As the financial year closes it provides a crossroad of reflection and optimism. Personally, it’s been a chance to reflect on WRAP’s achievements over the last 12 months and beyond, and to look ahead to the new financial year as we continue to increase our impact for people and planet. An impact that can only be achieved together.
I’m proud that WRAP has supported local authorities for over 18 years, providing advice, guidance and technical support to help develop and improve waste and recycling services. Over 150 local authorities have received one to one support in the last 5 years and some of that has involved working with groups of authorities and waste partnerships.
Since 2019, WRAP has been providing support to the local authorities in Hampshire. Recycling rates have been stagnating across all Hampshire’s waste collection authorities for a few years. With restricting council budgets, the Partner authorities of Project Integra have been working together, planning improved, cost-effective waste collection and disposal services that align with the Government’s Resources and Waste Strategy and the Environment Act.
Project Integra was established in 1995 to provide an integrated approach to the collection, treatment and disposal of waste in Hampshire and includes the 11 collection authorities, 2 unitary authorities, Hampshire County Council and Veolia Hampshire.
A first stage options appraisal project was carried out by WRAP and Eunomia in 2019, which modelled a range of different collection options against Partner authority baselines. A second project was delivered by WRAP and Wood in 2020/21 that involved a more detailed options appraisal focusing on a range of specific service profiles, including two-stream dry recycling with fibres collected separately, multi-stream kerbside sort, separate food waste, plus the impact of varying collection frequencies, containers and vehicles.
The outputs from the modelling enabled each of the Partner authorities to compare different collection ‘scenarios’ against their current services and gave an overall appraisal for Hampshire County Council on the performance, cost, and operational requirements of each of the modelled options. A ‘preferred option’ was identified and the findings are now feeding into local decision-making regarding future provision of treatment and processing facilities for Hampshire and the implementation of new kerbside collection services by the Partner collection authorities.
One of the Partner authorities has already introduced service change. In October 2021, Rushmoor Borough Council rolled out separate weekly food waste collections and moved from weekly to fortnightly residual waste collections. The modelling work and WRAP’s support have also helped inform the drafting of a new Partnership Strategy for Hampshire.
I’ve been delighted with the engagement from local authorities who are willing and ambitious to make change, not only those that have accessed our one-to-one support, but also those that have come to us for our technical resources and campaign assets. WRAP provides evidence-based guidance and impartial advice across a number of key areas that help improve the quality and quantity of materials collected for recycling. Whether it’s tackling contamination, benchmarking your services or communicating service change with householders, WRAP has a suite of free-to-use resources to support you.
So, it’s perhaps not surprising that here at WRAP we aim to start the new financial year like we finished the last, supporting local authorities to navigate the changing policy landscape and working with them to deliver cost-effective, environmentally conscious services that citizens actively engage with. .
Join me and colleagues from the Local Authority Technical Support Team for a webinar webinar on Thursday 28th April @14:30 to hear all about our recent one to one support projects and new resources. Find out how we might be able to support you in the future and help shape our webinar and training programmes going forwards. In the meantime, if you think we might be able to help your authority please get in touch LA.Support@wrap.org.uk
