Due to the extreme weather conditions bin collections have been severely disrupted. Only 250 tonnes of waste was collected from city streets yesterday compared to around 400 tonnes on a normal day.
To help households manage their waste the Council is introducing up to 70 temporary bin skips sited across the city in public locations such as supermarket car parks , schools and leisure centres for the public to take their excess rubbish. A map is available with locations arranged to date on the severe weather pages of the Council’s website.
As wheelie bins are not currently being collected, residents are also being advised to put excess household refuse in their brown garden waste bin until full service is resumed. Priority attention has been given to snow clearing, particularly to gain access to multi-story blocks to prevent the build up of refuse.
During the severe weather period the Council has been providing a limited service for on street, kerbside and communal household bins as well as trade rubbish bins and recycling boxes in the city centre and on main roads. Waste services staff are also clearing excess rubbish left on the street where access is possible.
But the deep snow, ice and limited access has been making it impossible in some areas for the bin lorries, especially HGVs to get into residential streets.
During the cold snap the public are being kept informed of alternative arrangements and how they should deal with their waste in the meantime.
Councillor Robert Aldridge, Environmental Leader, said: “The refuse service will be back out in force as soon as there is a thaw, but in the meantime, we are asking the public to use these alternative arrangements to manage their household waste. At the start of the cold snap we did try to get the bins emptied on some roads. However, with hazardous conditions and deep snow it just wasn’t possible, in some areas, to get bin trucks into streets to empty bins. I would like to thank the public for their patience while we work hard to get the refuse service back out again.”
All four civic amenity sites located at Sighthill, Seafield, Craigmillar and Braehead are also open seven days per week.
Residents will be able to take vans or cars with trailers to these sites to drop of their refuse in black bags.
Commercial vans will also be allowed into the sites for black bag household waste only. This arrangement will run from Monday until further notice.
David Lyon, Head of Environment, said: “We are pulling out all the stops and doing everything we can to get the refuse service running as normal. I would like to thank everyone for their patience; we recognise the frustration that the bad weather caused. The current thaw is predicted to stay with us over the weekend, but more snow may be on the way next week, so we would ask the public to work with us as it may take us a little longer on getting the backlog cleared.”
Council staff are continuing to work to clear and grit roads and pavements on Category 1, 2 and 3 routes.
