Dry recycling collections remain suspended across North East Lincolnshire until Monday 14 August to help clear the current backlog of domestic and garden waste.
As previously reported, the waste service has been experiencing delays in the last few weeks due to staffing issues.
The council is reassuring residents that initial issues, which centred on staff shortages, were quickly resolved. Additional permanent staff were employed to bring the levels back up to full complement and temporary agency workers have been brought in to supplement current staffing and manage staff sickness and leave.
However separate issues have remained with some of the loading staff (those that put the bins on the back of the wagons) which involve some team members unexpectedly changing their working practices. This has resulted in slower collection times and subsequent delays to the service. The council also confirmed that it has been seeking an urgent meeting with the Trade Unions to discuss the current issues, and this had now been set up. There will be no further statements until that meeting has been held as this is an internal staffing matter at this stage.
Cllr Stewart Swinburn, Cabinet member for the environment, said: “We are meeting regularly with officers and being kept up to date with the issues the service is having.
“Additional staffing is helping to bring household waste and garden waste rounds up to date, but given the current working practice being shown by some of the loaders, it is still not possible to reintroduce the recycling at this stage, and this is affecting the whole borough.
“We want to assure residents that the Council is doing everything it can through HR colleagues and the Unions to resolve the current issues, and this will be maintained until the situation is resolved.
“The council is considering its options in relation to those staff who are not performing their duties in the normal way and we are already looking at appropriate contingency plans in case things are not resolved as a matter of urgency.
“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the majority of the waste team members, who are working extremely hard and going above and beyond to ensure the service is maintained as well as it possibly can be in the current circumstances.”
General advice:
If there’s not enough room in your recycling bin to wait for another month, the advice is to put recycling in their household bin temporarily, and it will be taken away with other household waste. Any waste from the household waste bins is used to generate electricity at the energy from waste plant.
Household recycling can also be taken to the Community Recycling Centres (CRCs or tips) in Grimsby and Immingham.
If bins are not emptied in your street, please do not call us. Put your bins out by 7am the next day and we will empty them as soon as we can.
Please do not leave unemptied recycling bins in the street, take them back onto your property.
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