Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) Processing and Haulage

Description

East and North Herts Council are seeking information from the market relating to a material recovery facility (MRF) and haulage contract that the Councils will let in 2025. The material requires haulage from our transfer station in Buntingford SG9 9ER. The material mix will include: glass, steel and aluminium tins and cans, cartons, plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays and the council is seeking a MRF which can handle soft plastics and therefore is interested in understanding processing capabilities. Mixed papers (cardboard and paper) will be collected separately but it is expected that a small proportion will enter the dry mixed recycling stream. The council is also considering whether a separate ‘Lot’ with a different materials composition, a transfer station and haulage for Hertsmere Borough Council is of interest to the market. <br />North Hertfordshire Council (NHC) and East Hertfordshire Council (EHC) together ‘The Council’ are a shared service with a new dry recycling collection service due to come into effect around August 2025. The new service will collect residual waste, dry mixed recycling (DMR) and separate fibre on a three-weekly cycle for all material streams. The Council is currently out to tender for its collection contract and at this stage full collection methodology is unclear, we are seeking a haulage and processing contract for all our tonnage and we expect approximately a third of the tonnage to require processing each week. <br />The Councils operate with NHC being the lead authority and all dry recycling material being bulked from a depot in Buntingford, SG9 9ER. At the moment the commingled dry recycling mix captures mixed paper albeit paper is also collected in a separate box. The current MRF processing contract runs until at least the end of April 2025.<br />The current commingled mix includes:- Glass, plastic bottles pots, tubs and trays, mixed papers, steel and aluminium cans. <br />There is a small proportion of households in North & East Herts currently participating in a FPF FlexCollect trial. These households are currently collecting soft plastics in survival bags. <br />East & North Herts are seeking to remove the majority of the mixed papers material from the mixed dry recycling material and collect this separately in a separate wheeled bin and introduced soft plastics to the DMR composition.<br />Estimate of tonnage requiring MRF processing annually from 2025 for EHC & NHC is circa:- 15,200 tonnes.<br />The Council is also considering partnering with Hertsmere Borough Council as a separate ‘lot’ and seeks bidders views on this and their requirements in addition to those of the Council. In Hertsmere waste collection is in-house and provides an alternate weekly residual/DMR and separate organics collection. From April 2025 Hertsmere will provide a separate weekly food waste collection and fortnightly subscribed garden waste collection. DMR is currently direct delivered to Pearce Recycling Limited in St Albans and therefore a transfer station and haulage is required. <br />Tonnages estimates for Hertsmere are circa:- 7,000 tonnes.<br />