Council in union meeting as loaders ‘change working practices’

The authority announced a last week that dry recycling collections will be suspended until 12 August while it catches up on missed collections (see letsrecycle.com story).

The council has reassured residents that initial issues, which centred on staff shortages, were quickly resolved. Additional permanent staff were employed to bring the levels back up to full complement and temporary agency workers have been brought in to supplement current staffing and manage staff sickness and leave.

However, “separate issues have remained with some of the loading staff,  which involve some team members unexpectedly changing their working practices. This has resulted in slower collection times and subsequent delays to the service.”

Cllr Stewart Swinburn, cabinet member for the environment, said: “We are meeting regularly with officers and being kept up to date with the issues the service is having.

“Additional staffing is helping to bring household waste and garden waste rounds up to date, but given the current working practice being shown by some of the loaders, it is still not possible to reintroduce the recycling at this stage, and this is affecting the whole borough. We want to assure residents that the Council is doing everything it can through HR colleagues and the Unions to resolve the current issues, and this will be maintained until the situation is resolved.”

Delay

According to the council, the waste service started experiencing delays in the last few weeks due to “staffing issues” and some streets are experiencing delays of one or more days.

The council at the time said that the staffing issues hitting the service have been resolved by a delay is still necessary.

Advice

Residents have been advised by the council to wait for another month or temporarily put recyclables in with their residual waste. “Any waste from the green bins is used to generate electricity at the energy from waste plant,” the council explained.

It added that household recycling can also be taken to household recycling centres in Grimsby and Immingham.

“Please do not leave unemptied recycling bins in the street, bring them back onto your property,” the council concluded.