Weekly recycling collections to resume in South Gloucestershire on 13 May

Weekly recycling collections to resume in South Gloucestershire on 13 May

Weekly recycling collections will resume across South Gloucestershire from Wednesday 13 May after being temporarily changed to keep essential collections running during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Garden Waste collection to restart on 27th

Garden Waste to restart

Brilliant news, South Glos has got on top of the waste issue and is going to restart garden waste collection from Monday 27th April.

And they are giving users a five week extension to their subscription to cover the missed weeks.

If you have purchased sacks for garden waste from South Glos you can book a one off collection from 27th April.

They are still short staffed, so it might not get collected on the scheduled day, so we will all have to be patient

CHANGES TO WASTE AND RECYCLING

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO WASTE AND RECYCLING SERVICES

Waste is an essential service and we are doing all we can to continue collections during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak while protecting our staff and residents. This means making some changes to waste services so we can collect everyone's waste and recycling with reduced staff levels.

From today (Tuesday 24 March): - Payments for garden waste renewals and new subscriptions have been suspended. - Collections for garden waste will continue until Friday 27 March. From Monday 30 March they will be stopped so available staff can be redeployed to collect black bin waste and recycling (see below). - All of our Sort It recycling centres have been closed.

From Monday 30 March:
- Black bin, clinical waste and sharps collections will carry on as normal.
- Garden waste bin and sack collections will be suspended until further notice.
- Recycling and food collections will change from weekly to every two weeks and will be on the same day as your black bin.
- Bulky waste collections for large household items will be suspended until further notice.
- Waste and recycling collections from properties with communal bins will carry on as normal (every two weeks).

Collections may take place later than normal as we may be working in the evenings as well as during the day. You may also see recycling collected in different vehicles.

These changes are necessary to keep the main waste and recycling collections going during this difficult time. You can help by parking your car to leave space for collection vehicles to get through and putting waste and recycling containers out by 7:00am on your black bin collection day.

Please support our collection crews by staying at least 2 metres away while they are working.

If you are self-isolating because you or someone in your household has Coronavirus (COVID-19) you should put personal waste (such as used tissues) and disposable cleaning cloths in disposable rubbish bags. These bags should be placed into another bag, tied securely and kept separate from other waste. Put them aside for at least 72 hours before being put in your usual external household waste bin.

Other household waste can be disposed of as normal. For further guidance for self-isolating households visit www.gov.uk/coronavirus.

More details about these changes will be available on www.southglos.gov.uk/servicedisruption later this morning.

South Glos Waste Strategy consultation - change of emphasis

South Glos Council's proposed Resource and Waste Strategy is pivoting from the current emphasis on recycling - which has been very successful - to saving resources by reducing consumption. Examples are eliminating single-use items and reducing the amount of raw materials we all use.

There is a detailed strategy document and an online questionnaire, or you can download and print a paper version of the survey to post to South Glos or hand in at a local library or one stop shop. The consultation is open until Friday 27th September 2019.

There will be roadshows - our most local ones are:
02 July (Tuesday) at Waitrose, Chipping Sodbury between 10:00 - 18:00
28 August (Wednesday) at Yate Shopping Centre between 10:00 - 14:00

There will also be presentations at the coming Community Engagement Forums - the one for Yate, Chipping Sodbury and Dodington will be on Thursday 11 July at St Nicholas Church, Abbotswood, Yate BS37 4LG.

Nappy and incontinence waste collections

With the coming change to the smaller black bins, many local residents are worried about disposing of children's nappies and incontinence waste.

Most household waste can be recycled, but if you have a young child or children in disposable nappies, the black bin can fill up quickly. To help families to manage nappy waste South Glos provide a nappy bag collection service.

The one-use purple bags can be put out next to your black bin on collection day, leaving more space for normal non-recyclable household waste inside the bin. Visit www.southglos.gov.uk/nappies for more information. Bags left next to the bin containing normal household waste will not be collected.

We asked South Glos how to dispose of other incontinence waste, and they replied:

"For older children and adults with incontinence we recommend they apply for the extra capacity bin service.  Incontinence waste is usually non-infectious medical waste and therefore can go in with the black bin waste.  This service is free of charge if the need is due to a medical nature"

"If a household is approved then appropriate extra space would be given to help them manage their non-recyclable waste as well as incontinence waste.  This may mean they are approved to keep the bin they have now, or they may be allocated extra space"

Households can email the Waste Management Team on waste.management@southglos.gov.uk or phone 01454 868000 to request the form to apply for the service. There is also a useful web page for households who may need extra help

Thinking ahead to the Big Spring Clean

The South Gloucestershire Spring Clean will run from 13 February to 14 May. This is a chance for individuals and groups to help clean up our local area by organising or taking part in a litter pick.

The national Keep Britain Tidy network will be focusing on the weekend of 2-4 March in particular but you can organise your event at any time in the three months. In fact, as the council has limited equipment to offer, choosing a less popular weekend could be a good idea – as well as booking as far in advance as possible.

To get involved, simply register your event by completing this booking form and send it back to StreetCleansing@southglos.gov.uk – you can find more information on the South Glos website.

Weekly recycling starts this week

Don't forget that from the week beginning 19th June 2017 your recycling will be collected every week. You can find out more at www.southglos.gov.uk/wastestrategy

Brimsham Fields Big Spring Clean event tomorrow!

There will be a Big Spring Clean event at Brimsham Fields, Yate tomorrow (Sat 9th April). Meet at 2pm in the car park at the Coopers Drive end of the site. Come and keep your local park looking tidy!

Please check our previous post for other local Spring Clean events.

Local Big Spring Clean events

Residents and groups across South Gloucestershire are once again preparing to spring into action to clean up their neighbourhood and open spaces, helping to make South Gloucestershire a great place to live and work.

Everyone is welcome to join in. Friends, families, neighbours, parish and town councils, community and voluntary groups, church groups, schools, students, youth clubs, scouts, cadets, brownies, guides, and businesses are all invited to take action against litter in the South Gloucestershire Big Spring Clean 2016.

The Big Spring Clean is the perfect opportunity to venture down to your local open space, woodland, river, park or public garden and help to keep it clean and green.

There are lots of local Big Spring Clean events near us - please come along and help clean up areas that you live near or use:

•  Saturday 9 April - Tern Inn car park and surroundings, Heron Way from 10.00. Please help tidy up this area, especially if you park there to drop off or collect children at Raysfield School or Pre-School. Join Dodington Parish Councillors, staff and friends.
• Thursday 14 April - Yate Common 10.00 to 12.00. Come and help tidy up this local beauty spot. Meet at the Road to Nowhere entrance.
• Saturday 16 April - Abbotswood Spring Clean from 11.00. Take pride in your community and come along to the annual Abbotswood Spring Clean, meeting at 11am in the Shopping Centre - join Abbotswood Action Group and friends in this fun event.
• Sunday 17 April - Yate Common (again - there's a lot of it to clean!) 10.00 to 12.00

Don't forget to register your vehicle to use the Sort It recycling centres

South Gloucestershire residents who want to use the Sort It recycling centres now need to register their vehicle to access the sites. You don't need to sign up straight away, just make sure you register at least 24 hours before your next visit. You can sign up at any time of year and you only need to do it once, unless you change your address or vehicle.

There are two types of registration:

Standard vehicle registration for vehicles of any size (up to 3.5 tonnes) that have rear and/or side facing windows including cars of any size, campervans, people carriers etc.

Restricted vehicle registration for:
• vans of any size without rear facing windows including minibuses, campervans and cars
• 4×4s, pick-up trucks or people carriers (MPV) without rear seats and/or windows or with an open back
• flatbed vehicles, box vans, horse boxes with integrated cab and agricultural vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes.

Restricted vehicles are limited to 12 visits a year. Access times for large vehicles (Monday to Friday – 10am to 2pm, Saturday – 8.30am to 12pm) will continue to apply.

To register your vehicle visit www.southglos.gov.uk/sortitreg. You can also sign up over the phone on 01454 868000 or at the One Stop Shops.

For information about what can be accepted at the Sort It centres, where to find them and opening times visit www.southglos.gov.uk/sortit

Waste and recycling consultation - have your say

South Glos Council is currently consulting about their draft waste management strategy. The key points about this for most householders would be:

• Replacing the 240 litre black bins with smaller 140 litre bins, still only collected every two weeks - the theory is that if people have smaller bins they will recycle more and send less to landfill
• Having fewer different kinds of recycling containers, and using boxes rather than bags, but with recycling collections every week
• Stopping collecting engine oil, car batteries and household batteries

There are no proposals to bring back free green waste collections - the Tories can't afford what they promised at the election.

And they haven't done the business case yet to work out how much all this will cost or save. Why are they consulting without working out the costs? It doesn't make sense.

You can have your say on the draft waste management strategy here - the consultation is open until 15 February.

Another recycling option

You may not be aware that you can recycle clean plastic bags, wrapping and film at the Sort it Centres. Of course since the introduction of the charge for carrier bags many people are reusing those, but this is one way to cut back on the amount of packaging going into your black bin.

Changes to South Glos waste and recycling collections over Christmas and New Year

Waste and recycling days in South Glos will change for a couple of weeks over the Christmas and New Year period.

You can check changes to your collections here.

Useful information this Christmas

Here's a round-up of links to Christmas opening times and other information you might find helpful during the holiday period.

Contacting the council

• The South Glos customer services contact centre will be closed from Christmas Eve afternoon (from 1pm) until 8:45 am on Wednesday 30 December 2015. The offices will also be closed on 1 January 2016. Please note that the adult care contact centre will be open until 5pm on Christmas Eve. When the offices are closed calls will be diverted to a service which deals only with emergencies.
• One Stop Shops will be closed from Christmas Eve afternoon (from 1pm) until Wednesday 30 December 2015. They will also be closed on 1 January 2016.
• You can continue to report issues or apply for services using the council's online forms which will be dealt with after the offices reopen.

More information on council services over Christmas and the New Year period is available here.

Recycling and waste

• Check when your waste will be collected here.
• Information on how to recycle your Christmas tree.
• The Sort It centres are open 8:30am to 4:30pm every day, apart from 25, 26 December 2015 and 1 January 2016.

Libraries
You can find the Christmas and New Year opening times for the local libraries here.

Bus times
Bus timetable information is available from Travelwest.

Train times
The Network Rail website provides information on travel during the holiday period.

Health services and pharmacies
South Gloucestershire CCG provides this advice on what to do if you are injured or feel unwell. They also have details of pharmacy opening times for Christmas and New Year. They advise anyone with long term health conditions to get their medication before Christmas Eve.

Protecting access to Sort It centres

At South Glos Council's last Communities Committee, anyone who uses a works van as their only vehicle was nearly banned from using South Gloucestershire’s Sort It centres for their personal waste. Fortunately we were able to change the Conservative's proposal.

It originally said that vehicles will need to be registered to use the Sort It centres and “any vehicle registered to a business will be declined”. If this had passed, anyone who owns or works for a small business who has their work van as their only vehicle would have been stopped from using the Sort It centres. They would have had no way to dispose of their personal household waste.

Claire Young successfully proposed an amendment asking officers to come up with a scheme to enable those people to continue to use Sort It centres. They will only be allowed to transport household waste, not business waste, but it's right that they should be able to access these services like other residents. Your Focus Team thinks it's important to stand up for the people who run and work for our local small businesses.

SORT IT! Centres open again today

South Glos Council say that as we didn’t get any more snow yesterday all four SORT IT!* Centres are OPEN today. 

Latest SORT IT! updates are posted here.

Snow and missed recycling collections

South Glos Council has announced: 

"Due to the snow and icy conditions on Friday 18 January, there were no household collections of waste or recycling in South Gloucestershire. Residents are asked to take their containers back onto their property and present them on their next scheduled collection day. For food waste this is the following week and for other materials the following fortnight. Reasonable amounts of side waste (waste that won't fit in the bin/box) will be collected"

Meanwhile the Sort-It Centres are closed today (Saturday 19 January) and decisions on opening will be taken on a daily basis.

Christmas recycling collections

You can find out when your recycling will be collected over Christmas on the South Glos website.

Waste and recycling arrangements for Jubilee bank holidays

South Glos council has announced that all waste and recycling will be collected as normal on Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 June.

Collection times may vary in order to avoid street parties or similar events, so please put all waste and recyclables out for collection by 7am on the correct day.

Residents organising a street party can contact the council on 01454 868 000 if their event falls on their scheduled collection day, and every effort will be made to collect from their road before street party preparations begin.

Additional waste outside wheeled bins can be taken to the nearest SORT IT!* Centre, which will be open as normal.

Recycling update

Since late March, SITA have been distributing bags for cardboard recycling to all those on the waiting list. If you asked for one and haven't got it or would like to ask for one for the first time, please ring 01454 868000 or request one online.

Residents raised a number of concerns when we carried out surveys earlier this year. Officers have investigated complaints of boxes and bags not being put back properly and have answered some of your recycling questions:

• All food waste can be accepted except larged uncooked bones, as these don't break down well in the anaerobic digester.
• Envelopes can go in the paper recycling as long as you remove the plastic windows.
• Pieces of wood of no more than 4" diameter can go in the green waste bin - larger pieces can be recycled at the Sort IT centre.
• Old clothes and shoes can be put out in a carrier bag with the green box.