Glasgow City Council spend nearly £3m on just over 100,000 new ‘tracked’ bins

Council bosses are preparing to place an order for more than 100,000 new grey bins with special tracking gadgets to monitor how often they are emptied and boost recycling.

The budget for the 122,000 bins was £2.9 million but Glasgow City Council is not revealing how much exactly it will pay due to commercial sensitivity.

The wheelie bins would be fitted with RFID tags for kerbside homes and are due to arrive by the end of this financial year. It is understood there could be consequences if the right rubbish is not put in the correct bins possible delays to bins being emptied until the problem is sorted out. The grey bin contract is recommended to be be awarded to a firm called IPL Plastics.

Councillors will decide whether the deal should go ahead at a Contracts and Property Committee meeting next week. A council paper to be presented at the meeting said: “The contract is for the supply and delivery of 122,000 units of two-wheeled 240 litre dark grey bins fitted with low frequency RFID chips, to be distributed to kerbside properties.

“The purpose of installing the RFID tags on bins is to monitor the level of collections from these bins and identify improvements that could be made to encourage an increase in recycling. The tags will provide information on when the bins are emptied and location of the bin.”

It added: “The type of waste collected in these bins include; plastic pots, tubs and trays, food tins and drink cans, plastic bottles, cartons, soft plastics and plastic film. The provision of these bins aims to increase the amount and quality of recycling collected and processed, while also contributing to the council’s climate target aspirations

.”The £2.98 million budget for the supply and delivery of the bins has been funded by the Zero Waste Scotland Recycling Improvement Fund. Three bids were submitted for the contract. The council report said the recommended supplier is an accredited real living wage employer, which does not use zero – hour contracts.

As well as the grey bins the council will also collect paper, card and cardboard in blue bins. It is hoped the separate bins will reduce contamination and it is understood a new policy will be rolled out to cut down on waste being mixed up,