Waste Management Bid
In Highland

COUNCIL CONSIDERS BIDS FOR WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICES

The Highland Council has begun considering the bids from the three companies which are tendering to provide modern waste management services and hopes to select the "Preferred Bidder" by April next year.

The companies bidding for the 25-year contract, to start in 2006, are Highland Future Waste Management, SITA and Shanks Waste Solutions.  The bids submitted are for waste management services to a defined area, which includes Inverness, Nairn, Ross & Cromarty, Southern Sutherland, Lochalsh and Lochaber.

The Council is still in the early stages of examination of the bid documents from each bidder but it is already clear that each company has carefully addressed the Council's needs and each has proposed its own mix of costed solutions, which include thermal treatments with energy recovery, recycling, composting and necessary landfill for remaining wastes.

Further detail governing individual bids cannot be released until such time as the Council has undertaken clarification and full evaluation of each bidder's proposals.

The Council is also seeking separate bids for waste management services to cover the period from the closure of the Longman Landfill, Inverness, in March 2003 until the new, long-term arrangements are put in place in 2006.

The Councils waste management spokesman, Councillor William Fulton said: "We are now at a very important stage of developing the Highland waste strategy.  I am pleased that three experienced companies have now presented detailed
proposals for us to consider."