Snow-hit Edinburgh resorts to skips to collect waste

Temporary bin skips are being introduced across Edinburgh to enable residents to dispose of their waste as the city’s council revealed that the continued extreme weather meant it was only able to collect 250 tonnes of refuse on Wednesday (December 8), compared to the normal average of 400 tonnes.

The City of Edinburgh council is rolling out up to 70 of the skips across the city after deep snow and ice made it impossible for refuse collection vehicles, and lorries in particular, to get into residential streets in some areas.

The skips are being cited in public locations such as supermarket car parks, schools and leisure centres for the public to take excess residual waste to as wheeled bins are currently not being collected. The council is updating a map online showing the location of the skips as they are added.

At the same time, the council is also advising residents to put excess household waste in their brown garden waste bin until a full service is resumed.

The extreme weather has affected the UK since last week (see letsrecycle.com story) and remains particularly severe in Scotland and the North of England.

Limited service

City of Edinburgh council is currently providing a limited service for trade waste customers, shared household bins and recycling boxes in the city centre and on main roads.

It also said it had given “priority attention” to snow clearing, particularly to gain access to multi-storey blocks of flats to prevent the build-up of waste, and its waste services team were, where access was possible, also clearing excess refuse that had been left on the street.

Councillor Robert Aldridge, environmental leader at City of Edinburgh council, said: “The refuse service will be back out in force as soon as there is a thaw, but in the meantime, we are asking the public to use these alternative arrangements to manage their household waste.

“At the start of the cold snap we did try to get the bins emptied on some roads, however, with hazardous conditions and deep snow it just wasn’t possible, in some areas, to get bin trucks into streets to empty bins.”

The council thanked residents for their patience as it tried to get the waste service back out again, and stressed it was keeping them informed of the alternative arrangements.

While temperatures are expected to increase over the weekend, they are then expected to fall again next week, heralding the return of snow and ice across large parts of the UK.

(image used in story courtesy of Mark Brown)