Lessons learnt from disruption to bin services in South Gloucestershire (From Gazette Series)

Lessons learnt from disruption to bin services in South Gloucestershire

8:30am Monday 8th March 2010

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LESSONS have been learnt from the major disruptions to bin collection services in South Gloucestershire.

The prolonged severe weather in December and January left many bins unemptied for four weeks but the council says it made the right decision to suspend all green bin collections.

Steve Evans, director of community services, said: "The green bin waste collection service was the most disrupted but should not have presented so much of a problem to residents as the service is designed for garden waste and cardboard.

"However, residents who were expecting a green bin collection on December 23 or 24 had to wait several weeks for their next green bin collection."

In total, six days of collections were lost because of snow including two days during the Christmas week and from January 6 to 9 as well as the Christmas bank holidays. Catch-up collections were also made difficult because of continuing icy conditions.

"In total there were six days service totally lost and several difficult days where underfoot conditions prevented any meaningful catch up," said Mr Evans. "This combination resulted in a totally disrupted collection schedule.

"At this point it became increasingly difficult to follow an accurate schedule and thus to be in a position to advise residents when their black bins would be collected."

By January 25, the council and contractors SITA took the decision to revert to normal collection times to avoid any further confusion.

The council has now agreed that a flexible communication plan needs to be developed and it has recognised that major disruption to collections will have a knock-on effect for some time.

A waste management Communication Action Team (CAT) has been set up to identify lines of responsibility, look at ways of co-ordinating procedures and decide on the most effective methods of communicating messages to residents.

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