Bromley Council halting recycling services, environmental impact vs Covid 19

[Randomnessembraced]

All paper, plastic and garden waste recycling services were stopped from 24 March due to Covid 19 until further notice. The local tips are all closed. Normal rubbish will be collected every 2 weeks and food rubbish every week. How does this compare to other councils? Most people are having to put plastic and paper into normal refuse as they don't have the space to store it. Is this proportional? There is a pandemic but will it be bad for the environment?

Our local council stopped recycling and garden waste a couple of weeks ago. This was only after having it reinstated for 6 weeks at most after not having anything but general rubbish collected for over 6 years.

It will staffing levels, due to the number of operatives who are on the vulnerable list or self-isolating.
Ours has literally moved overnight from weekly waste and recycling to alternate fortnightly collections. Apparently 70% of the stuff in waste bins could be either recycling or food waste. There’s an opportunity for those that don’t currently recycle or use the food waste bin to start doing so.

Tips all shut here. All collections still going as normal though some get picked up the following day if they are short of staff. Normal for us is food waste every week, non recycleables and recyclables alternate weeks. We have huge bins for recycleables so could cope if they only did those once every four weeks I reckon.

Our council have stopped garden waste and recycling collections. They are just collecting non-recyclable waste, fortnightly.

They said that staff couldn't adhere to 2m distance in the lorries, so would go out in 2s instead of 3s. Because it would take longer, they had to prioritise.

I'm in favour of keeping people safe and don't mind not recycling in the short-term.

We’ve been on alternating weekly collections (except food waste) for years here with no problems. Does make us better at recycling I think.

My Council has stopped glass and garden and the tips are closed.

A lot of Council staff were sent home to shield. Another lot were off for 14 days due to family member with symptoms. They've moved HGV drivers across from other departments (Roads Services) to drive the bin lorries and have reduced the number of staff allowed in the cab for social distancing.

The tips were shut due to the lockdown. It's not an essential journey but before that residents were not observing social distancing so traffic management measures were put in place which led to abuse to staff because of the wait.

On Facebook, the Council had to ask residents to stop phoning and complaining about suspended services due to the abuse!

Randomness-embraced bromley resident here- has it been reinstated? I’ve been black binning everything and using my garden waste bin to store the extra bags.

As for what they should do, I imagine the bin men of Canary Wharf, the City and Central London are quieter.

Ours have stopped collecting garden waste, and asked us to put food and nappy waste (usually collected separately) in the wheelie bin with the general waste. They're still collecting recycling in separate bags, as it probably wouldn't fit in the bin, but it's all going in one truck and all ending up in the energy from waste plant. The reasoning is twofold: they don't have the staff to make separate collections o'r to sort the recyclables, and incineration is safer in case there are tissues or other infectious items in there.

On the upside, they've changed from fortnightly general waste collections to weekly.

General waste fortnightly as normal.

Food and garden (which is mixed) gone from fortnightly to monthly.

Plastic and cans still monthly.

Paper has been stopped.

A council in Central Scotland.

Our council (Scotland) are exactly the same. Waste only, fortnightly. No recycling, food waste or garden waste collection. Tips closed.

Our general waste is emptied 3 weekly, the council have stopped brown bins (food/garden waste) which is normally collected fortnightly and that waste now has to go in the grey bin so will now sit around longer. 🤢

We still put out recycling out in green bags. Our bins aren't big enough to hold what people normally recycle and the council want to keep us in the habit of separating our waste.
They collect at the same time as our black bins and it all goes in the lorry.

We're now drinking boxes of wine so we don't have to store wine bottles!!

The big local supermarket has closed it's bottle banks presumably as their contractor can't empty it. I've seen overflowing clothes banks too.

Garden waste collection has been suspended but refuse and recycling carrying on weekly as normal

Green/garden waste has been been suspended & all tips/recycling centres are closed.
Food waste & recycling collected weekly & black bin fortnightly - for now. Somerset.

The recycling centres are shut, but bin collections seem to be running as normal so far where I am (NW England) alternating grey general bin + paper / brown bin + glass, tins, plastic . I'm using the brown bin on the assumption that it may not get collected so not putting anything in that I can't get out again and make a heap of.

Cotswold District Council has stopped garden waste collections but so far everything else is being collected. They don't have the staff due to lack of staff.
It makes sense to condense the services they can do at the moment

Get a flipping grip. They’re prioritising staff and I’m willing to bet pretty much everyone can compact their recycling down further than they usually do in the meantime until it can be collected. If you’re washing it as you’re supposed to it won’t smell or anything so you can bag it in a cupboard in the meantime if you have to. Surely if they’ve to cut collections you’d rather they did it to the recycling than the general waste?