Case Study

Kingston upon Hull City Council

Kingston Upon Hull City Council operates both a Trade Waste and Municipal Waste Service.The city presents many of the problems to the waste managers that are found in any big city in the UK. These include difficult to reach communities, High density and unhelpful housing stock and low levels of engagement with the council.

Towards the end of 2009 the issues that the authority faced were:

• The need to move from a segregated recycling service (using kerbside boxes) to a mixed recyclate collection
• A high percentage of difficult to reach properties and housing stock with no provision
• Recycling rates were increasing but had only achieved around 25%
• Many years ago Hull City Council had established bring sites using Taylor bins that were up to 20 years old, the bins were still in good shape but with flat lids and tired looking paintwork they created a 'rundown' impression that encouraged fly tipping
• An awareness that an ageing bin fleet for the Trade Waste Service could create a poor perception of the service.
• A small surplus stock of Trade waste bins in very poor repair
• Like all councils, they had an extremely limited budget

Hull City Council officers were aware that the usage of bring sites was dropping, the poor state of repair of these sites encouraged fly tipping and complaints.

If these bins were in a better state of repair and were fitted with recycling lids they could be repositioned to provide recycling facilities for the harder to reach areas, such as high-rise dwellings, High Density Housing and housing stock with difficult access.

The Solution:

Taylor worked with Hull City Council to implement a six month program of transition. The initial task was to create a working stock of bins. Taylor supplied a starting stock of 1100 litre bins with recycling lid and rebuilt 50 trade waste containers. The council then started a rolling program of refurbishment working zone by zone around the city and exchanged the bring site 1100 lit bins and the commercial bins with the rebuilt bins in stock.

Some of the 20 year old bins were unsuitable for fitting with recycling lids but they were still perfectly functional, despite the hard life they had already had. These bins were refurbished into bins for use by the trade waste service, and suitable trade bins were rebuilt into recycling containers.

Working closely with Taylor the council cycled bins through Taylor's state of the art rebuilding process until they had refurbished a significant proportion of the 1100 and 660 bins the council owned.

Newly refurbished bins with recycling lids and a carefully constructed logo and information panels were positioned within all the hard to reach areas and backed with a program of public education covering as much of the local media as possible as well as leafleting every property and some sterling work by the recycling officers. The clean look of the refurbished bins enabled them to be placed close to the entrances of many high density properties without complaint from the residents.

The results of this carefully planned program were astonishing:

• 7000 extra households were reached with a recycling option
• Every household in the city now has the opportunity to recycle
• Complaints about bring sites are virtually eliminated
• Complaints about the service have dramatically improved and householders state that recycling is easier to understand and simpler to utilize
• Recycling rates for the city doubled from 25.94% in 2009 and are currently running at over 52%
• All of this was achieved with minimal additional expenditure.

Stuart Brigham, Waste strategy officer for Hull City Council said 'Excellent communication with Taylor, and the reliability and professionalism of their service has ensured that this program has run smoothly from start to finish, I would recommend them to anyone' he also stated that 'Twenty year old bins that can be refurbished to be as good as new is a testament to the quality of the Taylor bin'

It is nice to see that it is not only the residents of Hull who recognize the benefits of this initiative.

The Hull team were recently awarded the 'Best Local Authority recycling initiative 2010' in the recycling and waste management awards in association with letsrecycle.com