Snow causes continued disruption to collections

Icy conditions caused by snow freezing overnight have led to some councils cancelling waste and recycling collections today (February 3), with the majority of those councils badly affected by the weather having chosen to redeploy collection crews to grit roads and pavements.

Having been met with frozen roads and pavements this morning, a large number of councils have said that they intend to collect missed rounds towards the end of the week or work through the weekend to attempt to tackle the backlog of waste and recycling.

London, the east of England, the South West and South Wales were among the worst hit by the sudden blizzard on Sunday night (February 1), with the majority of councils in London – which had its heaviest snow for 18 years – telling residents that they would be unable to collect materials for the second day in a row.

Risk

The potential danger posed to collection operatives was cited by councils as one of the main reasons that collections had been suspended, as snow-filled pavements froze overnight making it slippery under foot.

Mid-Bedfordshire district council claimed that frozen snow had made collections “too slippery” for them to go ahead today but were optimistic it would clear by the end of the week.

Steve Whittaker, contract services manager at Mid Bedfordshire, said: “We hope that the weather will improve today which will allow our contractor to start catching up tomorrow. Even so, we anticipate that they will need to work this Saturday to complete the week's collections.

“We did manage to most rounds yesterday (Monday 2 February) but some smaller roads were hard to get down and these too will be collected from by the end of the week,” he added.

Vehicles proved troublesome across the country, with authorities such as Aylesbury Vale district council choosing to run collections on side roads and pavements that were not “too icy”.

A spokeswoman for Selby district council in North Yorkshire told letsrecycle.com that its waste and refuse collection vehicles had been involved in “three minor bumps” caused by icy conditions on their rounds yesterday, which had led to the collections being suspended.

Rural

Local authorities in rural areas have been among those most badly affected by the weather, as contractors and councils look to avoid risks to staff by not attempting to undertake collections in isolated spots.

Somerset Waste Partnership claimed that it had been fortunate in the fact that collections on the Quantocks and Exmoor were not scheduled until later in the week and had instead managed to focus on urban areas.

David Mansell, strategy and communications leader at Somerset Waste Partnership, said: “There has been a little bit of disruption, mostly in the rural areas. We are going to try and catch up as quickly as we can, which could include working over the weekend but that obviously depends on how the weather turns out over the next week but we think we should be able to collect waste by then.”

One of the most badly hit areas was Epsom and Ewell in the south-east of England, which had 31cm (12 inches) of snow this morning. The snow led to all waste and recycling collections being suspended by the borough council, which intends to make up collections next week and allow three additional bags per household.

London

Despite the snow beginning to melt, urban centres were still largely affected with the majority of London councils explaining that they would have to rearrange services for the end of the week, the weekend or next week.

Some, such as Barking and Dagenham and Hammersmith and Fulham, explained that they are hopeful of resuming normal service tomorrow (February 4).

Waltham Forest council, which also intends to collect material tomorrow, has said that it will be collecting recyclable material commingled in a bid to catch up on the backlog. The council said that the change to the mixed collection method “will not affect our ability to successfully recycle all materials”.

The City of Westminster is one of the few London councils to have been able to begin collections of waste and recyclable material and intends to collect missed households from Monday during tomorrow's collections.

Unaffected

Despite the wide geographic spread of the snow, not all councils are said to have been affected by the adverse weather.

Chaz Scholefield, direct services manager at South Norfolk council, said that the authority had as yet been unaffected by the conditions and that collections were being carried out as normal.

He told letsrecycle.com: “We do have some narrow roads which we have to send smaller vehicles down but as it is we are as confident as you can be that we will complete this week's collections, sparing a ten foot blizzard. Anyway, we don't have a contingency plan, if we get behind we will just have to catch up as soon as we can.”

The snow is expected to move further north, with the Met Office reporting that the north-east England, Scotland and the Borders should expect 20 cm (eight inches) of snow overnight and the Pennines likely to face up to 31cm (12 inches).