Report for:

ACTION

Contains Confidential

or Exempt Information

No

Title Progress Report: Change Programme for the Waste

and Recycling Service

Member Reporting Cllr Amrit Mann, Deputy Leader and Lead Member for

Environment

Contact Details Victoria Lawson, Director of Customer Services and

Communications;

Victoria.lawson@hounslow.gov.uk; 020 8583 4463

For Consideration By Cabinet

Date to be Considered 10th October 2017

Implementation Date if

Not Called In

Affected Wards All

Keywords/Index Waste, Recycling, Fortnightly Black Wheelie Bin

Collections

1. Details of Recommendations

The Cabinet is asked to:

• Note the progress with the implementation of the recycle refresh and

fortnightly black wheelie bin collections.

• Note the early indications of improvements to our recycling performance

• Note the mitigation plans to balance the budget following the opening of

Southall Lane depot in November 2017

• Agree the updated capital cost for the new depot and Materials Handling

Facility at Southall Lane and authorise additional capital funding of £1.5m to

fund the additional work to completion of the project.

2. Report Summary

To support the ambition to increase our recycling rate to 50%, Members agreed to

introduce kerbside recycling and fortnightly black wheelie bin collections in

December 2015. This report outlines the overall change programme and the

progress on the implementation of the recycle refresh and fortnightly black wheelie

bin collections which took place in June and July 2017.

It also details the progress made on meeting the Environment Agency’s

requirements when permitting the operation of new recycling facilities – including

the Fire Prevention Plan and outlines the other unavoidable cost increases where

this report requests the approval of an additional £1.5m of capital to complete the

project.

3. Reason for Decision and Options Considered

The council has made a clear commitment to make sure we have a cleaner and

greener borough with improved waste collections, more recycling and less household

waste. To support this ambition, the council has made a number of significant

changes to its waste and recycling service over the last 24 months, which has

included:

• Move of the service from Suez into Recycle 360 with a clear intention to

improve the quality of the service.

• Agreement to build a state of the art Materials Handling Facility at Southall

Lane

• Significantly alter the recycling offer to residents with the refresh and

continuation of kerbside recycling facilities and introduction of fortnightly black

wheelie bin collections.

• Introduction of the paid garden waste service for the Borough

The expectations for the change programme in 2017/18 were:

• The successful move of the service into Recycle 360, which was completed in

October 2016.

• The implementation of kerbside recycling and fortnightly black wheelie bin

collections, was completed in June and July 2017. This was later than

anticipated and this report provided a more detailed update on the

implementation of these changes.

• The implementation of a paid Garden Waste service, which for 2017/18 has

over 17,000 subscribers. Significantly more than the anticipated 13,000 when

the service was launched in January 2016.

• The opening of Southall Lane depot was expected in October 2016 and it has

been subsequently delayed until November 2017. This resulted in the need to

use Space Waye until the opening of Southall Lane which has seen the

opening times for the public reduced to the weekend.

What do we offer to residents?

There are approximately 102,000 households within the borough that receive refuse

and recycling collections.

We offer a ‘kerbside’ refuse and recycling service to approximately 71,000 residents

in low-rise properties:

Container Materials Frequency

Red box

Plastics and cans

Weekly

Blue box

Paper and card

Weekly

Green box

Glass bottles and jars

Weekly

Food waste caddy (5l and

23l)

Food waste

Weekly

Tied

carrier bag

Textiles and clothing

Weekly

Tied carrier bag

Small electrical items

Weekly

Brown wheeled bin/bags Garden waste

Fortnightly

Black wheeled bin

Residual waste

Fortnightly

For those residents living in flats or non ‘low-rise’ properties, a range of recycling

facilities are available, these include:

• paper - including newspapers, magazines, envelopes, junk mail and telephone

directories

• food tins, drinks cans, aluminum foil and trays

• aerosols

• clear glass bottles and jars

• green glass bottles and jars

• brown glass bottles and jars

• flattened cardboard

• plastic packaging

Recycle Refresh and Fortnightly Black Wheelie Bin Collections

The Recycle Refresh which would see all low-rise properties receive a red and blue

recycling box took place across June 2017. The delivery of all new boxes took 4

weeks and completed on 30 June. New red and blue boxes were delivered to all

low-rise properties along with a supply of (52) biodegradable food waste bags. The

blue box is for card and paper, the red box is for plastic and cans.

The roll out of fortnightly black wheelie bin collections started with a ‘big bang’

approach on 10 and 17 July for residents.

The delivery of these changes were supported by a significant and high profile

communications campaign that included: leaflets to residents informing them of the

changes; posters; a range of outdoor advertising; roadshows; social media; website;

press releases; a recycling video; information shared by customer services to

residents who called and visited the civic centre and radio promotion. We also

implemented a number of online forms: missed bin, container requests and a new

collection calendar. Details of the full communications campaign is at Appendix A.

Performance

Operational Delivery

To deliver the service Recycle 360 have engaged 20 crews, plus an additional 3

crews to support the demand and change for the recycling service; whilst the residual

service operates with 6 crews plus an additional crew. This is because the current

route optimisation is based on tipping the recyclable materials at Southall Lane rather

than SpaceWaye. We will understand the level of crews required in the future once

the Southall Lane depot is fully operational.

The team have continuously focused on quality by returning and stacking the bins

appropriately. The number of enquiries received on quality, related to returning bins,

were 14 for July and 17 for August. The volumes of which have not increased

despite the increase in containers that require returning to the residents curtilage.

Each week we collect 359,000 waste and recycling containers from across the

Borough. In comparison, we miss a very small proportion of those bins. For missed

bins, the volumes reported are outlined in the graph below:

For excellent performance we would expect to miss less than 0.1% of the bins and

containers per week. The volumes missed in August are 0.06% of the total number

of collections, equivalent to 63 bins missed per 100,000.

Through the implementation of these changes, we have identified a number of areas

and issues that we are having to address; namely access to narrow roads; reviewing

historic anomalies where residents do not have a standard waste and recycling

service and implementation of further online forms: garden waste and Tidy Town

being the next priorities. A detailed plan is in place and the relevant engagement will

continue to be undertaken with residents and where appropriate ward councillors.

Customer Enquiries

With any significant change in service that impacts on the majority of households

within the Borough, there will inevitably be a high volume of customer enquiries as

residents understand and become accustomed to the change in service.

From 29th June until 31st August, we received 23,102 calls into the contact centre.

This peaked in July, when we received almost 9,000 calls in one month. During this

period the average call answer rate varied from 50% to 86% (averaging at 64%).

Residents in this period would have experienced increased wait times; however the

call volumes are now returning to 2016 levels. In September, the call answer rate

increased to over 80%.

Below, we have outlined that peak in calls in comparison to the call volumes in 2016

for waste and recycling:

The chart below shows the number of emails received and handled each week since

the launch of Recycling Refresh on 5th June 2017. Since this time to date we have

handled 9620 emails. More recently we can see the number of emails received

beginning to reduce.

Overall the top issues were:

• Queries about the ordering of red and blue recycling boxes

• Queries about replacement green boxes and the food caddy

• General Information enquiries about recycling refresh and alternate weekly

collections

We have received 6 formal complaints related to the Recycling Refresh and Fortnightly

Black Bin Collection policies.

We have begun to see the email volumes return to normal, and as of 11th September,

we are receiving an average of 90 emails per day (450 a week) and all emails are

being responded to within 48 hours.

Social Media

We closely monitored our social media and responded to comments and queries

raised by residents. The following data is taken from Hounslow Council’s Facebook

and Twitter pages between dates 5th June 2017 – 31st August 2017.

The graph shows the total number of times residents used social media to report an

issue with the roll out of Recycle Refresh and/or the Fortnightly Black Bin collection:

The highest point (14) occurred on 17 July 2017 after the first week of the Fortnightly

Black Wheelie Bin Collection roll out. The lowest point (0) occurred on the 19 June

2017 just as we were starting the second week of new recycling refresh box delivery.

The level of reports began to drop after 4 August 2017. We saw a significant

reduction in the number of Waste and Recycling related reports. Going from an

average of 8 per day to 3 per day in just two weeks.

The total number of reports are broken down into the following categories shown in

the bar graph below:

Each report on social media was dealt with using the approved Frequently Asked

Questions (FAQs) developed for the roll out of this change programme.

• Link to the Recycling Refresh FAQ’s -

https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20128/household_recycling_and_waste_coll

ections/1656/your_questions_answered_-_weekly_recycling

• Link to Fortnightly Black Bin Collection FAQ’s -

https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20128/household_recycling_and_waste_coll

ections/1655/your_question_answered_-

_fortnightly_black_wheelie_bin_collections

Engagement with Residents

An important part of this work, was the engagement with residents and we brought in

additional staff to deliver our plans for awareness, education and engagement. The

key deliverables from this approach were:

• Use data to identify areas of low compliance and hot spots and to actively

engage with those residents.

• Assess the capacity in residual waste bins to determine whether the standard

size bin is sufficient.

• Where a larger bin is necessary (i.e. the resident(s) are recycling correctly and

comprehensively all materials), process a larger bin application.

• Work to eliminate all instances of excess sacks being placed out and increase

recycling.

Phase 1 – Recycle Refresh Engagement

For the first phase of the engagement, the team visited areas with poor performing

recycling rates and targeted properties that had ‘events’ e.g. contamination, excess

waste.

▪ Total properties visited: 14,777

▪ Successful interviews: 5,700

▪ Overall contact rate: 38.57%

During this first phase, we asked residents key questions to understand the success

of both the delivery of the recycle refresh programme and the communications:

We also asked if residents, who we engaged with, if something had been missing

from their delivery and only 537 containers were noted from 14,777 households as

per the graph below.

We also asked those residents engaged how confident they were with the new

service and those who were reasonably confident (3) and above were 93.68% of

residents.

Phase 2 – Fortnightly residual collections engagement (12/07/2017 to

29/09/2017)

For the second phase of the programme, we engaged with residents for the change

to fortnightly black bin collections. During this period, the team engaged with:

▪ Total properties visited: 55,195

▪ Successful interviews: 17,130

▪ Overall contact rate: 31.04%

The key statistics identify that the communications and engagement work had been

successful in that almost 99% of residents who we spoke with understood that their

black wheeled bin collection was moving to fortnightly collections.

We also asked whether confidence had increased with the service and you can see

those being extremely confident increased by over 22%.

We also asked residents to identify where they felt that had barriers to recycling:

Summary of Engagement

Phase 1

RECYCLE

REFRESH

ENGAGEMENT

(13/06/2017 TO

13/07/2017)

Phase 2

FORTNIGHTLY

COLLECTIONS /

BARTEC

ENGAGEMENT

(12/07/2017 TO

29/09/2017)

Total

Visitations

including BARTEC

properties

14,777 55,195 69,972

Successful

interviews including

BARTEC

properties

5,700 17,130 22,830

Overall contact

rate, including

BARTEC

properties

38.57% 31.04% 32.63%

Containers

Throughout this period, we expected to see an increase in container requests and

requests for larger bins.

Additional Container Requests

A total of 25,784 additional containers were ordered between June and August, the

majority were for food waste containers.

Large Bin requests

Larger bin requests and assessments were completed by officers from the Waste &

Recycling team.

Large Bin Assessments No. of Enquiries

Total Number of Enquiries 3458

Approved 2112

Declined/ Unable to Contact* 1346

Recycling Levels

Early indications demonstrate that the recycling performance for the Borough is

beginning to increase.

Apr-17 May-17 Jun-17 Jul-17 Aug-17

Recycling

Rate 26.7% 26.8% 30.2% 32.7% 33.9%

This is an increase of 7.2% from April to August 2017, with August being the first full

month of the new recycling and waste collection arrangements. The London average

is 33.55% (as reported for April 17 to June 17). This suggests that our new recycling

and waste collection arrangements are having the desired affect and getting us on

the way to our 50% target. However, we really need data for two full quarters to be

properly clear about the progress we are making.

This recycling rate will also be positively impacted when Space Waye re-opens in the

winter, when residents will be able to use the facility 7 days a week rather than

currently only at the weekend.

Also we have seen:

• That the total residual waste has decreased by 11% (August 16 vs August 17)

• Collected recycling (kerbside) is increasing although is overall lower than last

year due to Space Waye closure.

• Food waste has increased by 66% (August 16 vs August 17)

• Incineration is increasing

Compositional analysis completed in May shows that there is further potential to

divert more materials out of the residual waste stream and into the recycling stream.

Samples were taken from the four main “Acorn” demographic profiles present within

the borough (representing 93% of the borough population).

Samples of residual waste were taken from areas around the borough where these

individual demographic profiles exist, thus deeming the outcome to be representative

of the majority of the borough.

Of all of the residual waste collected and sampled it was found that (by weight):

- 33.4% was foodwaste

- 4.5% was garden waste

- 25% was material that could otherwise have gone into the recycling boxes /

bags.

Therefore, the total “diversion opportunity” is 63%.

Flytipping

With regard to flytipping, the early data we have is giving us a mixed picture. Fly

tipping in parks did increase in August, but stayed pretty much static on the public

network. However, we really need data for two full quarters to be properly clear about

what the impact has or has not been.

Meanwhile, we are keeping a very close eye on this and will continue to enforce

against fly tipping hard, wherever it occurs. We issued 104 FPNs for fly tipping and

littering on the public network in August, compared to 64 in the same month last year

Garden Waste

The garden waste service has continued to exceed expectations on the levels of

subscriptions, with over 17,000 residents subscribed in 2017/18. To date we have

achieved £790k of income compared to an expected £690k. This is significantly

higher than the anticipated 13,000 subscriptions when the service was first launched.

A thorough review of garden waste will be undertaken to make further improvements

to the service for 2018/19.

Materials Handling Facility and Depot

In June 2016 Cabinet approved a budget of £18m to design and construct a new

depot and Materials Handling Facility (MHF) at Southall Lane and this estimate was

based on designs that had been developed for and up to planning. In April 2016, the

Environment Agency brought in a new statutory requirement for Fire Prevention

Plans to be included as part of their permitting requirements and the guidance was

first published on 29 July 2016.

Works commenced on the construction of the new MHF and depot buildings in

December 2016 at which time the Project Board gave its approval for the contract to

be let with contractual commitment of £18.35m which was £0.35m over the available

budget at that time and was expected to be addressed by underspends on other

elements of the capital investment required for this project.

The Cabinet report dated 17 January 2017 gave details on the implications of

complying with the new requirements which were very onerous and inexact. At the

time of reporting to Cabinet on 17 January, the application was still being developed

as were the designs and it was estimated that the additional construction works would

require an additional budget of £2.5m that was subsequently approved by Cabinet.

Cabinet also noted that our application to the Environment Agency would be one of

the first under this new statutory requirement and it may be that the Environment

Agency will require more substantial works in order to issue the permit that could

require additional budget of up to £3.8m. If so, further funding would be requested at

a later date.

The application to the Environment Agency was made on 21 March 2017 and was

finally approved July 2017 and did require additional works than those that were

estimated in early January. The main points of additional works were:

o Construction of a standalone building as a fire command centre

o Additional fire separation of baled materials within MHF

o Additional fire suppression to the plant and the need for both deluge

and sprinkler systems both needing to be operational simultaneously

o As a result needing 50% additional water storage tanks above ground

with all the associated infrastructure and structural works

o Reinforcement of paving of the rear of the MHF for fire appliance

access

During the construction stage, Recycle 360 who will be operating the facility raised

several issues that required changes to the original project scope for operational and

health and safety reasons. The main points of additional works were:

• uplift to the CCTV/ICT works to ensure the full security and optimum

health and safety monitoring of the operations as well as providing

the fire brigade the additional fire fighting assistance that they were

keen to see.

• Anti-bird protection measures

• Provision of a fuelling station

• Redesign of the office and welfare building to allow the potential to

add a further two stories in the future (for added

office/educational/training capacity) has resulted in additional

infrastructure works.

The total additional funding required to cover off the additional works to meet the

requirements of the approved Fire Prevention Plan, scope change and correcting

works inclusive of professional fees, specialist surveys, overheads, profits and

contractual prolongation costs amounts to a total of £1.5m having discounted the

settlement made with Hounslow Highways. Of this £1.5m, almost £1m is attributable

to the EA requirements.

By the completion of the Southall Lane depot the total cost will be £22m, which is £4m

over the original budget. Of this, almost £3m is attributable to the requirements the

new statutory requirements relating to fire from the Environment Agency.

The contractual completion date for Phase 1 was planned for 3 October 2017 but

given the additional works set out in the report, the contractor could not reasonably

meet this date and a revised completion date of 17 November has now been agreed

and works are progressing well to achieve this date. Upon completion, Recycle 360

will take over the entire depot and commence operations.

Upon completion of Phase 1, the contractor will be completing the staff carpark area

and bin storage along with final surfacing of the access road which will be undertaken

alongside the fully operational depot and is planned to be completed by 19 January

2018.

4. Key Implications

The implementation of the recycle refresh programme and the fortnightly black bin

collection was a significant change to the service. There are further projects that are

under development to further improve and enhance the service including:

• Re-opening of SpaceWaye before the end of the calendar year.

• Garden Waste

• Tidy Town

• Flats above Shops

• Recycling and refuse provision for housing estates

• Narrow Access roads

• Continued promotion of recycling particularly plastics and food waste.

These changes have impacted up the budget for the service. The total budget for the

waste service in 2017/18 is £14.4m, the savings applied to the service over the past

three years from 2017/18 to 2018/18 total £2.18m.

The key implication from the delivery of this change programme has been the impact

on the budget due to the delay in the opening of Southall Lane depot. The depot is

on track to be opened in mid-November at which point Recycle 360 will mobilise and

transition the service. This will also enable SpaceWaye to re-open.

Whilst the expectation remains that we will have 3 months of the envisaged service

running from Southall Lane depot. It will not be sufficient to significantly reduce, in-

year, the expected overspend of £1.99m.

There is a comprehensive mitigation plan that outlines what needs to take place to

move the budget into balance; which is in part predicated on the need to achieve at

least a minimum 45% recycling rate to ensure the costs for landfill reduce and the

income from recycling increases.

5. Financial Details

a) Financial background and impact on the budget

The Waste & Recycling Service has a net expenditure budget of £14.4m in 2017/18.

The savings applied to the service over the past three years from 2015/16 to 2017/18

total £3.2m. The delivery of the service change required to achieve the savings has

been delayed resulting in overspends in the previous two years, and at the end of

August a pressure of circa £2.0m is anticipated.

The key drivers of the budget pressures are:

Collection service costs

The cost of delivering the new collection method has required additional crews in

order to deliver the level of service required, resulting in higher labour and fleet costs.

The current operating model also contains a number of inefficiencies including the

use of SpaceWaye. The service change needs to be fully implemented and the

balance between service delivery and cost needs to be fully understood to design a

service that fits within budget; the cost of which is expected increase considerably.

One-off service-change costs

There are a number of in-year costs due to the implementation of the service change.

These include project agency staff, publicity and communications, and waste and

environmental consultants Envirocomms and Eunomia. There are also a number of

transitional costs resulting from the interim arrangements in place till the service

change is fully implemented. These include plastics and cans disposal costs which

should generate income when Southall Lane Depot is operational, site security costs,

and additional SpaceWaye costs.

Material handling facility costs

The operating costs for the new Southall Lane Depot are not yet known. The main

areas of uncertainty relate to energy consumption in relation to the bailing and other

equipment and the level of energy that will be provided from photovoltaic panels.

The levels of staffing required to safely oversee the operation and how quickly

efficient operating procedures are bedded in. The cost of insuring the site which is

currently being procured.

Recycling material sales income shortfall

Southall Lane Depot is scheduled to be in full operation towards the end of the

calendar year, hence the part year impact on material sales income projected to be

realised. The two key variables are the volumes and pricing of the recycling

materials delivered through the service. Work is being done on procuring and

securing the best offers for sale of the recyclables processed at the depot. Currently

it is expected that the £1.2m income budget will be achieved in future years

assuming the increase in recyclable materials collected can reach 50%.

Capital Investment

The Cabinet originally approved £11.55m funding for this project as part of the

September 2015 MTFS including transferring £1.5m previously allocated for adapting

Bridge Road Depot for use by the waste service. This was increased by £16.6m in

June 2016. A further report in January 2017 agreed a further increase to the budget

of £2.5m to address the pressure of increased costs due to Environment Agency

regulations. This report will add a further £1.5m to the cost of this project taking the

total level of investment to £32.15m as shown below.

Budget

£m

Containers 3.30

Materials Handling Facility 22.00

Vehicles 6.40

ICT 0.45

32.15

All of the £32.15m capital budget allocated to this project is being funded from

borrowing. This has an impact on the level of savings required across the

organisation in future years. The revenue impact of the borrowing will result in

interest and repayment costs of £2.1m a year at current rates.

b) Comments of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services

This report reviews the performance of the waste service through the transition to a

fortnightly collection of residual waste outlining the issues which have resulted in the

service projecting an overspend of £2m in the current year. It also outlines the

complications which have been incurred during the construction of the Materials

Handling Facility.

The level of savings required from the service change have not yet been delivered

with the key pressures being driven by pressures from the operating costs of

Lampton Recycle 360 Ltd, one off costs incurred to support the service change and

underachievement of income from material sales. The savings require the service to

increase the levels of recycling resulting in lower residual waste costs as well as

generating materials for sale. Due to the delays introducing the new service these

benefits have not been realised resulting in an overspend projection for the current

financial year of £2m. Projections for performance in future years are dependent on

the expected benefits of the service change being realised.

The capital cost of implementing the new collection method through investment in the

service has increased significantly since the original business case. The timeline for

the project has been a major factor in the level of cost incurred with requirements

changing while works had begun leading increased design costs. This is in line with

assumptions made in the Medium Term Financial Strategy, subject to interest rates

remaining below 3% there will be no additional impact.

The service must continue to consider additional initiatives that can improve the

financial performance. Lampton Recycle 360 Ltd will need to find additional income

streams through commercial opportunities as part of this.

6. Legal and comments of the Head of Governance

This report sets out progress on the change programme for the waste and recycling

service from the perspective of the Council as client.

The service is delivered on behalf of the Council by Lampton Recycle 360 under

contract. Performance of the contract from Lampton Recycle 360’s perspective will

be reported separately to the Cabinet as part of L360’s quarterly monitoring reports.

7. Value for Money

8. Sustainability Impact Appraisal

9. Risk Management

10. Links to Council Priorities

11. Equalities, Human Rights and Community Cohesion

12. Staffing/Workforce and Accommodation implications:

13. Property and Assets

14. Any Other Implications

15. Consultation

16. Timetable for Implementation

17. Appendices

Appendix A: Communications Campaign

Appendix A: Communications

Communications Recycling Refresh

Leaflets and Posters:

• The delivery of the initial Trailer Recycling Refresh leaflet was delivered to just

over 71,000 ‘low rise’ properties w/c 1 May to inform residents of the

forthcoming Recycling Refresh.

• A second more detailed ‘How to’ Recycling Refresh leaflet was delivered

alongside the delivery of the new recycling boxes from 5 to 30 July.

• Councillors were provided with copies of the Trailer and dedicated Recycling

Refresh ‘How to’ leaflet.

• The Recycling Refresh leaflets and A4 posters were distributed and put up in

libraries, leisure centres, parks, resident associations, area forums, voluntary

sector organisations, GP surgeries and health centres.

• The Reception Team spoke to and gave Recycle Refresh leaflets to all

residents who visited the Civic Centre from 5 June onwards. We typically have

over 10,000 residents visit per month

• A large A0 poster was placed on the entrance door to the Civic Centre

detailing the changes coming with Recycling Refresh and Fortnightly black

wheelie bin collections

• A Recycling Refresh pull up banner was prominently placed in the Civic

Centre reception from 26 May until 30 June

Outdoor advertising

• Large posters were designed and used for advertising in the 33 free- standing

units and bus shelters for four weeks across the borough.

• Large lamppost banners at 74 high street sites were designed to inform

residents of the service changes with Recycling Refresh and Fortnightly

household waste collections. These were in situ by 5 June. We increased this

by a further 38 lamppost banners.

• We used an advertising van to promote the changes and this visited the

following locations from Monday 12 June (for 15 days):

Whitton Dene

Feltham including High Street

Bath Road (Hounslow West)

Kingsley Road

Staines Road

Chiswick High Road

Brentford High Street including Brentford Market

South Street, Isleworth

New Heston Road

Heston Road

Feltham High Street

Kingsley Road

Chiswick/ Chiswick High Road

Brentford/Brentford Market

New Heston Road/Heston Road

Press Releases; several press releases were issued throughout this period to inform

residents and these press releases were also sent to local and regional newspapers.

Website; the website was revamped, redesigned and updated with details on

Recycling Refresh. This was followed up with details on fortnightly black bin

collections.

Roadshows; the waste and recycling service undertook several roadshows across

the borough to show residents the new boxes, to answer their questions, and

educate them on recycling. The roadshows were as follows:

o Tuesday 30 May 2017 – Chiswick Library

o Wednesday 31 May 2017 – Brentford Morrisons

o Thursday 1 June 2017 – Heston Library

o Wednesday 7 June 2017 – Hounslow High Street (Outside Church)

o Monday 3 July 2017 – Treaty Centre, Hounslow

o Wednesday 5 July 2017 – Chiswick Library

o Thursday 6 July – Brentford Morrisons

o Friday 7 July 2017 – Heston Library

The vast majority of feedback from residents was positive and the main theme was

requests for food waste containers.

Film; we wrote the script and developed a short-animated film (Recycling Refresh

campaign film) to use over social media and the website to show residents how to

use the new recycling boxes and to outline what can and cannot be recycled. The

film was aired on a loop on a large TV screen in the reception of the Civic Centre and

on one screen above reception from 28 June

Social Media; the details on Recycle Refresh and fortnightly black bin collections

was promoted to our 7817 Twitter followers and 3817 followers on Facebook. This

mirrored the information being distributed in the leaflets and in the Frequently Asked

Questions & Answers we developed. Twice daily Tweets and Facebook messages

were scheduled for 8 weeks

Radio; Radio Jackie adverts began on 22 May. This was a four- week campaign.

The first two weeks aired the Recycling Refresh dedicated advert; the last two weeks

aired the dedicated fortnightly black bin collection advert.

HMOs; all licenced HMOs were directly written to, informing them of Recycle Refresh

and their responsibilities with it.

Customer Services; there was a message on the telephone system informing

residents of Recycling Refresh and forthcoming changes to the service

Hounslow Matters; the focus of the last edition, issued from 12 June, was on

recycling and waste. It also included information on the delivery of the new recycling

boxes and how to use them, fortnightly black bin collections, SpaceWaye and the

Southall Lane depot.

Frequently Asked Questions; these were continually developed as we received

feedback from residents. Communications, Customer Service, Reception staff,

Customer Relations and the Waste & Recycling Team all used the cleared answers

with residents’ enquiries. These Frequently Asked Questions are available to all on

the website

Internal Communications; we held regular internal briefings with the Customer

Contact Team, Customer Relations and Reception staff to update and talk through

communications on the campaign. We also promoted the service changes internally

via 7Days as we recognised that many staff live locally. Updates on Recycling

Refresh were also included in Members’ Matters

Window Display, from 5 June for two weeks the window display at the entrance to

the Civic Centre covered Recycling Refresh changes.

Vehicles, Recycling Refresh artwork was developed and fitted to all the recycling

and food waste vehicles

Fortnightly Black Bin Collections Communications

• Printing and delivery of the 3rd resident leaflet on AWC (Fortnightly wheelie

bin collections) – delivered by Royal Mail (RM) 2nd class post by Monday 3

July

• Printing and delivery of 2 x 40K fortnightly bin hangers and collection

calendars for residents in Zone A and Zone B - bin hangers placed on bins by

Recycle360 on Monday 3 July

• Printing and delivery of 50,000 Recycling Refresh contamination stickers for

collection crews to use on red, blue, and green recycling boxes to educate and

inform residents

• 10 different Collection Day Change letters for Zone A and Zone B printed and

delivered by RM 2nd class post by Monday 3 July

• A dedicated Black sack letter printed and sent to 899 addresses regarding

fortnightly collections delivered by RM 2nd class by 27 June

• Additional 38 key sites for lamp post banners on the Recycling Refresh/AWC

campaign went up from 17 July for six weeks (Turnham Green Terrace,

Brentford High Street, South Street, Isleworth, Twickenham Road, Isleworth,

Spur Road/London Road (Green School), Staines Road, Bath Road, Feltham

High Street, New Heston Road)

• Dedicated Recycling Refresh campaign video on the Recycling Refresh web

pages and now on the ‘new recycling & waste collection’ webpage.

• Updated Recycling Refresh web pages which has our dedicated Recycling

Refresh campaign video + Recycle Now videos added on how plastics, metal

cans, bottles and jars, food waste and paper recycled

• For the first time, ever, the Recycling Refresh video was added to the front

page of Hounslow Council’s Facebook page

• Fortnightly black wheelie bin banner was added to the Council’s homepage on

Monday 3 to 21 July

• Responded and responding to Tweets and Facebook messages using agreed

Recycling Refresh/Fortnightly black wheelie bin FAQs

• Downloadable fortnightly collection calendars added to the website (Collection

Day look up page) Monday 10 July

• Second Radio Jackie advert on fortnightly black wheelie bin aired until 17 July

• 250 A3 posters on the fortnightly black wheelie bin collection printed, delivered

and put in the Civic Centre, libraries, parks, leisure centres from 28 June.

• Dedicated fortnightly black wheelie bin collection PowerPoint screen in Civic

Centre’s reception from Monday 3 July

• Dedicated fortnightly black wheelie bin puller up banner prominently placed in

Civic Centre’s reception from Monday 3 July

• Updated hard copy fortnightly black wheelie bin collections/Recycling Refresh

FAQs provided to Communications, Contact Centre, Reception and Customer

Relations staff on Friday 7 July together with an internal briefing on AWC.

• Hard copies of the 3rd Resident leaflet on fortnightly black wheelie bin

collections provided to all Councillors on Friday 30 June

• Civic Centre display window dedicated to fortnightly black wheelie bin

collections from 3 to 7 July and again from 17 to 21 July

• Daily social media messaging on the new service – currently tri-weekly posts

on why we can’t collect plastic carrier bags and why these cannot be recycled.

Webpage updated to reflect the response

• Several press releases were issued to local and regional media on the

delivery of the new red and blue recycling boxes to houses in the borough –

20 June and fortnightly collection of black wheelie bins – 5 July

Communications has been focusing on engaging, educating and responding to

residents via our Social Media channels regarding questions and queries on

recycling, household waste, missed and remedial collections.