Somerset Council is apologising to residents affected by disruption to recycling, rubbish and garden waste collections this week.
The Council’s waste contractor, SUEZ, has faced ongoing operational issues, including reduced staffing.
Following a couple of weeks of collection challenges Somerset Council and SUEZ have plans in place to recover missed collections.
Around 30,000 households in the following areas and surrounding villages will not receive their scheduled collection on Friday:
- Castle Cary
- Glastonbury
- North Petherton
- Shepton Mallet
- Somerton
- Taunton
- Wincanton
- Yeovil
Crews will instead collect from the affected residents on Saturday 4 July and Sunday 5 July.
Residents affected by the disruption are asked to leave their recycling out for collection over the weekend.
Recycling may also be collected in different types of vehicles while this recovery work takes place. In the Taunton area, 5 rubbish collection vehicles will be used to collect recycling. This will allow crews to collect larger amounts of recycling and reduce the time spent emptying vehicles.
Although materials will be collected together for operational reasons, they will be transported to facilities where they will be sorted and recycled. Separate food waste vehicles will be deployed to collect food recycling. This means food waste and dry recycling may be collected at different times of the day.
Cllr Federica Smith-Roberts, Lead Member for Communities, Environment and Climate Change at Somerset Council, said:
We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the disruption to collections in the last fortnight. We know this is frustrating for residents and we are working closely with SUEZ to make sure residents get their recycling collected over the coming days.
We would like to thank residents for their patience and ask anyone affected to leave their recycling out for collection over the weekend. We appreciate everyone’s patience while crews work to get collections back on track.
Collections will start from 6am over the next week as further hot weather is expected. Residents are advised to put their waste and recycling out the night before their scheduled collection day.
