Sutton Council has approved plans to outsource waste collection and street cleaning services from next year that will see borough households have a new weekly food waste collection service and almost double the amount of recycling capacity.

The plans to outsource services have been developed by the four boroughs in the South London Waste Partnership – Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton.

The maintenance of parks, cemeteries and ground maintenance in Sutton and Merton will be under another contractor.

On 1 August 2016, Sutton Council endorsed:

• Veolia as the recommended preferred bidder for a contract to provide a waste collection, street cleaning and winter gritting service across the four boroughs. Subject to approval from the other boroughs, the new service will start in Sutton in April 2017.

• The Landscape Group as the recommended preferred bidder for a contract to provide maintenance of parks, cemeteries and ground maintenance services to Sutton and Merton. Subject to approval from the other boroughs, the new service will begin in February 2017.

Sutton Council’s Environment and Neighbourhood Committee approved the preferred bidders at a meeting on 27 June 2016.

Sutton Council has agreed to the shared service approach with its neighbours due to the unprecedented Government cuts to the council’s budget, along with the opportunities to increase recycling rates. Currently Sutton has to save £31m from its annual budget due to Government cuts. The council’s annual budget is £148.4m.

The new contracts will enable Sutton Council to save £10.3m over the first eight years. It is estimated that Sutton’s recycling rate will increase from 37 per cent (2014/15) to 42 per cent by the end of the first year of the contract.

What it will mean for Sutton

Once the appointment of the approved contractors has been approved by all four boroughs, the process will enter a fine-tuning stage. Subject to this, the new services are likely to include:

Contract One (Veolia) – refuse, recycling, street cleaning and winter gritting

The changes will include:

• A new weekly food waste collection. Food waste currently accounts for 40 per cent of residual waste in Sutton. This will mean less waste to go to landfill, which is good for the environment.

• Increasing the amount of monthly recycling capacity per household from 480 litres to 810 litres. This includes a new smaller food waste bin collected weekly and an alternate-weekly collection of other recycling, with paper and card collected one week and tins, plastic and glass the next. The existing green recycling wheelie bin will be used to store paper and card, and a new recycling box will be provided for plastics, tin and glass bottles.

• Residual waste (brown wheelie bin) will be collected fortnightly rather than weekly. At present around 40 per cent of brown-bin waste is food waste, so the additional recycling capacity will mean residents will be able to reduce significantly the amount of waste in their brown bins.

• Garden waste collections for paying residents will be extended from nine months a year to all year round. This will be collected in the same green and brown wheelie bin.
• Street cleaning operations will be extended to 10pm from the current 6.30am start.

Contract Two (The Landscape Group) – maintenance of parks, cemeteries and ground maintenance

The Landscape Group will be responsible for the maintenance of parks, cemeteries and ground maintenance. Sutton Council will continue to own and manage borough parks and open spaces, while:

• Local Committees will continue to make decisions about replacing or adding equipment to parks, such as play and gym equipment and benches.
• Friends of Parks will continue to be involved, and will also monitor the standard of maintenance of our parks, alongside the council.

Cllr Jill Whitehead, Chair of the Environment and Neighbourhood Committee at Sutton Council, said:

“We are trying our best to manage the unprecedented Government cuts to our budgets, while also maintaining excellent services for our residents. The partnership with our neighbouring boroughs is an innovative approach to enable us to do that through weekly food collections and more opportunities to recycle. The new services will mean Sutton saves more than £10m by 2025, as well as increasing our recycling rate from 37 per cent (2014/15) to 42 per cent by the end of the first year. We will do this by almost doubling the amount of recycling available to households in Sutton, including the new weekly food waste collection, which will help us go towards meeting the One Planet Sutton targets.”

Notes

• Veolia is a UK leader in environmental solutions and The Landscape Group is a multi-award-winning horticultural, landscaping and grounds maintenance specialist.
• The contracts would be for an initial eight years. If, after eight years, the contracts are performing well, there are options to extend them for two further periods each of eight years by mutual consent.

• The procurement objectives are to reduce spend, increase income opportunities, and maintain high-quality services and customer satisfaction through environmentally-sustainable, carbon-effect, innovative solutions.
• One Planet Sutton is a vision for the borough where people lead happy, healthy lives with a fair share of the Earth’s resources. Sutton Council has committed to becoming a One Planet Borough by 2025. The council is working in partnership with a wide range of local voluntary and community groups to deliver this vision under the themes of cutting carbon emissions, cutting waste, valuing our natural environment, supporting healthy communities and supporting the local economy. Find out more about the One Planet Sutton initiative here.
• The South London Waste Partnership was formed in 2003 and has a proven record of providing cost-effective waste management services through the procurement of waste disposal, recycling and Household Refuse and Recycling Centre contracts.

Sutton’s proposed new waste collection service:

Service	Container	Collection frequency
Food Waste	New bin and kitchen caddy	Weekly
Residual Waste	Existing brown wheeled bin	Fortnightly
Recycling	Existing green wheeled bin and new recycling box	Alternate weekly (paper and card one week; tins, cans and glass the next)
Garden Waste	Existing garden waste bin	Fortnightly

 

Current waste collection services provided by partner boroughs:

Croydon

Service	Container	Collection frequency
Food Waste	Outside bin and kitchen caddy	Weekly
Residual Waste	Black wheeled bin	Fortnightly
Recycling	Blue box and green box	Alternate weekly (paper and card one week; tins, cans and glass the next)
Textiles	Resident supplied plastic bag	Weekly
Garden Waste	Black bin with brown lid	Fortnightly

 

Merton

Service	Container	Collection frequency
Food Waste	Outside bin and kitchen caddy	Weekly
Residual Waste	Sacks	Weekly
Paper/Card	Purple box (comingled)	Weekly
Recycling	Purple box (comingled)	Weekly
Garden Waste	Brown bin	Fortnightly

 

Kingston

Service	Container	Collection frequency
Food Waste	Outside bin and kitchen caddy	Weekly
Residual Waste	Black wheeled bin	Fortnightly
Recycling	Wheeled bin with a blue lid, and green box	Alternate weekly (paper and card one week; tins, cans and glass the next)
Garden Waste	Black bin with brown lid	Fortnightly