The current integrated waste management contract with Island Waste Services (IWS) is due to expire in October 2015. This contract provides kerbside collection of recyclables, food and residual waste, operation of the Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs), operation of composting activities and the management of the disposal of residual waste via the landfill and through a separate arrangement with the gasification plant.
In 2009/10 Isle of Wight Council collected 75,700 tonnes of municipal waste, achieved a recycling rate of nearly 32% and diverted 38,700 tonnes of waste from landfill.
We now have an opportunity to review all municipal waste management on the Island and to position the Isle of Wight well for future waste challenges.
The main elements to the strategy are the collection and treatment of waste. Through reviewing the kerbside collection scheme the council will seek to increase the recycling rate by enabling more recyclable and compostable waste to be extracted.
The council is committed to exceeding the European and national recycling target of 50% by 2020. By reviewing the treatment of the residual waste the council will reduce waste sent to landfill.
Burying waste produces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute towards global warming; it is also more expensive than alternative waste treatment options. A national Landfill Tax is currently (financial year 2011/12) levied at £56 on every tonne of waste sent to landfill, and will further increase by £8 each year until 2014/15 where it will reach £80 per tonne. Instead of landfilling residual waste, the council wants to treat it as a resource by allowing it to be processed to generate power or used for some other environmentally-friendly purpose.
We will evaluate potential options for collection and treatment against a set of defined criteria. This process will lead to a ‘reference project’ that will provide anticipated costs to use as a benchmark when procuring the new contract(s).
As part of the municipal waste strategy, a procurement strategy will be developed. This will help us decide how the new contract should be procured (whether it should be one or several contracts), the length of the contract, whether the collection and technologies should be specified and also the potential financing options. An additional significant decision will be whether off-Island treatment is acceptable. The council has an aspiration to be self-sufficient in the treatment of waste arising on the Island.