ANGLESEY RENEWS VERDANT CONTRACT
FOR ANOTHER 14 YEARS

Sevenoaks, Kent, 31 January 2007

It’s a happy new year for independent municipal services contractor Verdant Group plc as it was been awarded a new 14 year contract by the Isle of Anglesey County Council to provide refuse, recycling and street cleansing services across the Island.

Starting on 1st April this year, the new contract features a number of service improvements to further reduce waste by diverting more recyclables. These include the rollout of an alternate weekly collection service  across Anglesey over the next two years, a new output-based street cleansing specification including beach cleaning, and significant new investment in Verdant’s Gaerwen operations depot near Llangefni.

Recruiting Managers
The local management team is being strengthened to ensure an improved level of quality and service delivery, and Verdant is recruiting a new business manager, an operations manager and a quality assurance manager to oversee operations. A new fleet of vehicles will be introduced as part of the service enhancements.

Verdant had previously provided waste, recycling and cleansing services for the Isle of Anglesey County Council, during which time it has introduced a number of service upgrades to reduce waste and improve recycling. It currently provides a refuse collection service and collects recyclables from around 26,000 households, and the new contract will extend these services to include island wide recyclables collection.

Unique Partnership
Verdant currently has a unique partnership with the Isle of Anglesey County Council, community enterprise agency Menter Môn, and local authority waste disposal company Cwmni Gwastraff Môn Arfon Cyf. Using EU Objective One funding, the partnership helped deliver the Cleanstream project for improved recycling in the north of the island including Holyhead, and then further recycling projects under the Strategic Recycling Scheme (SRS) project.

Comprising nine different schemes in all, the SRS project includes a weekly kerbside collection of twin recycling boxes from around 8,000 households, which had improved the Island’s recycling rate to around 23% by the end of 2006, up from 2.6% in 2001/02.  Another successful scheme was launched under the SRS project in March 2006 where fortnightly green garden waste collections were introduced to around 6,000 properties.

Verdant managing director Simon Miles said: “Naturally, we are all delighted to have been awarded this new contract after a competitive tender process, and feel this reflects both the good relationship we have had with the Council for a number of years, and its conviction that Verdant can rise to the challenge of delivering improved services for the island’s residents.”

Meirion Edwards, the Isle of Anglesey County Council’s Principal Waste Management Officer, said: “We all face major challenges in the future with regard to managing our waste, meeting targets and improving the quality of service delivery. This new contract allows for these key challenges to be met, and we look forward to developing our relationship further with Verdant over the coming years to ensure continuous improvement in service delivery.”

Verdant is now one of the top five privately-owned waste and recycling management companies in the UK, following its recent acquisition of commercial waste and recycling business Waste Services (UK) Ltd. In late 2006, Verdant won its first London contract, for Waltham Borough Council, following earlier contract wins for Swale, South Beds, South Oxfordshire, Mid Surrey and Rother councils.