three councils had procured new disposal contracts, including kerbside recycling, bulky items, fly-tipping, business waste, and garden waste - ensuring compliance with new government legislation.
Continued review of kerbside collected routes and rounds, aiming to achieve optimisation to include the increased numbers of households/new build seen in each borough, whilst ensuring the most cost-efficient routes that crews can take to achieve saving on fuel and time and reducing the carbon footprint.
Testing of alternative fuel collection vehicles – electric, hydrogenated fuel and hydrogen.
Introduction of smaller vehicles to help gain access to back alleys and narrow lanes.
All had either introduced or were looking to introduce initiatives to tackle and prevent contamination of recycling through resident engagement and education, and suitable enforcement action.
Continued drafting of a South Yorkshire Municipal Waste Strategy.

From 1 April 2025 the Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) had reverted to their longer summer opening hours timetables. (These were different for each council and would see earlier opening hours and later closing times due to increased daylight).

As had been previously advised the government had announced new waste initiatives and changes to its environmental policies. They were introducing Extended Producer Responsibility (October 2025), and a Deposit Return Scheme (October 2027), but had also announced a new “Simpler Recycling Policy”. Details from the government to confirm aspects of the policy had been received.

It had been reassuring to see that the majority of the BDR councils’ current collection methods and materials accepted, had met these new legislative requirements.

The BDR councils had obtained an exemption from the requirement to collect food waste separately due to the Bolton Road waste treatment facility already meeting the aims and diverting this waste from landfill and into compost like output.
Doncaster had introduced pots, tubs, and tray recycling kerbside, and submitted a TEEP assessment to collect fibre in with DMR.
As with most councils nationally, the BDR councils had expanded the range of materials to be collected from commercial premises (commenced 2025, a year before the Household Requirements).

The councils were working with the contractor on updates and changes to the facility to meet contractual requirement and environmental permits. These included work on the anaerobic digestion pasteurisation, ammonia scrubbing system, reduction in emissions, enhanced fly management/suppression, and infrastructure improvement/repair work.

In October 2024, the PFI waste treatment contract had been purchased from Renewi PLC by Biffa PLC. The BDR council team had been working closely to scrutinise the sale and subsequent management of the contract, undertaking due diligence. It was confident the acquisition had had no detrimental effect on the high standards of the contract managed and run by the existing staff or had a detrimental effect on the residents of the region or the BDR councils. The contract specification and requirements had remained the same under the new owners and the BDR councils had not seen any changes to service delivery. They were looking forward to Biffa’s new input and hopefully improvements to the running of the contract.

Two of the CLG members commented they felt there had been insufficient public information explaining changes to plastic collections in Doncaster. It was suggested information about the changes could have been affected by the local elections held in Doncaster in May and the need for the council to adhere to national publicity regulations in force during election periods.

A CLG member asked if there were plans for the kerbside collection of Vapes. The BDR manager said collections were not included in the current collection contract but that Vapes could be taken to HWRCs.

Action: BDR Manager to update CLG on possible introduction of cross border use of HWRCs.

BDR Manager.

6. CELO update

The Assistant CELO officer summarised and updated her written report.

Site tours

Since the previous meeting, the team had delivered nine site tours. Feedback had been positive. Places were filling up fast for the next couple of site tours. Booking for the tours was through the booking form on the BDR online website.

Education sessions

Since the last meeting, the site had hosted an explorers’ group and a cub pack in the visitor centre for the Rubbish Adventure workshop and visited two assemblies at a local primary school for Global Recycling Day. Some updates were being made to the education webpage and educational resources. A booking form had also been added to the website for schools and groups to enquire about and book education sessions.

Waste composition analysis

In March, waste composition analysis had taken place. This was a bi-annual sampling of residual kerbside, trade, and household waste recycling centre waste and kerbside recycling. The data from this sampling was used by the councils and the CELO team to look for future areas of focus and potential campaigns.

Social media campaigns

Christmas

Over the Christmas period, messaging promoting reducing waste and correct recycling had been shared.

Food Waste Action Week

Food Waste Action Week ran from the 17 to 23 of March. The main focus of the messaging had been buying loose fruit and vegetables to prevent overbuying and help reduce plastic packaging waste.

7. CELO Plan 2025-26

In March, a new CELO plan for 25/26 had been agreed. This included the addition of another part-time assistant CELO to the team, which would cover the gaps from the existing team. The recruitment process was due to commence shortly.

The main focuses of this year’s plans were:

Recycling contamination
Communications campaign encouraging residents to put items in the correct bins based on the advice given by the councils and not the packaging.
Vapes, batteries and small WEEE campaign
Highlighting the need for safe, correct disposal of batteries, vapes and small WEEE items including scoping trials of community WEEE disposal options.
Waste reduction and reuse - messaging and promotion
A lot of the messaging would be based on the Keep Britain Tidy new waste hierarchy which puts greater emphasis on waste reduction and moves away from the mindset that recycling alone will solve all issues.
Supporting national campaigns
This included International Compost Awareness Week (May), Recycle Week (September), and Food Waste Action Week (March).
Food waste reduction campaign
This would be phase two of the campaign, a continuation from the campaign which ran in 2022/23 and 2023/24.
Education workshops, talks and tours
This included a minimum of 12 site tours a year, bringing some community talks to the visitor’s centre, and outreach to schools and community groups.
Social media and website content
The CELO team continued to post consistently on their Facebook and Instagram social media accounts on a variety of topics including food waste reduction, home composting, repairing, and re-fashioning, and E-waste. They would also continue to ensure that Waste Less South Yorkshire and BDR online were kept up to date. These tasks would run alongside existing responsibilities including waste composition analysis, complaint mitigation, and the CSR fund and volunteer hours.

Assistant Community Education Liaison Officer

Communications report

Over the past six months press releases had been issued covering key waste reduction topics as identified in the CELO Plan.

These included:

Tips on how to reduce waste and improve recycling over the Christmas period
Promoting public visits to the Manvers site during 2025/26
Supporting Food Waste Action Week in March which encouraged the purchase of loose fruit and vegetables to help reduce food waste
Supporting the International Compost Week campaign in May to encourage people to home compost.

Press releases were posted on the BDR website and circulated to the three local authorities and work continued with local authority communications and waste teams.

JWSMedia.

8. Any Other Business

A CLG member praised the quality of the public visits offered at the Manvers site. She had attended a recent visit which had received very positive feedback from participants who had found it interesting and informative.

The BDR Manager said the Manvers site had recently received a visit from a delegation of waste disposal experts from New Zealand who were keen to learn about the innovative methods used at the plant.