South Tyneside Council

Households often present the wrong bin for collection or miss a collection. Changes and disruptions to planned collections (e.g. public holidays, extreme weather, service interruptions) also result in confusion and missed collections. This causes dissatisfaction and it generates significant levels of queries and complaints (which average around 10,000 a year). Other impacts and costs include

• Increased levels of fly tipping of waste that has not being collected
• Disposal of waste / recycling incorrectly, resulting in contamination, reduced recycling rates, and an increase in costs
• Publicity campaigns and costs to communicate collection days, changes etc.

We want to

• Understand more about why collections are missed and the contributing factors (e.g. type of collection, time of year, household types etc.)
• Understand the best option for providing the following services direct to the resident / household
• scheduled household-specific collection dates
• automatic updates when changes occur
• timely reminders of collections

We will produce the following re-usable assets

• User research on the reasons for ‘missed’ collection
• A business case to confirm the cost of the problem and the potential savings within the partnership and nationally
• Recommendations for open standard digital solution(s) that would resolve the problem with example wireframes etc.