Bulky Bob's wins new Liverpool contract
Liverpool’s Bulky Bob’s has successfully retendered for Liverpool City Council’s Bulky Household Waste Collection service.
The leading social enterprise, based in Brunswick Dock, faced stiff competition when retendering for the new contract with huge national organisations bidding for the work. Bulky Bobs will now hold the contract for the next six years.
Councillor Berni Turner, Liverpool’s Executive Member for the Environment, formally signed the new contract with Bulky Bob’s Chief Executive, Shaun Doran, on the stage at the opening of the annual conference of LARAC, (Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee), at Liverpool’s Arena Conference Centre as part of the city’s Year of the Environment.
Shaun Doran explained: “Even though we knew we had done an excellent job over the past nine years collecting, reusing and recycling Liverpool’s bulky household waste and have won a number of national awards, we were not complacent and knew we had to pull out all the stops to make sure we were successful.
“We worked really hard to develop service improvements and to deliver even greater efficiency to ensure the collection services offers the very best value for money while still meeting the environmental and social objectives we share with the council.”
Bulky Bob’s has carried out bulky household waste collections for Liverpool City Council for the past nine years, making over 400,000 collections and collecting over 1.2 million items. They have saved over 300,000 items from landfill.
Bulky Bob’s has won national awards for its training programmes for long-term unemployed and currently holds the title of the Best Medium Sized Training Organisations in the country, awarded by UK Skills and it is listed as one of the Best Companies to work for in the Sunday Times 2009 list.
Liverpool City Council’s executive member for the environment, Councillor Berni Turner, said: “We looked very carefully at the other bids before deciding to award it to Bulky Bob’s. We were impressed by their focus on customer service, and their track record.
“Bulky Bob’s has been very successful over the years and this contract allows us to continue to improve the current service by introducing an appointments system and a reward scheme to increase the amount of bulky waste recycled.
“It’s vital people don’t throw their bulky household goods away or fly tip them, and there really is no excuse as the Bulky Bob’s service is easy to use, and everything they collect is reused and recycled.”
Bulky Bob’s collects a wide range of bulky household waste from Liverpool homes for free, with collections booked through Liverpool Direct. They reuse or recycle over 60% of the weight of everything that they collect and are always looking for ways to increase this. For example they are now working with Liverpool City Council’s Children’s Services department to help families in crisis access urgently need furniture for free.
All the furniture collected is assessed to see if it can be reused, and repaired where necessary, then sent to Bulky Bob’s store called Revive on London Road. All furniture sent there, from settees to wardrobes, is sold at a low price with 79% of customers from families on low-incomes and serving nearly 3,500 customers in 2008/09.
Shaun said: “At Bulky Bob’s we are always looking for furniture items. It means we can help the environment by diverting these items from landfill and we can help families on low-incomes through Revive, so we would ask anyone who has items of old furniture they no longer need to call Liverpool Direct on 0151 233 2001 and we will come to collect it and put it to good use where we can.”
