Somerset Waste Partnership (SWP) is asking residents in the Burnham-On-Sea area to help ease the pressure of Christmas collections amid concerns about potential Covid disruption.
Recycling and rubbish collections are currently working fine, says SWP, but it says it fears that services could be affected if staffing levels suffer because of Covid infection rates.
Mickey Green, SWP Managing Director, says: “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.”
It has issued advice on keeping amounts of rubbish to a minimum this Christmas.
Residents can help ease pressures by:
- Using local recycling sites – to recycle large loads or get rid of waste if your kerbside collection is delayed. All 16 are all open their normal winter hours except for Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. This is the best way to recycle large loads of cardboard and paper gift wrap (in dedicated collection points at each site).
- Crushing, squashing and flattening recycling – to speed up collections, help crews get more into each load, and make the most of you recycling boxes and bags if your collection is delayed.
- Park considerately – SWP says poor parking can slow crews down or make collections impossible, especially with more people at home, parked on residential streets.
“Christmas is always a busy period with loads collected from the kerbside almost doubling. And they could be heavier than usual this year with more people working from home alongside those who on leave,” adds a spokesman.
“With more than 400,000 collections a week, SWP is working hard with its contractor SUEZ recycling and recovery UK to manage the pressures.”
Any missed recycling collections will be returned for within two working days if possible. If crews have not returned within two days, they will not be back until the next scheduled collection day and recycling can be brought back in. Rubbish and clinical waste will be prioritised and returned for within two working days.
Missed collections will be monitored to ensure no-one is missed for consecutive weeks.
The revised festive collection schedule for recycling and rubbish is below. Residents can check their collection days, for now and the rest of the year, using the My Collection Day feature on the somersetwaste.gov.uk website. Dates can be downloaded for printing or straight into the calendar on your laptop or mobile device.
Usual collection day Revised collection day
Friday 24 December No change
Monday 27 December Tuesday 28 December
Tuesday 28 December Wednesday 29 December
Wednesday 29 December Thursday 30 December
Thursday 30 December Friday 31 December
Friday 31 December Sunday 2 January
Monday 3 January Tuesday 4 January
Tuesday 4 January Wednesday 5 January
Wednesday 5 January Thursday 6 January
Thursday 6 January Friday 7 January
Friday 7 January Saturday 8 January
As usual, garden waste collections do not take place over the festive fortnight but are scheduled start again in the week beginning 10th January.
For lots of information on how to reduce, reuse and recycling this Christmas, visit the Somerset website somersetwaste.gov.uk/festive
