SDC refuse and cleansing departments are under extreme pressure at the moment. Cllr McArthur (SDC Cleaner and Greener Cabinet Member) said, ‘we have seen three times the level of waste and recycling being put out over the last week. There are now many more sick and self-isolating staff, vehicle breakdowns, and KCC staff reductions at the tip which have had a knock-on effect on the speed we can turn the trucks around and get them back out, shorter daylight hours and every day we have been trying to both catch up previous day’s missed collections whilst also doing that day’s usual collections.
We have suspended the garden waste service for now and moved those staff and trucks onto residential waste, our street cleansing teams are also trying to support with their vehicles however they have much lower capacity.
SDC had all available teams out today however it is going to be at least a week until we have fully caught up.
We are aware that the recycling sites, particularly glass, are proving a new problem with people drinking at home, and, having moved street cleansing teams to missed collection duty last week we are now getting street cleansing complaints. Residents really should be keeping this sort of recycling at home until we have caught up
Our over-riding priority right now is to maintain household waste collections, and we are struggling to be able to do this currently
I hope that residents will understand this current situation is unprecedented, and since the virus has accelerated, there are simply not enough staff available. Those who are well are willingly working very long hours including Saturdays to provide a service’.
