Environment Cabinet Member – Minutes – 19 July 2016

5 (5) ANIMAL WASTE COLLECTIONS – The Director of Places submitted a report seeking approval for charges for the collection and disposal of animal waste.

The council had awarded a contract for the treatment and processing of the residual waste it currently sent to landfill. A condition of that contract was that animal faeces were not sent to the processing facility. Neither the processing facility nor the new waste transfer station had an environmental permission to receive soiled animal bedding.

The council currently collected animal faeces and soiled bedding from commercial businesses.  These included boarding kennels, catteries and animal breeders. This waste could lawfully be disposed of to landfill.

To lawfully continue collecting this waste from commercial customers a solution was required that complied with all applicable environmental requirements and met full cost recovery principles for commercial activity.

All the council’s commercial customers who produced animal faeces and soiled bedding had been contacted to make them aware that the service would no longer be provided when the new contract began. Out of 38 customers all but two signed up for an extension until the council started to use the new waste transfer station this summer.

The council undertook to try and develop a solution aimed at continuing to offer a collection and disposal service.  The proposal was a joint solution from Waste Services and Highways and Neighbourhood Services as it utilised resources from both services.

Resolved – That a continuation of the collection and disposal service to commercial customers, at the scale of charges proposed in paragraph 5.1 of the report, be approved.