Bin collections: councils ask residents to try to reduce waste in Central Lancashire

With more people working from home and everybody spending longer behind their own front doors than they usually would, waste collection workers in some areas are reporting that demand is increasing.

In South Ribble, where the borough council empties around 10,000 bins per day, households are being reminded about the need to separate their recyclable waste – and also encouraged to be inventive with their re-use of items around the home.

They are also being warned of the need to maintain good hygiene when putting the rubbish out for collection and bringing the bins back onto their properties.

“We have to think about the risk of infection – make sure you use gloves or clean the handles where possible, as well as washing your hands [after touching the bins],” warned Cllr Sue Jones, the authority’s cabinet member for the environment.

“We completely understand that as more and more people are staying at home, household waste can build up. While we’d like to be able to collect extra waste, we need to do what we can to ensure the service can cope.”

“It’s not ideal that we are in this situation, but we all need to pull together and do our bit. Perhaps you can do what you can to reduce waste in your household so it can all be contained in the wheelie bin.”

The authority is also offering a month’s grace to anybody who has not yet renewed their subscription to the green waste collection service in the borough – brown bins will continue to be collected until 1st May to give people more time to register. Some brown bins may have been overlooked last week as residents had not been sent a new sticker to show that they had paid for the 2020/21 financial year – these will be emptied on their next collection date.

Neighbouring Chorley Council has reassured households that collections are continuing as normal, but has appealed for residents to contribute to the collective effort to minimise waste.

Cllr Adrian Lowe, cabinet member for customer, advice and streetscene services, said: “We are seeing a significant increase in the volume of household, garden waste and recycling recently and our crews are working flat out but we are managing to maintain our current collections.

“We’ve been sharing tips on social media and our website on how residents can reduce their waste [and] it’s important that we all do what we can to reduce the generation of waste, to help out during these challenging times,” he added.

The authority has also made some changes to its garden waste collection service “to help out residents financially” during the current crisis. Payment of the annual charge for the brown bin facility has been delayed, but no new subscribers to the service will be accepted for the time being.

Preston City Council says that its collections are currently operating as normal, but are subject to regular review depending on the resources available.

Meanwhile, Ribble Valley Council – one of the few authorities which still offers residents weekly general waste collections – is asking to households to think about whether they really need to take advantage of that facility at the current time.

In a message on Twitter, the council said: “Please think carefully about whether your bins need to go out for collection every week; if they’re only half full could they wait until the next collection day?

“We appreciate this isn’t ideal, and won’t be possible in many households, but if you could help us, that would be great,” the tweet added. The authority is also reminding residents to park their cars with consideration so that bin wagons can still access narrow streets.

Lancashire County Council - which last month closed its 16 waste recycling centres for the forseeable future - has also urged people to avoid the temptation to use the lockdown to have a clear-out of their homes, which would risk adding more pressure to waste services.

Councils across Central Lancashire have reported goodwill messages being left for waste collection staff – both online and even on their vehicles – in recognition of their vital frontline role in the battle against coronavirus.

Children also are being encouraged to take part in a “wave to waste workers”, as they see them passing by their windows while households are under lockdown.

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