Garden waste collections to resume
Wednesday, 22 April 2020
We’re planning to restart collections of garden waste from next Monday, April 27 operating a normal service.
Staff levels have now stabilised which will allow us to do so provided we have no further staffing issues.
We will not be able to collect any additional waste; each household will be limited to their existing two garden waste bags or one bin per collection on the usual scheduled day.
Councillor Ian Dalgarno, our Executive Member for Community Services, said:
This is very welcome news. The crews from our contractor FCC Environment have worked extremely hard throughout the lockdown to maintain essential waste collection and recycling collection.
I am glad that residents have been appreciative of their efforts.
What we can’t do is tackle any backlog instantly. We still don’t have the manpower to do that. So, we do ask residents to keep on with home composting either with a heap or a subsidised compost bin.
By doing so you will help us reduce the volume we need to collect and enable the workload is manageable with our contractor’s resources.
We're also reminding residents of the government advice on household waste, to protect workers and combat the spread of infection.
Anyone who feels ill at home (whether diagnosed with COVID-19 or not) should place all their waste in the general rubbish bin, and should double-bag it, making sure the bags are securely tied. They should then wait at least 72 hours before placing it out for collection.
On government advice, our four tidy tips in Ampthill, Biggleswade, Leighton Buzzard and Thorn Turn (near Dunstable) currently remain closed to the public.