Somerset expresses fears about potential Covid-19 disruptions

While the SWP, which manages waste and recycling services for all local authorities in Somerset, says collections are currently “working fine”, it fears they could be affected if staffing levels suffer because of the rising infection rate.

The SWP says Christmas is “always” a busy period, with loads collected from the kerbside almost doubling.

This year, the SWP anticipates that, with more people working from home alongside those who are already on leave, the loads could be even larger.

To help, the SWP asks residents to continue to use Somerset’s 16 household waste recycling centres, all of which are open their normal winter hours except for Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day.

Residents are also asked to crush, squash, and flatten recycling, to contact the SWP online rather than in person or on the phone “wherever possible”, and to park “considerately”.

Missed collections

If collections are disrupted, the SWP says residual and clinical waste will be prioritised and returned for within two working days.

We are monitoring the Covid situation and have to be prepared for problems

– Mickey Green, the SWP’s managing director

Any missed recycling collections will be returned for within two working days “if possible”. If crews have not returned within two days, the SWP says, they will not be back until the next scheduled collection day and recycling can be brought back in.

Missed collections will be monitored to ensure no-one is missed for consecutive weeks, the SWP says.

Mickey Green, the SWP’s managing director, said: “We hope the next few weeks will run smoothly, but like organisations up and down the country we are monitoring the Covid situation and have to be prepared for problems.

“We will do our very best to keep things on track but would ask for everyone’s understanding and help over what could be a difficult period.”

Somerset

The SWP manages a network of recycling centres and community recycling sites throughout Somerset, alongside holding responsibility for kerbside collections of recycling and residual waste.

In the 2020/21 financial year, the SWP had a household waste recycling rate of 52.4%.

Suez officially took over a £210 million collections contract for the SWP in March 2020 and now carries out more than 400,000 kerbside collections every week.

In August, due to an “unprecedented” national shortage of drivers, Suez offered large goods vehicle (LGV) drivers a £1,000 bonus to join its workforce in Somerset as full-time permanent staff (see letsrecycle.com story).