The disruption follows a restructure of how waste and recycling is collected in the south London borough, which has seen Veolia and council workers join forces to cover collections in eight smaller patches (see letsrecycle.com story).
It also comes prior to a switch in how dry recyclables are collected in Croydon from next month. Kerbside sort containers will be replaced with a single bin for commingled recycling from September, in a bid to boost the borough’s recycling rate.
Launched at the start of June, Veolia’s ‘village system’ for waste and street cleansing aimed to provide a “better, faster” service to Croydon’s residents by improving coordination between council and contractor staff on collection routes.
Under the system, eight newly-formed local teams were appointed an operations manager to oversee general waste collection, recycling, street cleaning and fly-tipping enforcement officers.
‘Local knowledge’
However, Stuart Collins, the council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for Clean and Green Croydon, told letsrecycle.com that following the launch “a lot of local knowledge had to be regained” and Veolia had been forced to reconfigure rounds on an estimated 34 roads.
He said: “Veolia said it would take 12 weeks for the new system to bed in, which led to 3,000 missed collections in June. That’s beginning to fall and by the tenth week all the problems will sorted. All the information has to be logged on to their computer systems for the new teams. The village system is something Veolia does in other boroughs and has worked well, and most collections in Croydon have continued as normal.”
Mr Collins continued that fines are a ‘clear part’ of the normal contract procedure, confirming that between October 2014 and May 2015 the company was penalised £90,000 for not meeting performance indicators. He suggested that before the village system was implemented, Veolia was averaging 530 missed collections per week in Croydon.
He added: “Once the system is embedded we would sit down with Veolia to discuss the reasons behind the missed collections. Now the system is sorted we want to know how they are going to incentivise their staff.”
A Veolia spokesperson said: “Whenever we reschedule the refuse and recycling collections on behalf of any local authority, there is always a period of adjustment with increased reported missed collections and enquiries.
“This is a natural part of the process as our crews and the residents we serve adjust to the new rounds. In Croydon, this period of adjustment was expected and the level of enquiries we are receiving is rapidly returning to normal.”
TEEP
The village system is part of a four year programme of changes to waste and recycling services in Croydon, with commingled collections to be phased in from September. Under the Waste Framework Directive, local authorities are expected to carry out kerbside sort collections of recyclables where they are technically, environmentally and economically practicable (TEEP).
Asked how Croydon would comply with the TEEP legislation, Mr Collins said that what the council would be doing ‘gets around’ the controls. He claimed recyclables being blown away in open boxes was one case for a single, lidded bin.
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