HWRC Community News
Introduction:
In this section, we’ll share the latest news from the bookinglab HWRC community.
The goal here is to inform you of any product updates or community-led initiatives & help you connect with councils tackling common challenges.
The top five news stories from March include:
- WSCC's Banned List Functionality
- KCC's DVLA Integration
- A three-month review of our DIY Waste Module
- Our first regional webinar for HWRC managers in Northern Ireland
- We’ve launched a pilot offering of our industry-leading HWRC Booking Service
West Sussex County Council to rollout banned list functionality:
WSCC are the latest council in our community to add blocklist functionality to its HWRC Booking Service. Importantly, this will help the council identify, record & stop misusers from making a booking at the first point of contact.
Key benefits of this functionality include:
- Stopping service misuse
- Reducing costs
- Improving the staff experience
Kent County Council integrate its HWRC Booking Service with DVLA lookup:
KCC will integrate its award-nominated HWRC booking service with the DVLA database. The main goal here is to improve the user experience. Once live, service users can simply input their vehicle registration number & details like the vehicle make, colour, etc., will be automatically populated — saving residents time & streamlining the booking process.
Reflecting on the first three months of our DIY Waste Module:
At the end of Feb, we were joined by recycling & waste management professionals from across the UK to discuss how councils had managed the first two months of the new DIY Waste legislation and:
- Highlight early usage trends
- Discuss their implications &
- Explore potential solutions to common problems
As part of this, attendees:
- Shared findings & compared them with other authorities
- Asked questions on how other authorities are managing their HWRCs
- Talked through new ideas & more
Some key takeaways included:
- The move from 'finger in the air analysis' to being entirely data-driven
- Public confusion over the new legislation
- Residents seem to be bringing more waste per visit
You can watch the recording here.
In the month following the webinar, we've found that data has become even more of a focus with our community using our system's enhanced reporting capabilities to:
- Monitor spatial information (via address collection & validation) to allow for district & ward-level analysis
- Monitor waste stream & tonnage data to identify potential misuse
- Assess network & site-by-site utilisation data
- Conduct trend analysis (with a complete 365-day view)
- Accurately enforce the new DIY waste quota
- Collect & report impact assessment data & more
Post this session, we've also worked with our community to eliminate much of the confusion around the new legislation with:
- Guidance messaging displayed on booking journeys
- Real-time limit alerts on the front-end booking journey &
- Automated SMS/Email comms to inform & educate users
Based on feedback from the community, we also added the following items to our product roadmap:
- Status search updates
- Additional household & waste stream reports
- New check-in app features & optimisations
- Data pipeline updates &
- A DVLA integration
Note: we'll run another regroup session in a few months to review DIY waste trends with a more complete dataset — so keep your eyes peeled for an invite.
Our first regional webinar for HWRC managers in Northern Ireland:
On the 7th of March, we were joined by recycling & waste management professionals from across NI to discuss how technology can be used at HWRCs to:
- Reduce operating costs
- Increase site efficiency &
- Improve recycling rates
As part of this, we shared how Western Riverside Waste Authority has used booking technology to:
- Reduce costs by 200,000 a year
- Increase recycling rates by 9%
- Eliminate 97% of queues &
- Stop over 27,000 incidents of service misuse
You can watch the recording here.
Our 6-month pilot offer:
As part of our HWRC webinar series, we're offering councils & waste partnerships the chance to trial our industry-leading HWRC Booking Service at a heavily discounted rate.
The trial period will last six months & in that time, you'll be able to:
- Use all of our industry-leading features
- Use our brand-new DIY Waste Module
- Make use of our in-depth analytics suite
- Manage an unlimited number of sites &
- Manage an unlimited number of bookings
Importantly, this will give you the opportunity to:
- Collect operational data to inform long-term decision-making
- Assess the impact of a booking system first-hand
- Collect visitor feedback
- Test & monitor new strategies to reduce costs & increase recycling
- Assess the impact of the DIY Waste Legislation
- Govern new usage policies & much more
There is no obligation to commit to a longer-term contract at the end of these six months, so if you find bookings aren't for you, that's completely fine.
To learn more about this offer, book a call with one of the team or email info@bookinglab.co.uk.
