More councils report Covid-19-related collection issues

On 18 January Brighton and Hove city council said it had seen “a steadily rising number” of staff infected with the coronavirus or having to self-isolate, alongside members of its Cityclean services team who are not at work due to normal winter sickness.

It says in the process of recruiting agency staff to cover and has contingency plans in place, but asked residents to be patient if collections were missed.

Councillor Amy Heley, chair of the council’s environment, transport and sustainability committee, said: “Our staff are working tremendously hard to keep the city clean and tidy, and have been doing so since the first lockdown last March.

“But we want to be honest and realistic with our residents and let people know we do have plans in place to minimise any disruption to service as much as possible, but there may be some delays.

“We hope people will understand we have and are doing our best to keep the service running as much as normal during these difficult times.”

The council added the lockdown meant more people were buying food, clothes, luxuries and essentials online. This, it said, created more household waste and recycling in the form of bags, boxes, paper and plastic, leading to further delays.

East Suffolk

On 21 January East Suffolk council and its waste management services supplier East Suffolk Norse decided to suspend its bulky waste collection service temporarily due to staffing pressures.

It says the suspension of the service will ensure that more vehicles and crews are being used to collect household waste and recycling during the current restrictions.

Councillor James Mallinder, East Suffolk’s cabinet member for the environment, said: “We appreciate suspending this service may cause some inconvenience. However, it is something we must do to ensure we can continue to deliver our essential refuse and recycling collections.”

Wokingham

Wokingham council says its garden waste collections will restart today (25 January) following a suspension due to Covid-19.

The service was halted on 19 January with more than 40% of staff at the council’s waste collection contractor Veolia off work due to the impact of Covid-19, with a small number of positive cases and most of the rest having to self-isolate.

Veolia staff have now begun to return to work after self-isolation periods and additional staff have been drafted in to allow garden waste to be picked up as normal. This was the third temporary suspension made by Veolia in January due to disruption caused by the pandemic.

Sandwell

As a result of Covid-19 related staff absences, Sandwell council in the West Midlands and its environmental partner Serco have decided to suspend blue lid recycling bin collections from 25 to 29 January.

The council’s recycling crews will prioritise grey household waste bins.

Councillor Maria Crompton, deputy leader for Sandwell council, said: “This week we have had around 40% of Serco’s frontline workers off due to Covid-19 related absences, with the majority of them either self-isolating or shielding.

“Together with our environmental partner Serco, we have made the difficult decision to pause recycling collections next week.”

She added: “This is not a decision we have taken lightly, and we are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. However, due to the current global pandemic and very high infection rates in our region, we are currently dealing with an unprecedented situation and by taking this approach, we stand the best chance of providing reliable waste service collections for residents.”

Halton

Halton borough council in Cheshire says it will not be able to undertake any blue bin collections missed as a result of higher than normal levels of staff absence.

The council says it is to prioritise the collection of general waste from households while also carrying out as many scheduled blue bin collections as possible.

In a statement the council said: “We trust that residents will acknowledge the efforts of the waste collection team in maintaining all services without disruption to this point and will appreciate that council staff and services are not immune to the effects of the current Covid situation.

“Residents can be assured that we will do all we can to minimise the disruption to our waste services and resume normal operations as soon as we are able. In the meantime, we would ask residents to bear with us and we thank them for their patience and understanding.”