Committed to quality waste collection

North Norfolk District Council has signed a new national commitment to provide value-for-money waste and recycling collections which meet customers’ needs.

The Waste Collection Commitment makes it clear what residents can expect from our service, and aims to boost recycling rates (currently standing at 46 per cent in North Norfolk) and to improve residents’ satisfaction with collections even further.

The commitment is based on research into what people like and dislike about their existing services and issues that are important to them. These include regular and reliable collections, and clean streets after collections. The commitment was developed by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), the Government’s waste advisors, and the Local Government Association.

Councillor Eric Seward, Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, signed the commitment on behalf of North Norfolk District Council. He said: “We are committed to providing waste and recycling services which are good value for money and which meet the needs of our residents. Satisfaction with our bin collections is already quite high, but we want to do even better. Although we already do the things the Waste Collection Commitment demands of us, it gives us a framework so we can manage our collection service better.”

In results of the 2009 Place Survey (a statutory survey done for all the country’s public services), 83 per cent of people said they were satisfied with NNDC’s refuse collections, and 71 per cent with doorstep recycling.

The Waste Collection Commitment sets out 10 things the Council will do:

1. explain clearly what services residents can expect to receive
2. provide regular collections
3. provide a reliable collection service
4. consider any special requests that individual households may have, like NNDC’s assisted collection service for people who would have trouble moving their bins
5. design our services and carry out collections in a way that doesn’t produce litter (which contributed to NNDC winning the Clean Britain Award in 2009)
6. collect as many materials for recycling as we can and explain to residents what happens to them (NNDC is pushing ahead with garden waste collections, for example, and 15,000 of its 52,000 households now have brown bins for garden waste)
7. explain clearly what our service rules are and the reasons for them
8. tell residents in good time if we have to make changes to their services, even temporarily (which NNDC does around Bank Holidays, for example, with local advertising and using its residents’ magazine, and which the Council did during the recent snowy weather using the web and local media)
9. respond to complaints we receive about our services
10. tell all our residents about this commitment to collecting waste.

• For more information about the Waste Collection Commitment, visit www.wrap.org.uk/local_authorities/waste_commitment.html
• The attached pictures shows a North Norfolk District Council garden waste bin being emptied.

ENDS