report for: action and recycling...
TRANSCRIPT
Report for:
ACTION
Contains Confidential
or Exempt Information
No
Title Progress Report: Change Programme for the Waste
and Recycling Service
Member Reporting Cllr Amrit Mann, Deputy Leader and Lead Member for
Environment
Contact Details Victoria Lawson, Director of Customer Services and
Communications;
[email protected]; 020 8583 4463
For Consideration By Cabinet
Date to be Considered 10th October 2017
Implementation Date if
Not Called In
Affected Wards All
Keywords/Index Waste, Recycling, Fortnightly Black Wheelie Bin
Collections
1. Details of Recommendations
The Cabinet is asked to:
• Note the progress with the implementation of the recycle refresh and
fortnightly black wheelie bin collections.
• Note the early indications of improvements to our recycling performance
• Note the mitigation plans to balance the budget following the opening of
Southall Lane depot in November 2017
• Agree the updated capital cost for the new depot and Materials Handling
Facility at Southall Lane and authorise additional capital funding of £1.5m to
fund the additional work to completion of the project.
2. Report Summary
To support the ambition to increase our recycling rate to 50%, Members agreed to
introduce kerbside recycling and fortnightly black wheelie bin collections in
December 2015. This report outlines the overall change programme and the
progress on the implementation of the recycle refresh and fortnightly black wheelie
bin collections which took place in June and July 2017.
It also details the progress made on meeting the Environment Agency’s
requirements when permitting the operation of new recycling facilities – including
the Fire Prevention Plan and outlines the other unavoidable cost increases where
this report requests the approval of an additional £1.5m of capital to complete the
project.
3. Reason for Decision and Options Considered
The council has made a clear commitment to make sure we have a cleaner and
greener borough with improved waste collections, more recycling and less household
waste. To support this ambition, the council has made a number of significant
changes to its waste and recycling service over the last 24 months, which has
included:
• Move of the service from Suez into Recycle 360 with a clear intention to
improve the quality of the service.
• Agreement to build a state of the art Materials Handling Facility at Southall
Lane
• Significantly alter the recycling offer to residents with the refresh and
continuation of kerbside recycling facilities and introduction of fortnightly black
wheelie bin collections.
• Introduction of the paid garden waste service for the Borough
The expectations for the change programme in 2017/18 were:
• The successful move of the service into Recycle 360, which was completed in
October 2016.
• The implementation of kerbside recycling and fortnightly black wheelie bin
collections, was completed in June and July 2017. This was later than
anticipated and this report provided a more detailed update on the
implementation of these changes.
• The implementation of a paid Garden Waste service, which for 2017/18 has
over 17,000 subscribers. Significantly more than the anticipated 13,000 when
the service was launched in January 2016.
• The opening of Southall Lane depot was expected in October 2016 and it has
been subsequently delayed until November 2017. This resulted in the need to
use Space Waye until the opening of Southall Lane which has seen the
opening times for the public reduced to the weekend.
What do we offer to residents?
There are approximately 102,000 households within the borough that receive refuse
and recycling collections.
We offer a ‘kerbside’ refuse and recycling service to approximately 71,000 residents
in low-rise properties:
Container Materials Frequency
Red box
Plastics and cans
Weekly
Blue box
Paper and card
Weekly
Green box
Glass bottles and jars
Weekly
Food waste caddy (5l and
23l)
Food waste
Weekly
Tied
carrier bag
Textiles and clothing
Weekly
Tied carrier bag
Small electrical items
Weekly
Brown wheeled bin/bags Garden waste
Fortnightly
Black wheeled bin
Residual waste
Fortnightly
For those residents living in flats or non ‘low-rise’ properties, a range of recycling
facilities are available, these include:
• paper - including newspapers, magazines, envelopes, junk mail and telephone
directories
• food tins, drinks cans, aluminum foil and trays
• aerosols
• clear glass bottles and jars
• green glass bottles and jars
• brown glass bottles and jars
• flattened cardboard
• plastic packaging
Recycle Refresh and Fortnightly Black Wheelie Bin Collections
The Recycle Refresh which would see all low-rise properties receive a red and blue
recycling box took place across June 2017. The delivery of all new boxes took 4
weeks and completed on 30 June. New red and blue boxes were delivered to all
low-rise properties along with a supply of (52) biodegradable food waste bags. The
blue box is for card and paper, the red box is for plastic and cans.
The roll out of fortnightly black wheelie bin collections started with a ‘big bang’
approach on 10 and 17 July for residents.
The delivery of these changes were supported by a significant and high profile
communications campaign that included: leaflets to residents informing them of the
changes; posters; a range of outdoor advertising; roadshows; social media; website;
press releases; a recycling video; information shared by customer services to
residents who called and visited the civic centre and radio promotion. We also
implemented a number of online forms: missed bin, container requests and a new
collection calendar. Details of the full communications campaign is at Appendix A.
Performance
Operational Delivery
To deliver the service Recycle 360 have engaged 20 crews, plus an additional 3
crews to support the demand and change for the recycling service; whilst the residual
service operates with 6 crews plus an additional crew. This is because the current
route optimisation is based on tipping the recyclable materials at Southall Lane rather
than SpaceWaye. We will understand the level of crews required in the future once
the Southall Lane depot is fully operational.
The team have continuously focused on quality by returning and stacking the bins
appropriately. The number of enquiries received on quality, related to returning bins,
were 14 for July and 17 for August. The volumes of which have not increased
despite the increase in containers that require returning to the residents curtilage.
Each week we collect 359,000 waste and recycling containers from across the
Borough. In comparison, we miss a very small proportion of those bins. For missed
bins, the volumes reported are outlined in the graph below:
For excellent performance we would expect to miss less than 0.1% of the bins and
containers per week. The volumes missed in August are 0.06% of the total number
of collections, equivalent to 63 bins missed per 100,000.
Through the implementation of these changes, we have identified a number of areas
and issues that we are having to address; namely access to narrow roads; reviewing
historic anomalies where residents do not have a standard waste and recycling
service and implementation of further online forms: garden waste and Tidy Town
being the next priorities. A detailed plan is in place and the relevant engagement will
continue to be undertaken with residents and where appropriate ward councillors.
Customer Enquiries
With any significant change in service that impacts on the majority of households
within the Borough, there will inevitably be a high volume of customer enquiries as
residents understand and become accustomed to the change in service.
From 29th June until 31st August, we received 23,102 calls into the contact centre.
This peaked in July, when we received almost 9,000 calls in one month. During this
period the average call answer rate varied from 50% to 86% (averaging at 64%).
Residents in this period would have experienced increased wait times; however the
call volumes are now returning to 2016 levels. In September, the call answer rate
increased to over 80%.
Below, we have outlined that peak in calls in comparison to the call volumes in 2016
for waste and recycling:
The chart below shows the number of emails received and handled each week since
the launch of Recycling Refresh on 5th June 2017. Since this time to date we have
handled 9620 emails. More recently we can see the number of emails received
beginning to reduce.
Overall the top issues were:
• Queries about the ordering of red and blue recycling boxes
• Queries about replacement green boxes and the food caddy
• General Information enquiries about recycling refresh and alternate weekly
collections
We have received 6 formal complaints related to the Recycling Refresh and Fortnightly
Black Bin Collection policies.
We have begun to see the email volumes return to normal, and as of 11th September,
we are receiving an average of 90 emails per day (450 a week) and all emails are
being responded to within 48 hours.
Social Media
We closely monitored our social media and responded to comments and queries
raised by residents. The following data is taken from Hounslow Council’s Facebook
and Twitter pages between dates 5th June 2017 – 31st August 2017.
The graph shows the total number of times residents used social media to report an
issue with the roll out of Recycle Refresh and/or the Fortnightly Black Bin collection:
The highest point (14) occurred on 17 July 2017 after the first week of the Fortnightly
Black Wheelie Bin Collection roll out. The lowest point (0) occurred on the 19 June
2017 just as we were starting the second week of new recycling refresh box delivery.
The level of reports began to drop after 4 August 2017. We saw a significant
reduction in the number of Waste and Recycling related reports. Going from an
average of 8 per day to 3 per day in just two weeks.
The total number of reports are broken down into the following categories shown in
the bar graph below:
Each report on social media was dealt with using the approved Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQs) developed for the roll out of this change programme.
• Link to the Recycling Refresh FAQ’s -
https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20128/household_recycling_and_waste_coll
ections/1656/your_questions_answered_-_weekly_recycling
• Link to Fortnightly Black Bin Collection FAQ’s -
https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20128/household_recycling_and_waste_coll
ections/1655/your_question_answered_-
_fortnightly_black_wheelie_bin_collections
Engagement with Residents
An important part of this work, was the engagement with residents and we brought in
additional staff to deliver our plans for awareness, education and engagement. The
key deliverables from this approach were:
• Use data to identify areas of low compliance and hot spots and to actively
engage with those residents.
• Assess the capacity in residual waste bins to determine whether the standard
size bin is sufficient.
• Where a larger bin is necessary (i.e. the resident(s) are recycling correctly and
comprehensively all materials), process a larger bin application.
• Work to eliminate all instances of excess sacks being placed out and increase
recycling.
Phase 1 – Recycle Refresh Engagement
For the first phase of the engagement, the team visited areas with poor performing
recycling rates and targeted properties that had ‘events’ e.g. contamination, excess
waste.
▪ Total properties visited: 14,777
▪ Successful interviews: 5,700
▪ Overall contact rate: 38.57%
During this first phase, we asked residents key questions to understand the success
of both the delivery of the recycle refresh programme and the communications:
We also asked if residents, who we engaged with, if something had been missing
from their delivery and only 537 containers were noted from 14,777 households as
per the graph below.
We also asked those residents engaged how confident they were with the new
service and those who were reasonably confident (3) and above were 93.68% of
residents.
Phase 2 – Fortnightly residual collections engagement (12/07/2017 to
29/09/2017)
For the second phase of the programme, we engaged with residents for the change
to fortnightly black bin collections. During this period, the team engaged with:
▪ Total properties visited: 55,195
▪ Successful interviews: 17,130
▪ Overall contact rate: 31.04%
The key statistics identify that the communications and engagement work had been
successful in that almost 99% of residents who we spoke with understood that their
black wheeled bin collection was moving to fortnightly collections.
We also asked whether confidence had increased with the service and you can see
those being extremely confident increased by over 22%.
We also asked residents to identify where they felt that had barriers to recycling:
Summary of Engagement
Phase 1
RECYCLE
REFRESH
ENGAGEMENT
(13/06/2017 TO
13/07/2017)
Phase 2
FORTNIGHTLY
COLLECTIONS /
BARTEC
ENGAGEMENT
(12/07/2017 TO
29/09/2017)
Total
Visitations
including BARTEC
properties
14,777 55,195 69,972
Successful
interviews including
BARTEC
properties
5,700 17,130 22,830
Overall contact
rate, including
BARTEC
properties
38.57% 31.04% 32.63%
Containers
Throughout this period, we expected to see an increase in container requests and
requests for larger bins.
Additional Container Requests
A total of 25,784 additional containers were ordered between June and August, the
majority were for food waste containers.
Large Bin requests
Larger bin requests and assessments were completed by officers from the Waste &
Recycling team.
Large Bin Assessments No. of Enquiries
Total Number of Enquiries 3458
Approved 2112
Declined/ Unable to Contact* 1346
Recycling Levels
Early indications demonstrate that the recycling performance for the Borough is
beginning to increase.
Apr-17 May-17 Jun-17 Jul-17 Aug-17
Recycling
Rate 26.7% 26.8% 30.2% 32.7% 33.9%
This is an increase of 7.2% from April to August 2017, with August being the first full
month of the new recycling and waste collection arrangements. The London average
is 33.55% (as reported for April 17 to June 17). This suggests that our new recycling
and waste collection arrangements are having the desired affect and getting us on
the way to our 50% target. However, we really need data for two full quarters to be
properly clear about the progress we are making.
This recycling rate will also be positively impacted when Space Waye re-opens in the
winter, when residents will be able to use the facility 7 days a week rather than
currently only at the weekend.
Also we have seen:
• That the total residual waste has decreased by 11% (August 16 vs August 17)
• Collected recycling (kerbside) is increasing although is overall lower than last
year due to Space Waye closure.
• Food waste has increased by 66% (August 16 vs August 17)
• Incineration is increasing
Compositional analysis completed in May shows that there is further potential to
divert more materials out of the residual waste stream and into the recycling stream.
Samples were taken from the four main “Acorn” demographic profiles present within
the borough (representing 93% of the borough population).
Samples of residual waste were taken from areas around the borough where these
individual demographic profiles exist, thus deeming the outcome to be representative
of the majority of the borough.
Of all of the residual waste collected and sampled it was found that (by weight):
- 33.4% was foodwaste
- 4.5% was garden waste
- 25% was material that could otherwise have gone into the recycling boxes /
bags.
Therefore, the total “diversion opportunity” is 63%.
Flytipping
With regard to flytipping, the early data we have is giving us a mixed picture. Fly
tipping in parks did increase in August, but stayed pretty much static on the public
network. However, we really need data for two full quarters to be properly clear about
what the impact has or has not been.
Meanwhile, we are keeping a very close eye on this and will continue to enforce
against fly tipping hard, wherever it occurs. We issued 104 FPNs for fly tipping and
littering on the public network in August, compared to 64 in the same month last year
Garden Waste
The garden waste service has continued to exceed expectations on the levels of
subscriptions, with over 17,000 residents subscribed in 2017/18. To date we have
achieved £790k of income compared to an expected £690k. This is significantly
higher than the anticipated 13,000 subscriptions when the service was first launched.
A thorough review of garden waste will be undertaken to make further improvements
to the service for 2018/19.
Materials Handling Facility and Depot
In June 2016 Cabinet approved a budget of £18m to design and construct a new
depot and Materials Handling Facility (MHF) at Southall Lane and this estimate was
based on designs that had been developed for and up to planning. In April 2016, the
Environment Agency brought in a new statutory requirement for Fire Prevention
Plans to be included as part of their permitting requirements and the guidance was
first published on 29 July 2016.
Works commenced on the construction of the new MHF and depot buildings in
December 2016 at which time the Project Board gave its approval for the contract to
be let with contractual commitment of £18.35m which was £0.35m over the available
budget at that time and was expected to be addressed by underspends on other
elements of the capital investment required for this project.
The Cabinet report dated 17 January 2017 gave details on the implications of
complying with the new requirements which were very onerous and inexact. At the
time of reporting to Cabinet on 17 January, the application was still being developed
as were the designs and it was estimated that the additional construction works would
require an additional budget of £2.5m that was subsequently approved by Cabinet.
Cabinet also noted that our application to the Environment Agency would be one of
the first under this new statutory requirement and it may be that the Environment
Agency will require more substantial works in order to issue the permit that could
require additional budget of up to £3.8m. If so, further funding would be requested at
a later date.
The application to the Environment Agency was made on 21 March 2017 and was
finally approved July 2017 and did require additional works than those that were
estimated in early January. The main points of additional works were:
o Construction of a standalone building as a fire command centre
o Additional fire separation of baled materials within MHF
o Additional fire suppression to the plant and the need for both deluge
and sprinkler systems both needing to be operational simultaneously
o As a result needing 50% additional water storage tanks above ground
with all the associated infrastructure and structural works
o Reinforcement of paving of the rear of the MHF for fire appliance
access
During the construction stage, Recycle 360 who will be operating the facility raised
several issues that required changes to the original project scope for operational and
health and safety reasons. The main points of additional works were:
• uplift to the CCTV/ICT works to ensure the full security and optimum
health and safety monitoring of the operations as well as providing
the fire brigade the additional fire fighting assistance that they were
keen to see.
• Anti-bird protection measures
• Provision of a fuelling station
• Redesign of the office and welfare building to allow the potential to
add a further two stories in the future (for added
office/educational/training capacity) has resulted in additional
infrastructure works.
The total additional funding required to cover off the additional works to meet the
requirements of the approved Fire Prevention Plan, scope change and correcting
works inclusive of professional fees, specialist surveys, overheads, profits and
contractual prolongation costs amounts to a total of £1.5m having discounted the
settlement made with Hounslow Highways. Of this £1.5m, almost £1m is attributable
to the EA requirements.
By the completion of the Southall Lane depot the total cost will be £22m, which is £4m
over the original budget. Of this, almost £3m is attributable to the requirements the
new statutory requirements relating to fire from the Environment Agency.
The contractual completion date for Phase 1 was planned for 3 October 2017 but
given the additional works set out in the report, the contractor could not reasonably
meet this date and a revised completion date of 17 November has now been agreed
and works are progressing well to achieve this date. Upon completion, Recycle 360
will take over the entire depot and commence operations.
Upon completion of Phase 1, the contractor will be completing the staff carpark area
and bin storage along with final surfacing of the access road which will be undertaken
alongside the fully operational depot and is planned to be completed by 19 January
2018.
4. Key Implications
The implementation of the recycle refresh programme and the fortnightly black bin
collection was a significant change to the service. There are further projects that are
under development to further improve and enhance the service including:
• Re-opening of SpaceWaye before the end of the calendar year.
• Garden Waste
• Tidy Town
• Flats above Shops
• Recycling and refuse provision for housing estates
• Narrow Access roads
• Continued promotion of recycling particularly plastics and food waste.
These changes have impacted up the budget for the service. The total budget for the
waste service in 2017/18 is £14.4m, the savings applied to the service over the past
three years from 2017/18 to 2018/18 total £2.18m.
The key implication from the delivery of this change programme has been the impact
on the budget due to the delay in the opening of Southall Lane depot. The depot is
on track to be opened in mid-November at which point Recycle 360 will mobilise and
transition the service. This will also enable SpaceWaye to re-open.
Whilst the expectation remains that we will have 3 months of the envisaged service
running from Southall Lane depot. It will not be sufficient to significantly reduce, in-
year, the expected overspend of £1.99m.
There is a comprehensive mitigation plan that outlines what needs to take place to
move the budget into balance; which is in part predicated on the need to achieve at
least a minimum 45% recycling rate to ensure the costs for landfill reduce and the
income from recycling increases.
5. Financial Details
a) Financial background and impact on the budget
The Waste & Recycling Service has a net expenditure budget of £14.4m in 2017/18.
The savings applied to the service over the past three years from 2015/16 to 2017/18
total £3.2m. The delivery of the service change required to achieve the savings has
been delayed resulting in overspends in the previous two years, and at the end of
August a pressure of circa £2.0m is anticipated.
The key drivers of the budget pressures are:
Collection service costs
The cost of delivering the new collection method has required additional crews in
order to deliver the level of service required, resulting in higher labour and fleet costs.
The current operating model also contains a number of inefficiencies including the
use of SpaceWaye. The service change needs to be fully implemented and the
balance between service delivery and cost needs to be fully understood to design a
service that fits within budget; the cost of which is expected increase considerably.
One-off service-change costs
There are a number of in-year costs due to the implementation of the service change.
These include project agency staff, publicity and communications, and waste and
environmental consultants Envirocomms and Eunomia. There are also a number of
transitional costs resulting from the interim arrangements in place till the service
change is fully implemented. These include plastics and cans disposal costs which
should generate income when Southall Lane Depot is operational, site security costs,
and additional SpaceWaye costs.
Material handling facility costs
The operating costs for the new Southall Lane Depot are not yet known. The main
areas of uncertainty relate to energy consumption in relation to the bailing and other
equipment and the level of energy that will be provided from photovoltaic panels.
The levels of staffing required to safely oversee the operation and how quickly
efficient operating procedures are bedded in. The cost of insuring the site which is
currently being procured.
Recycling material sales income shortfall
Southall Lane Depot is scheduled to be in full operation towards the end of the
calendar year, hence the part year impact on material sales income projected to be
realised. The two key variables are the volumes and pricing of the recycling
materials delivered through the service. Work is being done on procuring and
securing the best offers for sale of the recyclables processed at the depot. Currently
it is expected that the £1.2m income budget will be achieved in future years
assuming the increase in recyclable materials collected can reach 50%.
Capital Investment
The Cabinet originally approved £11.55m funding for this project as part of the
September 2015 MTFS including transferring £1.5m previously allocated for adapting
Bridge Road Depot for use by the waste service. This was increased by £16.6m in
June 2016. A further report in January 2017 agreed a further increase to the budget
of £2.5m to address the pressure of increased costs due to Environment Agency
regulations. This report will add a further £1.5m to the cost of this project taking the
total level of investment to £32.15m as shown below.
Budget
£m
Containers 3.30
Materials Handling Facility 22.00
Vehicles 6.40
ICT 0.45
32.15
All of the £32.15m capital budget allocated to this project is being funded from
borrowing. This has an impact on the level of savings required across the
organisation in future years. The revenue impact of the borrowing will result in
interest and repayment costs of £2.1m a year at current rates.
b) Comments of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services
This report reviews the performance of the waste service through the transition to a
fortnightly collection of residual waste outlining the issues which have resulted in the
service projecting an overspend of £2m in the current year. It also outlines the
complications which have been incurred during the construction of the Materials
Handling Facility.
The level of savings required from the service change have not yet been delivered
with the key pressures being driven by pressures from the operating costs of
Lampton Recycle 360 Ltd, one off costs incurred to support the service change and
underachievement of income from material sales. The savings require the service to
increase the levels of recycling resulting in lower residual waste costs as well as
generating materials for sale. Due to the delays introducing the new service these
benefits have not been realised resulting in an overspend projection for the current
financial year of £2m. Projections for performance in future years are dependent on
the expected benefits of the service change being realised.
The capital cost of implementing the new collection method through investment in the
service has increased significantly since the original business case. The timeline for
the project has been a major factor in the level of cost incurred with requirements
changing while works had begun leading increased design costs. This is in line with
assumptions made in the Medium Term Financial Strategy, subject to interest rates
remaining below 3% there will be no additional impact.
The service must continue to consider additional initiatives that can improve the
financial performance. Lampton Recycle 360 Ltd will need to find additional income
streams through commercial opportunities as part of this.
6. Legal and comments of the Head of Governance
This report sets out progress on the change programme for the waste and recycling
service from the perspective of the Council as client.
The service is delivered on behalf of the Council by Lampton Recycle 360 under
contract. Performance of the contract from Lampton Recycle 360’s perspective will
be reported separately to the Cabinet as part of L360’s quarterly monitoring reports.
7. Value for Money
8. Sustainability Impact Appraisal
9. Risk Management
10. Links to Council Priorities
11. Equalities, Human Rights and Community Cohesion
12. Staffing/Workforce and Accommodation implications:
13. Property and Assets
14. Any Other Implications
15. Consultation
16. Timetable for Implementation
17. Appendices
Appendix A: Communications Campaign
Appendix A: Communications
Communications Recycling Refresh
Leaflets and Posters:
• The delivery of the initial Trailer Recycling Refresh leaflet was delivered to just
over 71,000 ‘low rise’ properties w/c 1 May to inform residents of the
forthcoming Recycling Refresh.
• A second more detailed ‘How to’ Recycling Refresh leaflet was delivered
alongside the delivery of the new recycling boxes from 5 to 30 July.
• Councillors were provided with copies of the Trailer and dedicated Recycling
Refresh ‘How to’ leaflet.
• The Recycling Refresh leaflets and A4 posters were distributed and put up in
libraries, leisure centres, parks, resident associations, area forums, voluntary
sector organisations, GP surgeries and health centres.
• The Reception Team spoke to and gave Recycle Refresh leaflets to all
residents who visited the Civic Centre from 5 June onwards. We typically have
over 10,000 residents visit per month
• A large A0 poster was placed on the entrance door to the Civic Centre
detailing the changes coming with Recycling Refresh and Fortnightly black
wheelie bin collections
• A Recycling Refresh pull up banner was prominently placed in the Civic
Centre reception from 26 May until 30 June
Outdoor advertising
• Large posters were designed and used for advertising in the 33 free- standing
units and bus shelters for four weeks across the borough.
• Large lamppost banners at 74 high street sites were designed to inform
residents of the service changes with Recycling Refresh and Fortnightly
household waste collections. These were in situ by 5 June. We increased this
by a further 38 lamppost banners.
• We used an advertising van to promote the changes and this visited the
following locations from Monday 12 June (for 15 days):
Whitton Dene
Feltham including High Street
Bath Road (Hounslow West)
Kingsley Road
Staines Road
Chiswick High Road
Brentford High Street including Brentford Market
South Street, Isleworth
New Heston Road
Heston Road
Feltham High Street
Kingsley Road
Chiswick/ Chiswick High Road
Brentford/Brentford Market
New Heston Road/Heston Road
Press Releases; several press releases were issued throughout this period to inform
residents and these press releases were also sent to local and regional newspapers.
Website; the website was revamped, redesigned and updated with details on
Recycling Refresh. This was followed up with details on fortnightly black bin
collections.
Roadshows; the waste and recycling service undertook several roadshows across
the borough to show residents the new boxes, to answer their questions, and
educate them on recycling. The roadshows were as follows:
o Tuesday 30 May 2017 – Chiswick Library
o Wednesday 31 May 2017 – Brentford Morrisons
o Thursday 1 June 2017 – Heston Library
o Wednesday 7 June 2017 – Hounslow High Street (Outside Church)
o Monday 3 July 2017 – Treaty Centre, Hounslow
o Wednesday 5 July 2017 – Chiswick Library
o Thursday 6 July – Brentford Morrisons
o Friday 7 July 2017 – Heston Library
The vast majority of feedback from residents was positive and the main theme was
requests for food waste containers.
Film; we wrote the script and developed a short-animated film (Recycling Refresh
campaign film) to use over social media and the website to show residents how to
use the new recycling boxes and to outline what can and cannot be recycled. The
film was aired on a loop on a large TV screen in the reception of the Civic Centre and
on one screen above reception from 28 June
Social Media; the details on Recycle Refresh and fortnightly black bin collections
was promoted to our 7817 Twitter followers and 3817 followers on Facebook. This
mirrored the information being distributed in the leaflets and in the Frequently Asked
Questions & Answers we developed. Twice daily Tweets and Facebook messages
were scheduled for 8 weeks
Radio; Radio Jackie adverts began on 22 May. This was a four- week campaign.
The first two weeks aired the Recycling Refresh dedicated advert; the last two weeks
aired the dedicated fortnightly black bin collection advert.
HMOs; all licenced HMOs were directly written to, informing them of Recycle Refresh
and their responsibilities with it.
Customer Services; there was a message on the telephone system informing
residents of Recycling Refresh and forthcoming changes to the service
Hounslow Matters; the focus of the last edition, issued from 12 June, was on
recycling and waste. It also included information on the delivery of the new recycling
boxes and how to use them, fortnightly black bin collections, SpaceWaye and the
Southall Lane depot.
Frequently Asked Questions; these were continually developed as we received
feedback from residents. Communications, Customer Service, Reception staff,
Customer Relations and the Waste & Recycling Team all used the cleared answers
with residents’ enquiries. These Frequently Asked Questions are available to all on
the website
Internal Communications; we held regular internal briefings with the Customer
Contact Team, Customer Relations and Reception staff to update and talk through
communications on the campaign. We also promoted the service changes internally
via 7Days as we recognised that many staff live locally. Updates on Recycling
Refresh were also included in Members’ Matters
Window Display, from 5 June for two weeks the window display at the entrance to
the Civic Centre covered Recycling Refresh changes.
Vehicles, Recycling Refresh artwork was developed and fitted to all the recycling
and food waste vehicles
Fortnightly Black Bin Collections Communications
• Printing and delivery of the 3rd resident leaflet on AWC (Fortnightly wheelie
bin collections) – delivered by Royal Mail (RM) 2nd class post by Monday 3
July
• Printing and delivery of 2 x 40K fortnightly bin hangers and collection
calendars for residents in Zone A and Zone B - bin hangers placed on bins by
Recycle360 on Monday 3 July
• Printing and delivery of 50,000 Recycling Refresh contamination stickers for
collection crews to use on red, blue, and green recycling boxes to educate and
inform residents
• 10 different Collection Day Change letters for Zone A and Zone B printed and
delivered by RM 2nd class post by Monday 3 July
• A dedicated Black sack letter printed and sent to 899 addresses regarding
fortnightly collections delivered by RM 2nd class by 27 June
• Additional 38 key sites for lamp post banners on the Recycling Refresh/AWC
campaign went up from 17 July for six weeks (Turnham Green Terrace,
Brentford High Street, South Street, Isleworth, Twickenham Road, Isleworth,
Spur Road/London Road (Green School), Staines Road, Bath Road, Feltham
High Street, New Heston Road)
• Dedicated Recycling Refresh campaign video on the Recycling Refresh web
pages and now on the ‘new recycling & waste collection’ webpage.
• Updated Recycling Refresh web pages which has our dedicated Recycling
Refresh campaign video + Recycle Now videos added on how plastics, metal
cans, bottles and jars, food waste and paper recycled
• For the first time, ever, the Recycling Refresh video was added to the front
page of Hounslow Council’s Facebook page
• Fortnightly black wheelie bin banner was added to the Council’s homepage on
Monday 3 to 21 July
• Responded and responding to Tweets and Facebook messages using agreed
Recycling Refresh/Fortnightly black wheelie bin FAQs
• Downloadable fortnightly collection calendars added to the website (Collection
Day look up page) Monday 10 July
• Second Radio Jackie advert on fortnightly black wheelie bin aired until 17 July
• 250 A3 posters on the fortnightly black wheelie bin collection printed, delivered
and put in the Civic Centre, libraries, parks, leisure centres from 28 June.
• Dedicated fortnightly black wheelie bin collection PowerPoint screen in Civic
Centre’s reception from Monday 3 July
• Dedicated fortnightly black wheelie bin puller up banner prominently placed in
Civic Centre’s reception from Monday 3 July
• Updated hard copy fortnightly black wheelie bin collections/Recycling Refresh
FAQs provided to Communications, Contact Centre, Reception and Customer
Relations staff on Friday 7 July together with an internal briefing on AWC.
• Hard copies of the 3rd Resident leaflet on fortnightly black wheelie bin
collections provided to all Councillors on Friday 30 June
• Civic Centre display window dedicated to fortnightly black wheelie bin
collections from 3 to 7 July and again from 17 to 21 July
• Daily social media messaging on the new service – currently tri-weekly posts
on why we can’t collect plastic carrier bags and why these cannot be recycled.
Webpage updated to reflect the response
• Several press releases were issued to local and regional media on the
delivery of the new red and blue recycling boxes to houses in the borough –
20 June and fortnightly collection of black wheelie bins – 5 July
Communications has been focusing on engaging, educating and responding to
residents via our Social Media channels regarding questions and queries on
recycling, household waste, missed and remedial collections.