Today's news in The Times that 'Councils waste £200m on rubbish bins of all colours' naturally caught my eye. The headline was supposedly based on a report 'Wasted Opportunities' by the Circular Economy Task Force. Too bad the report doesn't provide the evidence to back such a claim up.
But The Times write-up also quotes one of the Report authors, Dustin Benton, who said that "analysis of 40 councils' policies on procuring wheelie bins showed that only two had co-operated on purchasing". Surely the assumption that councils waste £200m is not based on such a small sample, or was it based on muliplying a potential saving in one council by the number of councils in the UK - sadly we aren't told.
It is also surprising that Dustin (Bin) expected find the answers as to how councils procure wheelie bins through a review of policies on wheelie bin procurement - I have never seen such a policy but have seen the evidence of many councils making use of consortium buying for bins. Why didn't the author ask the question of the local government consortia: "how many councils buy their wheelie bins through your arrangements?"
So yet again council procurement is presented as incompetent - shame that more reliable evidence or a defence wasn't presented.
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