Western Riverside Waste Authority

This information has been provided by the Western Riverside Waste Authority:

Western Riverside Waste Authority is the statutory waste disposal authority for the London Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Lambeth and Wandsworth and for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The Authority’s waste management policies are recycling led, with the balance of residual waste being transported from the Authority’s two transfer stations via the River Thames to a new Energy from Waste Facility on the Thames at Belvedere, due to become fully operational during 2011/12. Until that time, residual waste continues to be transported to landfill.

The Authority and its constituent councils agreed on a new basis of cost apportionment from 2009-10. Under the agreement, intended to run for eight years, the Authority recovers the costs of waste delivered by its constituent Councils at a rate per tonne according to the nature of the waste recycled or disposed of. There is a residual annual levy, apportioned on the basis of council tax-base, for overheads and civic amenity waste.

The estimated costs to constituent Councils for 2011/12 compared to the original budgeted cost in 2010/11 are shown in the table below:

Total net costs have increased by 10.8 per cent compared to the original budget for 2010/11. This is due to increased contract costs as waste is sent to the new Energy from Waste Facility, capital financing costs for the Material Recovery Facility (MRF), and general inflation, which are off-set by decreases in the volume of waste managed, reduced total landfill costs (due to the new facility, despite increases of £8 per tonne), adjustments for inflation allowances on charges and the Levy and a contribution from the General Reserve. The increase is not uniform for all four boroughs, however, mainly because each has experienced different decreases in their budgeted waste streams between the two financial years.

For more information visit the Western Riverside Waste Authority website.