Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendations.

Councillor Banks introduced the report and explained that, following two all Member seminars in September 2021, a number of recommendations were presented to Cabinet on changes to be made to the current waste strategy in order for the Council to achieve 70% recycling by 2025.

One recommendation was to review the Household Recycling Centre (HRC) vehicle permit criteria in order to make it clearer to service users what types and sizes of vehicles should or should not be issued a permit and to ensure that traders did not take advantage of the system.  A second recommendation was to introduce a booking system for hazardous and difficult waste streams to better manage their arrival at site.

Both recommendations were approved by Cabinet in September 2021, however a further report was requested to give further clarity on how the changes would be implemented.  This report set out the revised Vehicle Permit Policy and proposed the booking criteria for the disposal of asbestos and mattress waste.

The Chief Officer (Streetscene and Transportation) explained that the key points in the proposed Vehicle Permit Criteria Policy were outlined in the report.  She added that the current permitting system unintentionally allowed traders and commercial businesses to exploit the system and bring in trade waste streams.  When questioned or challenged by staff, some of those customers could become abusive and violent leading to unpleasant working environments.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the revised Vehicle Permit Policy for Household Recycling Centres be approved; and

(b)       That the Household Recycling Centre booking system criteria be approved.