The Bath Business Improvement District (BID) has begun a tendering process for a streamlined and subsidised trade waste collection service for the city.

Working with waste management consultants Eunomia, the BID has proposed replacing the current system – which involves 15 different operators picking up waste from businesses in the city ­– with one that uses a single operator using a single fleet of vehicles.

Bath BID eco-vehicle

The proposals outline that the recycling service would be free to businesses while rubbish collections would be ‘heavily-subsidised’. To encourage take up of the new scheme, the BID is offering local businesses a subsidy worth up to £100,000 a year.

Speaking of the tender, Andrew Cooper, Bath BID Manager, said: “I am confident that this new service would save our levy-payers a significant sum of money and also dramatically improve recycling rates.

“One of the Bath BID’s three key focuses is to make savings for city centre businesses, and this proposal for a simplified and unified waste collection scheme is part of our strategy to deliver this. But we believe the benefits go beyond that, and that this initiative will help the environment and protect Bath’s precious World Heritage streetscape by reducing congestion and pollution.”

According to Cooper, Bath sees just 20 per cent of trade waste sent for recycling, with the remaining 80 per cent going to landfill. The BID hopes that this new scheme will reverse those figures and put trade waste collection on ‘an equal footing’ with domestic waste collection in terms of recyclable material.

Simon Pullen, General Manager of the SouthGate shopping centre in Bath and chairman of the BID, said: “The planned new service would have environmental, aesthetic and financial benefits for the city and its businesses. It would provide a free recycling service for all BID levy payers, collect general waste at a heavily subsidised disposal cost and minimise businesses’ exposure to landfill tax increases.

“Moreover, it would reduce congestion in the city centre and improve the appearance of public spaces by cutting the number of waste collection operators and providing gull-resistant collection boxes. It is a scheme that works from every angle."

The new scheme is proposed to begin on 1 April 2013.

Trade waste companies interested in being involved in the tendering process should contact James Fulford at Eunomia.