Dorset Council says it’s now in a position to resume garden waste kerbside collections and they’ll start from the week beginning Monday 27th April 2020.
The council initially suspended the service last month to ensure that it had enough staff to maintain the regular food waste, rubbish, recycling and glass collections, following coronavirus public health guidance.
Now it says that employee absence has stabilised across the workforce, waste services have been re-prioritised and workers in other Dorset Council teams have been trained to support kerbside collections, if necessary.
This means garden waste collection crews can now return to deliver the subscription service, with most customers only experiencing two missed fortnightly collections.
Complained about bonfires
The move will please many who have complained about bonfires, that have been lit by a minority of residents who decided to burn their garden waste, rather than compost it or keep it to one side until the collection service resumed.
Dorset Council says that people should take note of these points:
- From 27 April, garden waste customers should resume putting their bin out on their usual collection day
- We will only collect from garden waste bins that are not overfilled.
- We will not collect extra garden waste in boxes or bags next to bins. If you have any excess waste, please save it for another collection day
- Like all other kerbside collections, we will not return to empty missed garden waste bins at this time
- Customers will be offered a discounted rate for their 2021/22 garden waste service subscription to compensate for the two missed collections and will be written to in due course
- We are still not taking new subscriptions to the service. We will make an announcement when we are ready to accept new subscriptions
- Any garden waste customers who cancelled their annual direct debit prior to payment being taken on 1 April 2020 are no longer active customers and won’t have their collections resumed. They will need to renew their service to receive any future collections.
Customers value the garden waste service
Councillor Tony Alford, Portfolio Holder for customer, community and regulatory services at Dorset Council, said:
“We appreciate how much our customers value the garden waste service and we welcome this opportunity to resume kerbside collections, especially as the household recycling centres have to remain closed.
“Non-garden waste subscribers should keep their garden waste to one side until household recycling centres re-open. We will continue to recommend home composting, but we advise against starting bonfires – often these lack consideration for neighbours and can get out of control, resulting in call outs to a busy fire service. We continue to remind residents that fly-tipping is illegal.
“Most of all, please work with us by making small changes to your regular routine until things get back to normal. Thank you.”
