HWRC Community News

Ben Jones
27 March 2024
Est. Reading: 3 minutes
Updated: 27 March 2024

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:

  1. WSCC's Banned List Functionality
  2. KCC's DVLA Integration
  3. A three-month review of our DIY Waste Module
  4. Our first regional webinar for HWRC managers in Northern Ireland
  5. 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:

  1. Stopping service misuse
  2. Reducing costs
  3. 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:

  1. Highlight early usage trends
  2. Discuss their implications &
  3. 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:

  1. Reduce operating costs
  2. Increase site efficiency &
  3. 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.

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