Bin collections – thanks to public and crews

Heavy snow in late December, and subsequent icy conditions, meant bin collections had to be suspended due to concerns about both the safety of the public and the collection crews.

Extra resources were made available, and collection crews were asked to work outside of their normal working days to ensure any bins (and additional bags of rubbish) which couldn’t be collected, due to the weather, could be picked up. This operation was also conducted alongside the normal scheduled bin collections.

Councillor Jonathan Bateman, the council’s portfolio holder for Environment and Regulatory Services, said: “I’d like to thank the public for their patience throughout the period of catching up, as well as the fantastic work of our bin collection crews in light of such challenging circumstances. I’d also like to praise the work of Council staff particularly the waste team, customer services team and communications team. In my opinion we had a bit of unfair criticism on social media, but also had a lot of positive messages from people who were supportive of the crews and the hard work they were putting in to ensure bins were emptied. It is a hugely complex logistical operation to collect two weeks worth of bins, in just a single week – especially around Christmas when there is potential to have even more waste, particularly recycling, than usual. Whilst any delay to bin collections is inconvenient, when using refuse vehicles weighing around 25 tonnes each, the safety of public and our crews must be paramount in icy weather and sometimes we have to suspend collections. I am pleased, however, that collections are now back to normal. ”

Cllr Bateman added: “No doubt, this won’t be the last time we will experience severe weather conditions in our district and we are always looking at ways we can improve our contingency operations, in the event of inclement weather, to ensure collections can continue as effectively and efficiently as possible.”