Dear Sir or Madam,
please provide the number of commercial customers that the council
provides a service to and how much waste is produced by these
customers annually in tonnes over the last 5 years and cost to
provide this service annually , please provide the percentage of
band c properties annual council tax bill used to fund refuse and
recycling services and how many properties are serviced with a
brown (compost) bin and what is the cost annually to provide this
service and the total annual revenue collected from the sale of
refuse,recycling and garden sacks

Yours faithfully,

l miles

I acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information request. We will respond within the statutory deadline of 20 working days.

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I am now able to respond to your FoI request below. I have broken down the request into various parts to make it easier to reply to and hope this is acceptable to you.

1. Commercial customers - MSDC do not currently have a commercial or trade waste service in place, as this is something that we are building up at this moment and will be launching in late summer 2009. We do however operate a 'wheeled bin agreement' for such places as village halls, churches, police stations etc that are collected on the domestic rounds. Therefore at this time we are unable to provide tonnages or costs for this service, but would be pleased to do so once the service is up and running.

2. Currently the average sum paid by a Band C council tax property towards refuse and recycling services is £48.00 per household. The percentage average varies according to the parish the dwelling is in.

3. Brown bin or garden waste service customers - we currently have 5143 customers on this service and the costs for this is included within the general waste and refuse collection service.

4. The revenue received from the sale of the following categories of sacks is as follows for 08/09 -

Refuse £18,765 recycling £1,865 garden sacks £16,109

I think I have now answered your request in full but please contact me again if I can be of any further help.

Regards

Val Coe
Freedom of Information Officer
Democratic & Legal Services
Mid Suffolk District Council
131 High Street, Needham Market, Ipswich IP6 8DL

Tel: 01449 724673
Fax: 01449 724696
Email: [email address]
www.midsuffolk.gov.uk

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Dear Valerie Coe,
I am somewhat confused buy your answer to the question regarding
trade waste, section 34 of the environmental protection act 1990
imposes a duty of care on all producers of waste to take reasonable
and appropriate steps in relation to the waste they produce and i
understand it is illegal to transfer waste without a waste transfer
note which must be held for at least 2 years.
After speaking to your contractor Serco they inform me they have
been collecting trade waste on your behalf since they took the
contract over in April 2007 so there should be a record of waste
transfer notes to look back on for at least 2 years and trade waste
sacks have been on sale at various outlets for this period of time
from what you say has the council been breaking the law with regard
to collecting trade waste. With regard to the composting (brown
bin) i was told buy councillor Roy Barker that this was a separate
optional service not included within the general waste and refuse
service so as to make it fairer on the council tax payer but it
appears not could you clarify this for me.

Yours sincerely,

l miles

Thank you for your response below. I have contacted the Lead Officer for Waste Services and I will rely to your comments as soon as possible.

Regards

Val Coe
Freedom of Information Officer
Democratic & Legal Services
Mid Suffolk District Council
131 High Street, Needham Market, Ipswich IP6 8DL

Tel: 01449 724673
Fax: 01449 724696
Email: [email address]
www.midsuffolk.gov.uk

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I apologise for not replying to your questions earlier but I have been waiting for the officer to return from leave.
I have been given the following information and hope that this clarifies matters:

With reference to the trade waste service as referred to in paragraph 1 of my original response I am advised that MSDC does not have a dedicated trade waste service in place. The Council does co-collect commercial waste from about 70 customers in the District, each using pre-paid sacks. Annual Waste Transfer notes are provided to these customers. Weight of waste collected is calculated on a 'formula basis' agreed with Suffolk County Council who recharge MSDC for the disposal cost.

From September, MSDC will be operating a dedicated trade waste and recycling service. However, where appropriate we will continue to co-collect trade waste from sack customers on household waste vehicles if this is more efficient.

With regard to the Subscription Garden Waste Service, the cost of providing the service is met from subscription. The garden waste income and expenditure is contained within the overall waste and recycling budget.

I hope this clarifies matters and apologise for the confusion caused by my earlier reply.

Regards

Val Coe
Freedom of Information Officer
Democratic & Legal Services
Mid Suffolk District Council
131 High Street, Needham Market, Ipswich IP6 8DL

Tel: 01449 724673
Fax: 01449 724696
Email: [email address]
www.midsuffolk.gov.uk

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