Disruption to food collections easing, survey finds

This marks an increase of 20% from the previous week, according to the latest survey results from the Association of Directors of Environment, Planning and Transport (ADEPT), for the week commencing 11 May.

However, ADEPT says it is too early to say if this “reflects a persistent improvement in this service and should be treated with caution”.

And, now only around half (46%) of responding local authorities reported household waste recycling centre services to be unavailable in the week beginning 11 May, down from 86% in the prior week.

Ian Fielding, chair of ADEPT’s waste group, said: “The opening of HWRCs continues across the country with varying levels of disruption as we work to maintain the safety of our teams and the general public.

“That so many services are returning to normal levels or with minimal disruption, and that we can see improvements week on week, is encouraging.

“Once again, I would like to thank our teams for their continued hard work in extremely difficult circumstances.”

Recycling

The seventh edition of the survey also shows than the number of responding councils saying their recycling collections are operating as normal has risen by 2% to 76%.

“That so many services are returning to normal levels or with minimal disruption is encouraging”

Chair of ADEPT’s waste group Ian Fielding

The number of garden waste collections ‘operating as normal’ has also seen a sharp rise, with around 75% now reporting no disruption, up from 56% the previous week.

“This picture is an overall improvement in relation to last week. It is too early to say if this reflects a persistent improvement in this service and should be treated with caution,” ADEPT said.

Ninety-five per cent of residual services are now operating completely as normal, with 5% reporting minor disruption.

Waste disposal

The picture for waste disposal services is less clear, with the number of respondents reporting that materials recycling facilities were operating as normal falling by 2% to 78%.

The ADEPT survey says: “Responding local authorities have consistently reported higher levels of disruption for recycling disposal services than residual, and this trend continues to be the case in the W/C 11th May.”

As outlined below, the number of energy from waste plants operating as normal has also reduced slightly from 95% to 92%.

Ninety-two per cent of all disposal services linked to landfill were operating as normal, but ADEPT says a small but consistent percentage are experiencing moderate levels of disruption, as in previous weeks.

However, alongside the welcome news that a significant proportion of HWRCs were becoming available, most of those local authorities with no sites open said they anticipated opening them in the next month.