BDR Waste Partnership

PFI Waste Treatment Facility – Community Liaison Group meeting on Tuesday, 10 May 2022 at the Manvers site.

Attendance:

Non-Members:

Apologies

Were received

Written updates from Renewi, BDR, the CELO and Stratiji 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 chair welcomed everyone to the meeting, including representative from JWS Media who will be providing communications support following the retirement of representative at Stratiji.

2. Notes from the last ‘virtual’ meeting on 1 February 2022

These were agreed as a true record.

3. Issues arising

There were none.

4. Renewi BDR Ltd update

The Renewi BDR Contract Director summarised and updated his written report. After a quieter January and February, the number of positive Covid cases increased in March with a total of six staff members testing positive. In April this increased by one to seven infections, four of which have now returned to work.

Waste inputs to the facilities continue to taper towards pre-Covid tonnages. The forecast for this financial year is approximately 217,000 tonnes of contract waste. In the last quarter (Q4 FY22) we received 53,398 tonnes of contract waste. The total waste handled was 57,322 tonnes which includes garden and third-party waste which sit outside the contract framework.

The recycling performance was reasonably strong in the last quarter with an overall performance of 15.18% of material recycled. This is a good output performance when considering the Bolton Road site only processes residual waste. Another key driver in the process, moisture loss, was also positive in the quarter. Historically there is a seasonal dip in moisture loss over the winter period but this year the plant achieved 29.58%. This is the best performance for four years.

The project to reinstate the de-dusting stack following damage sustained in storms at the end of January has been delayed by an estimated eight weeks because of fabrication issues. Following inspection of the silencer element of the stack, the decision had been made to manufacture a completely new section incorporating additional protection against high winds. The stack was scheduled to be reinstated by the end of May. BDR Contract Director to report back to CLG on reinstatement progress.

The selection process for candidates for our apprenticeship programme is complete. Our first new apprentice is expected to start in June with day release arranged to attend Barnsley College. The second apprentice will start later in the year.

Two shutdowns are scheduled this year at the Ferrybridge EFW facilities. FM2 will shut down in May for 21 days and FM1 will do the same in October for 14 days. The dates are dependent on the availability of components and specialist labour from within the UK and overseas.

A CLG member asked about job vacancy levels at the site. It was acknowledged there is an industry skills shortage being felt locally and nationally. The company intended to offer the two new apprentices a permanent role on completion of their training.

Action: Quarterly figures on waste received and amount recycled to be reported at each CLG meeting.

Action: Report back on the reinstatement date for the de-dusting stack.

5. BDR update

The BDR Manager summarised and updated her written report. The BDR Councils continue to successfully deliver waste services and collect all waste streams as scheduled. There remains a significant pressure on collections across the three Councils due to a national reduced availability of HGV drivers, recruitment and training plans have been put into place but there are long waiting times for newly trained drivers to take their HGV driving tests.

All three Councils’ garden waste collection services have re-commenced or increased to summer collections frequency. All three Councils do not anticipate any disruption to their services this year. Rotherham MBC has reduced the price of subscriptions for existing customers to compensate for two missed collections in 2021 caused by a temporary suspension of the service due to a shortage of crews because of widespread Covid isolations.

Councils saw an increase in household waste over the last two years because of a change in households’ domestic situation because of Covid. We are now seeing a tentative lowering of household waste tonnages and it is hoped that the trend will reduce back down to pre-Covid levels. This may be because people are returning to the workplace and working less from home or an effect of the cost-of-living crisis and rising energy and food bills leaving less disposable income. All councils remain confident that they will be able to collect and treat the waste.

Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) continue delivering a full normal service, and from April through to the end of September all have now moved to longer summer opening hours. The Councils are currently reviewing what HWRC provisions can be delivered in anticipation of when the current contract to run the service is renewed in October 2023. They are hoping to issue a public consultation to gain an understanding of how residents perceive the HWRC.

The Environment Bill entered UK law in November and secondary legislation from the Act is anticipated to be laid in Autumn/Winter 2022. It will be this secondary legislation that will drive policy and legislation changes which will have a major impact on Councils and how they must deliver their waste collection and disposal services. After four major consultations around the Resource and Waste Strategy, the Government has only published one set of findings and recommendations (in respect of Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR). It is anticipated the remaining reports will be published in Spring 2022.

The Government have launched several more consultations to shape resource management in the future. These include changes to Carriers, Brokers and Dealers legislation, digital reporting, Environmental Target setting and UK Emissions Trading. More consultations are expected as reports from previous consultations are published in the future.

CLG members wanted reassurance the renegotiation of the HWRC contracts would not lead to service cuts. Group members restated their previous request that when the HWRC contracts were negotiated, there should be consistency across the councils so that BDR residents could use HWRCs in all three areas. They felt the councils should examine if the HWRCs were in the right places and offered a service that was easy to use to avoid incidents of fly-tipping.

CLG were advised the local authority HWRC consultation ran until late summer if they wished to take part. The results of the consultation would feed through into the new contract negotiations. Members were also able to contribute to the DEFRA consultation currently taking place.

Action – provide a link to the consultations in the CLG meeting notes

Defra - Citizen Space

6. Community Education Liaison Officer

The CELO summarised and updated her report. In March, we participated in the national Food Waste Action Week campaign.

A major three-year Food Waste campaign is planned in partnership with the councils. The campaign will include a detailed analysis of bin waste in small, sample BDR areas and surveys of residents. Interventions designed to reduce food waste will then be trialled and further analysis undertaken. The intervention measures will be assessed for effectiveness with a view to using the data collected to roll out a campaign across BDR.

The second half of the Love Your Clothes campaign took place in March making the campaign reach just under 250,000 impressions across all our social media platforms.

Four projects have been selected to fund as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility fund in February. They are:

• Mexborough food bank (£3,000) To assist with the continued operation of the food bank in the Mexborough area including collection of ‘waste’ food from supermarkets. – Pending submission/approval of documentation
• Darton East Community fridge (£1,000) To introduce a second community fridge in Barnsley. – Pending submission/approval of documentation
• Yorkshire Bike Shack CIC (£1,000) To run training sessions to repair and recondition old bikes to safe, road-worthy condition, run in-school bike maintenance sessions and promote sustainable travel. Also being funded by SUEZ environmental fund. – Funds transferred to project
• Community Connect CIC (£1,000) To increase accessibility to their community sensory garden to increase their provision to people with mobility issues. – Funds transferred to project

In person site tours and education visits are now back on and are already proving popular. In March, we provided ten sessions with 683 young people and three site tours for 15 people.

The CELO Plan for 2022-23 has now been approved and we have already started on the delivery of this. This year’s plan was formed with help from the Councils who expressed their most important waste priorities. The plan is formed of primary topics, which will be delivered regardless of the outcomes of the resource and waste strategy for England consultations, and secondary topics which are subject to change following the consultation results and continuation topics that we are continuing from last year.

A home composting campaign started in May and will include top composting tips and a competition. Members of the community who are doing something to reduce, re-use and recycle their waste will be showcased on our social media.

7. Communications update

Press releases have been issued to local and regional print and broadcast media on DIY re-use, Kids’ re-use, Food Waste Action Week at the beginning of March and the benefits of home composting, with the opportunity for people to win state-of-the-art home composters. The campaign is timed to coincide with International Compost Awareness Week from 1st to 7th May 2022. The common theme running through all these campaigns is to reduce waste, save money and help the environment. Details of all the campaigns appeared on the BDR website, and on local authority websites. The next press release being planned will be to announce the winners of this year’s Renewi Corporate Social Responsibility Fund once due diligence checks have been completed.

8. Any other business

Following the end of remote CLG meetings during the Covid pandemic and a return to face-to-face meetings a member of the group asked that an updated CLG list, showing residents and who they represent, and councillor members, be circulated.

Action – circulate updated list of CLG members to the CLG group. This will be actioned at the end of May once the councils have updated their list of members serving on external bodies.

A CLG member asked if there had been any increase in flies as we move into the warmer weather. It was reported by the Operations Manager that the numbers were the same, or slightly lower than last year. Treatments had only just needed to be started.

The CLG member reminded the meeting there had been complaints last year about high numbers of flies at a nearby business. There was a discussion about the investigation carried out into the complaints by the Environment Agency and the involvement of the local MP John Healey. As a result of the strict control measures in place at the BDR site the EA stated they did not believe the BDR site was the source of the flies and that they were looking elsewhere in the area. An unpermitted waste operation was found to be operating nearby. Following his visit John Healey issued a press statement commenting on the investment made in fly treatment at the BDR plant, the reduction in complaints and the fact the EA did not believe the site was responsible for the problem with flies.

The CELO, who was acting chair for the meeting, said it was six months since a CLG member had been chair. She asked if any member would like to take on the role in future. Because of the intake of new members, it was decided to allow a settling in period and look at the issue again in future.

9. Date, time, and venue for next meeting

This will be a face-to-face meeting at the Visitor Centre at Manvers on Tuesday, 9 August 2022 at 6pm.