Plymouth to overhaul four-day collection service

Plymouth council intends to combat a backlog of collections and residents' complaints by giving 1,100 properties a completely new collection day, while a further 2,500 properties in the city are to be asked to put out their recycling on a different week.

Having introduced a four-day collection service in November, the council last month defended the backlog caused under the scheme as “teething problems” (see letsrecycle.com story) but has now taken steps to alter the service and explained that it is “extremely sorry” about the disruption it has caused.

Jayne Donavon, assistant director of development for environmental services, said: “While the majority have not had any problems, we accept that for a minority of people our service has fallen well below the standard they should expect and we are very sorry for this.”

“We are sorry that some people will have their routine changed again. This is not something we would do unless we thought it was absolutely necessary. We want the service to be the best it can be and accept that we have more work to do,” she added.

Letters

The council is now planning to send letters explaining the changes to households affected, which equates to around 3% of the 170,000 households catered for by the four-day collections.

Households which currently face waiting up to three weeks for a recycling collection are set to be given a clear plastic bag to store material in the meantime, which will allow them to continue recycling.

Complaints following the introduction of the four-week collection service had risen to 200 calls-a-day to the council but had fallen by 30% while the council undertook “fine-tuning” work on the reorganisation of the service.

Councillor Michael Leaves, cabinet member for street scene and environmental regulation, said: “We are extremely sorry that for the minority of residents there have been problems and we understand their frustrations.”

“The reorganisation is the biggest the service has seen and we are pleased that for the majority the transition has been smooth. We are taking firm action to sharpen up the service which is why we are making these small changes which will affect just three per cent of homes,” he added.

Four-day

The four-day collection service was introduced by Plymouth council to allow more regular maintenance to be carried out on vehicles and avoid disruption caused by Bank Holiday. The new service had also included the provision of smaller “satellite” vehicles at a cost of £3.27 million, which were intended to navigate the smaller back roads of the city.

Cllr Leaves said: “On the positive side, the majority of our residents have had their rubbish collected on the right day. The number of calls have gone down and the crews are becoming more familiar with the new way of working. We are determined to make this a success to create better service and a cleaner environment.”