The contract, which has the option for a two year extension, was valued at £8.9 million over the entire term of the deal, and was awarded on 10 June.
The contract was previously held by Viridor, which won a contract from Bywaters to process material at its Crayford plant in 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).
The tender document for the contract was dispatched on the 17 June and said that services should “include as a minimum paper, cardboard, Tetra Paks, food and drinks tins/cans including aerosols, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles and mixed plastic packaging, which are collected from the London Borough of Lewisham’s bring sites, estates and kerbside collections”.
Recyclables collected by the council’s in-house kerbside collections team will be sent to Bywaters Lea Riverside material recycling facility (MRF) in Bow, East London.
Recycling plan
In December 2019, Lewisham announced that it would be preparing to procure the new contract for the processing and sale of dry recyclables ( see letsrecycle.com story).
This was followed by the announcement of Lewisham’s £1.4 million recycling plan, in efforts to meet the required 50% recycling target set out by the London mayor (see letsrecycle.com story).
For many years, Lewisham was one of the worst performing councils in England with recycling, scoring below 20%.
However, in the latest 2019/20 figures, it recorded a 28% recycling rate, up from 21% the previous year.
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