Future Waste Collections and Street Cleansing Services consultation
The contract we have to pick up your waste and recycling and to clean our streets is coming to an end in Spring next year. We’ve invited companies to bid for the new contract.
We want to take this opportunity to propose some changes to the service you have received for the past few years. There are a few reasons for this:
- The government is likely to change the way it asks us to provide recycling services over the next couple of years, to align with changes to national policy resulting from the proposals of the Environment Act 2021.
- We’re working together with local people to make Brent a carbon neutral borough by 2030. We know lots of you want to do your bit to live more sustainably and through the Let’s Talk Climate conversation, you told us that we could help by making it easier for you to do the right thing and recycle – including making it easier to know what can and cannot be recycled.
- The council’s budgets have been stretched by the pandemic, rising prices, a growing population and a reduction in the funding we get from government. We need to save money and so have to think differently about how these services are delivered in the future.
The changes we think are needed will include:
- Introducing alternating weekly recycling collections for two different types of recyclable material. This means that ‘containers’ (e.g. tin cans, pots and glass) will be collected one week in your blue-topped bin, and ‘fibre’ (e.g. mixed paper, card and newspapers) will be collected the next week in new, separate reusable sacks that we’ll provide to residents.
- Introducing a new free bookable Small Items Collection Service for recycling textiles, small electrical items, batteries, coffee pods and paint.
- Deploying our street cleaning teams more intelligently, to where they are needed most, supported by rapid response teams in each Brent Connect area. This will be a move away from the current approach that focuses on teams being sent to certain streets on a schedule.
The proposed changes to recycling collections will affect all street level households – those who currently put their recycling in a blue-topped bin that is collected at the kerbside – and some communal households (flats) where there is space to provide a separate bin for fibre. All other flats and households along the North Circular Road will not be affected.
The proposed changes to street cleansing will affect everyone who lives and works in the borough.
This consultation asks for your views on the changes we are proposing. Your views will help shape the future services that you receive.
Further detail on the changes we think are needed (our ‘Preferred Service’) is provided in the document attached with this consultation.
Please click on the survey icon to share your views (note: you must be registered to complete the survey).
Have a question about the information provided, require a translation , or any assistance with sharing your views? Please contact us directly at: redefininglocalservices@brent.gov.uk
Phases
Let's Talk Climate: waste and green space
Let’s Talk Climate, an 11-week conversation that ran from 15 November 2021 to 4 February 2022, was all about finding out what local people would be up for doing, and what they want the council to do, to make local neighbourhoods greener and more sustainable.
A growing population and the climate emergency mean that we need to think differently about how local services are delivered in the future, so they can go further within increasingly stretched budgets. If people can take more responsibility for their rubbish and help to keep Brent a little tidier, this will mean we can spend more time delivering the services people need.
As part of the conversation, we organised a number of different activities and channels for local people to have their say, which included local drop-in sessions, a film screening and football tournament, a radio special, Brent Connects meetings, and an online survey through the engagement portal.
Participants were asked to give us their ideas for how, as a borough, we can:
- Buy less stuff and reduce, reuse and recycle more
- Keep our streets clean
- Make Brent even greener, to encourage people to spend more time outdoor
In total, we received 922 comments from 419 people as part of the conversation.
The ideas we gathered through Let’s Talk Climate will influence the contracts for three important council services up for renewal next year. It could change how waste and recycling is managed, how we keep streets clean and how green spaces are maintained.
The ideas and views gathered were to be reflected in the second-year delivery plan for the Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy, turning your priorities into action, and a new ‘green map’ of the borough to highlight all the different areas of nature, even outside parks and open spaces.