Green bin collection delay explained
You may have seen in the media the issue of self-isolating from being pinged through track and trace. Below is a response from Steve Ardagh – Walters who is the Executive Policy Holder for Environment and Waste at West Berkshire Council setting out the reason for a two week gap in green Bin Collection which I hope explains everything .
Further to our announcement on Tuesday about suspending your next green waste collection, I would like to reiterate how sorry I am that we have had to take this measure and with so little advance warning. You will have heard that nationally several million people are currently in isolation and the knock-on effects this is having on the NHS and numerous businesses. This issue affected our partner Veolia very suddenly : the first we and they knew of a problem was when a large proportion of waste crews did not report for work on Monday (19th July) having been pinged.
I do appreciate that this is the worst time of year for garden waste collections to be suspended: like you I have a green bin, and mine is already smelly with both food and garden waste. In an ideal world we would have suspended cardboard, bottles and cans collections instead of green waste; however that would not have fixed the underlying problem of not having enough crews. Garden waste trucks can be used to collect black bin waste very easily, however the compartmentalised cardboard, cans and bottles trucks cannot be repurposed in this way.
I am optimistic that we will resume green waste collections from the 3rd of August. We will collect the additional green waste from this fortnight in up to 3 additional open bags. As a further measure which may be helpful to you, we are relaxing the one visit per week restriction on visits to Newtown Road Newbury tip immediately.
Can I add my apologies and hope for your understanding for something that is completely outside of our control . We are not alone in this problem as Reading and Basingstoke & Deane have also announced similar notices along with many other Councils across the UK.
Wishing you all well.
Kind regards,
Howard Woollaston
West Berkshire Council Conservative member for Lambourn Ward
Executive Policy Holder for Internal Governance , Leisure and Culture
