COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

south dublin county council crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, December 13, 2010

MOTION NO. 5

MOTION: Councillor E. Coburn

That this Council requests the Manager review the current collection sequence for Black & Brown Bins in order to maximise the collection options for households and minimise the type of non -recyclable waste accumulating (eg nappies).

REPORT:

A proposal for the restructuring of the refuse collection service in tandem with the introduction of the brown bin included a provision for collections to take place on the actual bank holiday itself was negotiated with the unions with talks concluding in May this year.    This negotiated proposal was however rejected following a ballot of refuse collection staff.   Following this there was intensive discussions with the Labour Relations Commissions which enabled the introduction of the brown bin.  The situation in relation to waste is one which requires on-going review as presentation rates and customer behaviour alter continuously.    While the bank holiday issue was resolved for October, with a collection provided on the Bank Holiday Monday  at a  straight collection cost of approximately €19,000 and with some 3,700 bins collected.   When this is compared with statistics used to analyse the previous saturday collections it is a presentation of  which is a presentation rate of 24%.  The previous Saturday yielded approximately 10% while the daily presentation was 40%.Further discussions on other issues which are relevant to the overall customer base will take place including the collection sequence but it should be noted that where residual or bio-waste is wrapped well issues of odour are controlled.

It has previously been acknowledged that customers ordinarily collected on Mondays are affected more than others and refuse routes are being examined to explore available options to lessen this impact.  Additionally, it was agreed following discussions in the Labour Relations Commission after the ballot referred to above, that a full examination of refuse collection routes will be carried out using route optimisation software to determine what improvements can be made to the overall service having regard for the customer base, location and presentation rates.  The issue raised can be included in the parameters set to the optimisation software.