Waste
Councils under pressure over worker safety
Local authorities are under increasing pressure to resolve issues of social distancing for refuse and other workers, with no clear guidance available.
Councils are at the heart of this fight
Councils’ understanding of the communities they serve and ability to disseminate information to residents, including ‘at risk’ groups, will be universally relied upon over the coming weeks, writes Sir Bob Neill.
Firms say government needs to do more
Key firms providing services to councils have welcomed measures to mitigate the damaging effects of the Covid-19 crisis but said more needs to be done.
East Riding top of recycling rates
East Riding of Yorkshire Council has topped the Government’s list of local authority recycling rates in England for 2018/2019.
Councils plan for Kier exit
Councils have been making plans after Kier decided to exit the waste industry.
Council waste collections to undergo multi-million pound overhaul
Newcastle-under-Lyme BC is to give its waste service a £3.6m overhaul.
Brum bin apology
Birmingham City Council has agreed to apologise to 17 people after the Local Government Ombudsman criticised it for repeated missed bin collections.
Making the relationship work
Dean Wetteland, managing director of England's biggest local authority trading company Norse Group, advises on the steps councils thinking of entering the commercial world should consider.
Birmingham budget heading for £17m overspend
Issues with bin lorries are contributing to a £17m projected overspend by Birmingham City Council.
MPs: Government waste strategy overly-prescriptive
The Government’s proposed waste strategy is ‘overly-prescriptive’ and local authorities should be given the freedom to tailor their approach, MPs have said.
There’s still a long way to go on the road to recycling
We should not be spending less on recycling, but more, according to Heather Jameson. The Government needs to legislate to cut waste at its source.
Councils hit out at standardisation drive
Council figures have hit out at a government consultation to standardise recycling across the country.
Letting teams redesign their own way to success
Adele Taylor says the impressive results of a LEAN approach to eliminating waste show that involving the very people who undertake tasks in redesigning a process means they are more invested in making it work.
Waste strategy could lead to bins boom - DCN
Millions of already produced hard-to-recycle plastic receptacles may be made redundant by the Government’s new waste strategy, the District Councils’ Network (DCN) has warned.
Tackle the producers of plastics first
The Government is consulting on consistency in household and business waste recycling collections. But Paul Shevlin asks if the numbers stack up, in resource and environmental terms.
Using the right approach to recycling in Swansea
Wales is ‘surging ahead’ in terms of performance in the UK on recycling, says Chris Howell – and he describes how Swansea City & CC is achieving its impressive results.
Can you afford not to respond to the Resources and Waste consultations?
The Government has explicitly committed to funding councils to implement the proposals in Defra’s new Resources and Waste strategy, says Peter Maddox. It needs local government input to the consultations that are open until mid-May.
Counting the cost of Defra's waste plans
A plethora of issues affecting districts keeps emerging from Whitehall, says Ian Miller - but making it easier for those with two homes to know which bin to use is not a sensible basis for policy development.
Union power games in Birmingham will not help create jobs
Paul Wheeler is sure the cause of the Birmingham bin dispute has its roots in a struggle over equal pay for equal work. What cannot have helped is a 'noisy inter-union dispute'.
Shock tactics in the war on waste
As large cities continue to grow we must get smarter at dealing with waste, says Nick Kemp. He outlines how Newcastle City Council's communications team came up with a 10-tonne high way of grabbing people’s attention and keeping them engaged.
