Most waste services continuing collections undeterred

The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) has revealed that all but a few councils are still managing providing collection services for domestic residual waste as normal.

Seeking to understand the status of waste services across England, and how they have been affected so far by coronavirus, the ADEPT survey will be repeated at least weekly to track any changes, but the initial findings are that most councils are continuing to deliver core recycling and residual waste services, largely unaffected.

After receiving responses from over 200 councils, the emerging picture is mainly positive. Despite running at an average of over 20 per cent down on staff numbers, all but a few councils are still managing providing collection services for domestic residual waste as normal, and over 90 per cent of responding councils are maintaining their recycling services as normal or with only minor disruption. Encouragingly, no councils report any significant disruption to waste disposal and treatment services such as energy from waste incineration and landfill.

However, in order to maintain these levels of service, about a third of councils have temporarily suspended collections of garden waste, and about two thirds have suspended bulky waste collections. Almost all council have closed household waste recycling centres in order to protect staff and customers and to help enforce social distancing.

Ian Fielding, chair of ADEPT’s Waste Group, said: “I would like to thank all those who took time to respond and ask them to keep providing us with weekly updates. Their input is invaluable in enabling us to keep up with the rapidly changing developments across the country. So far, the picture is good. Although there has been some disruption but it seems to be business as usual for most councils on core services like residual waste and recycling collections. I’d like to pay tribute to our frontline workers who are providing an essential service. It is because of them and our officers that we are continuing to provide collections for our communities.”