Agenda item

Report attached

The Committee received a report on the latest position regarding the Residual Waste Treatment Contract and other ancillary waste joint contracts and activities managed by South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Partnership (STWWMP).

The 2019/20 year end contract year performance was reported and across the contract year service availability was strong with plant availability 94.26% and turbine availability 93.11%. 89% of the 194,881 MWh of electricity  generated by Lines 4 & 5 was exported to the National Grid.

Both the contractual recycling and recovery performance targets were exceeded and the unprocessed landfill diversion rate was once again 100%.

No environmental issues were reported during 2019/20 contract year and all Incinerator Bottom Ash samples returned compliant results.

No further progress was reported with SUEZ’s potential construction of a sixth EfW Line at Haverton Hill.

The exercise to replace the Debt Service Reserve Account (DSRA) with a contingent Debt Service Reserve Facility  (DSRF) is still progressing.

The third Joint Insurance Cost Review (JICR) was previously submitted by Willis Towers Watson and reviewed  by STWWMP. Initial indications are that due to movements in the insurance market in relation to our technology the position is not as good as it has been previously. A response from STWER to the feedback previously provided is still awaited.

The Committee were advised that all three of the WTS were available for the entire 2019/20 contract period. Recycling outputs from the sites include segregated street sweepings, wood, scrap metals.

Routine maintenance of buildings, plant and control systems was undertaken as scheduled at all three transfer stations during the year.

The RWTC affords provision for SUEZ to help to improve local prosperity across the partnership area by promoting vacant posts within their facilities. Local vacancies are circulated to partner authority economic development services for circulation to their client bases. Vacancies are also highlighted at the Jack Crawford House and Campground Community Liaison Groups enable opportunities to be circulated across community contacts.

STWWMP remains committed to an ongoing programme of community education and engagement, managed by Groundwork North East & Cumbria (GNEC) at the visitor and education centre, the energy from waste facility, and through outreach activities held in local schools and community settings.

The final results of the 2019/20 programme were impacted by the coronavirus pandemic restrictions and the remaining activities that had been scheduled for late March were cancelled immediately.

Therefore, between April 2019 and March 2020, a total of 6,268 local residents, children & young people, and community group members took part in waste awareness events, activities and site visits to different facilities. Of this, 5,872 were held through outreach sessions in local schools and community settings.

Recently, the Visitor and Education Centre co-ordinator employed by GNEC submitted their resignation to take up an employment opportunity elsewhere. STWWMP are discussing with SUEZ and GNEC how a recruitment process to identify a suitable replacement can be undertaken in due course within the current pandemic situation.

No Community Liaison Group meetings were held during February or March.

The Joint Committee were advised that the MRF contracts continue to be monitored closely by the Joint Partnership team. Table A at Appendix B highlighted the 2019/20 year end performance for each partner authority for the materials collected in the kerbside ‘blue-bin’ recycling service, in comparison to service results since 2014/15. The results are also broken down into tonnages and percentage content to demonstrate  the levels of paper collected separately in the inner box and the comingled materials collected in the main section of the bin.

Comingled recycling tonnages in each partner authority have fluctuated over recent years but demonstrate that paper tonnages collected separately in the inner caddy have continued to fall year on year.

Appendix B, also contains Table B, which highlights MRF recycling and recovery rates (for comingled materials only) since Quarter 1 2018/19. Recycling performance has generally remained at similar levels in each partner authority.

Sunderland City Council continue to identify actions to help increase their recycling rates and reduce contamination rates, including direct engagement with the public. The rate shows a significant drop in the recovery rate to 17.39%. However, it should be noted that the method for calculating this data is now based on inputs into the MRF rather than outputs.

The recycling trail that commenced in February 2019 on a single collection round in both Gateshead and South Tyneside is enabling around 2,400 households to recycle paper and cardboard materials together in a separate, additional, wheeled bin.  Table C at Appendix B provided details of the tonnage of paper and cardboard (known as mixed fibre) that has been collected since the start of the trial.

Although the trial is taking place in Gateshead and South Tyneside, the trial feedback and results will benefit all three partner authorities and will be used when evaluating future service delivery models.

Table A at Appendix C highlights the year-end HWRC recycling performance for 2019/20, excluding inert materials, such as rubble.

During the 2019/20 contract year, the actual tonnage of recycled materials received at HWRCs increased in comparison to the previous year. However, the amount of residual waste also significantly increased which impacted on the percentage based annual recycling targets, which were subsequently not achieved.

The Committee were informed that the new WEEE regional contract continued to operate without incident during the remainder of the 2019/20 financial year.

The formal launch of the STWWMP WEE Repair and Reuse Project, originally scheduled for 18 March 2020 at the Visitor and Education Centre, had to be cancelled at late notice due to restrictions introduced because of the coronavirus pandemic. This also resulted in the two employees delivering the project being furloughed by GNEC. However, the project funders have agreed that STWWMP can extend the timeline for the delivery of the project to reflect the period where activities are unable to be delivered because of the pandemic.

A second project, focusing on kerbside WEEE recycling, will commence once the grant has been received from the funding body. However, this is still awaited due to further delays in the launch of the ‘Recycle Your Electricals’ campaign and the implications of the ongoing pandemic situation.