Description
Plymouth City Council is seeking to implement a city-wide food waste collection service from the 1st of April 2026 in line with the Environment Act 2021 and The "Simpler Recycling" scheme. The scheme impacts all Waste Collection Authorities in England and is sponsored by the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra).
The Council is obligated by statute to provide polythene liners for
internal kitchen caddies to around 110,000 households.
The term households in this context means individuals domestic dwellings and communal domestic dwellings. These include occupants in caravans, houseboats, detached houses,
semi-detached, terraces, bungalows, sheltered housing, Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) which includes bedsits.
Defra has provided funding to the Council for the procurement of kitchen caddies and kerbside caddies and an executive decision to proceed with the procurement has been granted.
The rollout of food waste collections is in 5 phases taking place throughout 2026. Phase 1 is now operational and further phases scheduled sequentially across Plymouth's remaining
collection rounds. The service is being delivered through a multiphase implementation plan to ensure operational stability, resident readiness, and effective resource allocation.
As the number of participating households increases with each phase, securing a dependable and scalable supply of polythene liners is critical to maintaining service continuity and supporting
households from their first week of participation.
To underpin the rollout, the Council has already procured both 7-litre kitchen caddies and 23-litre kerbside caddies from IPL Schoeller, ensuring container standardisation, durability
and service compatibility across all phases.
Securing the liner procurement now ensures that polythene liners supplied to residents will perform reliably with the caddies already in
circulation, supporting a coherent and high-quality end-to-end service. On the advice of the Council's Anaerobic supplier the Council has opted to roll out its food waste service only with Polythene liners as they support the efficacy of the production of
biogas and fertilisers as end products. In addition, they do not compromise the Anaerobic Digestion mechanical process and the final nutrient rich slurry. The Polythene liners will finally be taken to Combined Heat Processing in the Council's Energy from Waste plant.
The Council requires a reliable and compliant supply of food waste polythene liners in packs of 52 in a roll for 110, 000 households to support the continued rollout of its weekly food waste
collection service. The polythene liners are essential for maintaining hygiene, encouraging
resident participation, and ensuring compatibility with both domestic caddies and downstream
processing systems. To secure a high quality, value for money solution, the Council now intends to procure these polythene liners via the ESPO 860_26 Refuse and Recycling Products
framework, which provides preapproved suppliers, robust quality standards, and a compliant procurement route. This approach ensures consistency in liner specification, environmental performance, and supply resilience as the service expands across the city. This is initially a one-off procurement for the project.
The specification below assumes that the supplier will provide kitchen polythene liners for existing 7 Litre kitchen caddies. There is no requirement for communal kitchen caddies and kerbside caddies or housing units.
In this present instance, the Customer is issuing this Invitation to Tender as a Further Competitive Selection Process under Lot 9 of ESPO Framework 860_26 - Refuse and Recycling Products.