LET’S GET WIZZY WITH IT. HOW ONLINE COMMUNICATION TOOLS ARE SUPPORTING COLLECTION TARGETS
SLICK SERVICE REDESIGN IN NORTH SOMERSET A CASE STUDY
Routeware showcased ReCollect, a suite of resident apps used by around 30 UK councils, and how Newcastle and Nottingham apply it to garden waste communication. A bin calendar shows collection dates and guidance on what to include, layered with campaigns (soft, recurring reminders) and alerts (urgent, one-off notices). The standout theme was segmentation: tailoring messages to returning subscribers, lapsed users, and first-timers. A companion search tool, Waste Wizard, showed garden waste is among the most-searched items across all customers. The goal: merging these tools with permit systems into one resident-managed platform. Garden Waste Functionality – Collection Information Every resident’s bin calendar can carry more than a date. Alongside each garden waste collection, councils can display exactly how to present the bin, what belongs in it, and what doesn’t, so residents get their answer the moment they check the app, instead of hunting for an old leaflet. Councils can choose how visible this information is: some show garden collection dates to every resident with a note that subscription is required, while others, like Newcastle, only reveal garden information to residents who’ve actually signed up, keeping things simple for everyone else. Segmented content like this, including trial-specific details for residents in a plastic bags pilot, means each resident only sees what’s relevant to them, cutting confusion and unnecessary contact with the council. Push your campaigns harder Campaigns are one of the most underused levers available, and the results from live councils show why that needs to change. Nottingham didn’t run one static message, it ran three in sequence: sign-ups are open, your service starts in two weeks, your service has now started, each with a direct link straight to the signup portal. Whitby timed a campaign for June, right before gardens got unruly in the summer heat, catching residents at the exact moment the service becomes relevant to them. These aren’t one-off blasts either; they sit quietly at the top of the bin calendar, land in weekly reminder emails, and surface in the app, so a resident sees the message multiple times without it ever feeling like spam.
North Somerset Environment Company (NSEC), a local authority trading company wholly owned by North Somerset Council, was set up in 2021 with a focus on reliable services and doing right by its communities and environment. Since then it has expanded steadily, taking on driver training, fly-tipping clearance, commercial waste and highway maintenance contracts, and in October 2024 delivered its first major event cleansing operation at the Weston Beach Race, serving roughly 25,000 attendees. Against this growth, NSEC launched an ambitious route optimisation programme to improve efficiency, resilience and service quality. It began in February 2024 by optimising and rezoning the subscription garden waste service, with an early decision to decouple garden waste collections from residual waste and recycling rounds. That change freed the modelling process from historical constraints and opened up far greater flexibility. Throughout, the project deliberately kept frontline crews involved, recognising that their day-to-day knowledge was essential to routes that would work in practice, not just on paper.
NSEC used Routeware’s EasyRoute software to drive the programme, led by Project Manager Shane Young, following a structured, data-led methodology. The first phase built an accurate model of the existing service from tonnages, vehicle performance, round times, property data and road constraints, all cross-checked with operational managers and crews to validate assumptions. With that baseline in place, initial draft routes were created and taken straight to collection crews for reviews, and other graphics to match. Their feedback on local knowledge, access issues and sequencing surfaced problems invisible in the data alone, and repeated cycles of drafting and review steadily refined the designs. Senior Supervisor Dan Cooper was seconded into the project to keep engagement consistent, liaising between the design team and the wider workforce; he has since become the company’s Operational Improvement Lead, carrying that collaborative approach into other parts of the business. Once designs matured, remaining issues were reconciled and the software’s outputs were used to quantify the scale of change and its likely impact on residents, supporting formal sign-off. Go-live preparation centred on crew familiarisation and communication: detailed crew packs with route maps and operational notes, resident communications about day changes, and depot drop-in sessions to build crew confidence. On go-live, enhanced on-street and depot resources monitored old and new routes, catching incorrect bin presentations and issuing reminder leaflets, while performance data across the first three cycles let the team track trends and make evidence-based adjustments. A formal review closed out the project, capturing lessons for future work. In 2026, North Somerset Council and NSEC were awarded an iESE Certificate of Excellence for the Service Change Project. Alongside the route optimisation work, the project
modernised NSEC’s operational infrastructure wholesale: a full fleet replacement with new Romaquip vehicles, all fitted with CMS telematics, and a detailed route optimisation exercise for the company’s three-weekly collection rounds using Routeware’s software, which enabled smarter scheduling, reduced mileage and greater efficiency without compromising customer service. The move to three-weekly collections also made North Somerset the first district in the UK to collect soft plastics at the kerbside, ahead of it becoming mandatory for all councils. The programme’s success rested on close collaboration between data, service design, operations, the council and residents. By pairing robust analytics with frontline expertise and clear communication, NSEC has built a more resilient, efficient service and laid solid foundations for continued improvement in the years ahead.
You’re a Wizard, Harry!
Snapshot of the Waste Wizard Tool, part of the Resident Tool - ReCollect App by Routeware
Check out more case studies at: routeware.com/en _ gb/resources
The real upgrade is segmentation. Instead of one generic push to everyone, campaigns can be tailored by resident history: a warm thank-you and sticker update for returning subscribers, a value reminder (“you saved X last year”) for lapsed users, a what-to-expect message for first-timers, and a benefits-led pitch for residents who’ve never used the service at all. Layer in alerts for anything urgent, like a vehicle breakdown or a service start and end date, and councils have a messaging engine that works far harder than a single seasonal reminder ever could. The councils getting the best results aren’t running more campaigns, they’re running smarter, more targeted ones, and there’s clear room for others to do the same.
Image: The first phase focused on building an accurate model of the current service. This involved collecting and importing a wide range of operational data including tonnages, vehicle performance, round times, property information and road constraints.
Source: The Little Green Event Speaker, Phil Blythe, Routeware
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