Dover and Shepway District Councils, which collect waste, and Kent County Council, which disposes of it, have worked together on this important joint contract. Thanks to the innovative partnership, savings made by reducing waste disposal costs will contribute to the new recycling and waste collection and street cleaning service.
The new service will include:
- The introduction of a weekly collection of cooked and uncooked food waste from a small caddie
- Recycling collection of glass and an increased range of plastic including bottles, plastic cartons (yoghurt, cream etc), plastic food punnets and trays, food and drink cans, sweet and biscuit tins, and 'Tetrapak' containers
- The collection of paper and card from the black box currently used for plastic bottles and cans
- The fortnightly collection of residual waste from a wheelie bin
- Alternative arrangements for households with no room for wheelie bins.
Full details of the new service will be given to customers as new services are rolled out from late spring of next year. Collections will continue as they currently are in the meantime.
Residents across Dover District and Shepway have helped shape the new service. More than 2,000 responded to a survey and many attended workshops in Sandwich and Hythe to learn about the proposals, give their views, and influence decisions.
Cllr Nicholas Kenton, DDC Cabinet Member for Environment, Waste and Planning said: "We are very pleased to announce this new contract, which will help us to protect resources and make dramatic improvements to the amounts we recycle. This important partnership working means we can keep our costs as low as possible, while helping us all to work together to recycle more and protect the environment for the future."
Cllr Rory Love, SDC Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Strategic Services, said: "I am delighted that our districts will be working with Veolia Environmental Services in the years ahead following their submission of a highly competitive bid to deliver an exceptional quality of service for our residents. We invited our residents to help design the service they wanted. Residents told us they wanted to recycle more types of plastic, so that is what we shall do. They told us they wanted a weekly collection of food waste, so that is what we shall do. And they said they wanted better co-ordination between refuse collection and street sweeping, and that is what this new contract will deliver."
Kent County Council Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways and Waste, Nick Chard said: "This is a clear demonstration of how councils can work together to reduce costs for the benefit of their residents."
Jean-Dominique Mallet, Chief Executive of Veolia Environmental Services (UK) Plc said: "We are committed to helping the East Kent Joint Waste Partnership achieve the goal of maximising operational efficiency by delivering improved services that will increase recycling and reduce the cost of disposal. It is inevitable that in the current economic climate more authorities will consider joint working arrangements and through this contract we will demonstrate we have the resources and capabilities to deliver value for money and improved services by combining innovation and economies of scale."
For further information, see the DDC website at www.dover.gov.uk or the Veolia website at www.veolia.co.uk.
