Roll-out of city's new clothes recycling banks should start at last in April, says council official

The contract for a new clothes-bank operator in the city should be finalised within two weeks, according to a council official Sid Ó Dálaigh, “after which a mobilisation period will begin”.

Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney had asked for an update on the roll-out of a new set-up for recycling textiles, at the North Central Area Committee meeting on 16 February.

She had pointed to continued issues of dumping and soggy clothes strewn around clothes banks in her constituency of Clontarf.

Cooney had been told last November by council officials that the council was just about to sign a new contract, she said. “What’s happening?” she asked.

She had previously asked for a breakdown of clean-up costs around clothes and bring banks, she said. Those figures weren’t available but it was costing the council money, she said.

In a written response issued later, Ó Dálaigh said that the council is in final pre-contract negotiations with the successful tenderer.

Because the contracts haven’t been signed, the council can’t say yet who has won the contract, he said. 

But new clothes banks will have a closeable drawer, he said, which “will go some way towards alleviating scavenging from the banks”.

The council is also assessing which bring-bank locations would be appropriate for monitoring with CCTV to deter dumping, he said. Cameras should start to be installed towards the end of the second quarter of this year, he said. 

What changes?

Complaints from councillors about waste clothes strewn around clothes banks, currently managed by Clothes Pod, and overflowing containers spiked early last year – as did questions around where the deposited clothes actually end up.

At the moment, the bulk of clothes collected are exported without being sorted or graded. 

In May, Dublin City Council tendered afresh for operators to manage two lots of clothes bank sites across the city. 

The tender outlined changes to the existing regime. It noted that there would be fines for operators if they didn’t tidy up around overflowing clothes banks in the city.

It also said that the council would weight its evaluation of applicants to take account of efforts by operators to separate, reuse, and track waste with a verifiable audit trail.  

“Details of how the tender proposes to dispose of waste items must also be submitted,” it said. And “there must be a verifiable audit trail from receipt of materials to the end destination supported by the necessary paperwork”. 

In October, a council spokesperson said there had been a challenge to the outcome of the tendering process, which led them to reevaluate all submissions. 

Then there was another challenge by the same company, said the spokesperson at that time – and they had to resolve that before the contract was awarded. 

Dublin City Council hasn’t responded to a media query sent yesterday, asking about progress on the roll-out, and why it has taken so long to get the contract agreed. 

In his response to Cooney, Ó Dálaigh said the council’s Waste Management Services intends to publish a report on the new provider and the benefits of the contract to the national circular economy once it is able to.