(adapted from an email from Edinburgh Council Waste Services to LCCC’s vice-chair)

Thank you for taking the time to write and to acknowledge the efforts of the Department to maintain a degree of normality for the majority of the services. There are a number of factors which have influenced where we currently find ourselves. Crews have obviously had to adapt to the way we collect (physical distancing in the workplace), less traffic will certainly have contributed positively, and of course less people being on the streets generally means less litter and areas that have been cleaned tend to last a little bit longer before their next clean is required.

We have seen less general waste collected from April into May but this does tend to fluctuate quite dramatically under normal circumstances anyway. Volumes of mixed recycling have increased as you can probably imagine given people are consuming more at home. Since we reintroduced glass collections we have been collecting significant volumes which is understandable given the service being suspended but equally I believe alcohol sales have increased by around 30% so I think increased tonnage of glass will endure for a few weeks yet.

We’ve obviously worked hard to get garden waste collections reinstated as quickly as we felt possible. In the first week of collections we collected around 1000 tonnes which compares to 3000 tonnes in total for all of May ’19.

The service was suspended for 5 weeks which means some customers missed two uplifts and others missed three. We will extend the permit ‘season’ to compensate customers for the service suspension.

Best regards

Andy Williams  |  Waste & Cleansing Service Manager
Waste and Cleansing Services | Place Directorate | The City of Edinburgh Council
A: Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, Edinburgh EH8 8BG | T: 0131 469 5660 | M: 07725 642822 | E: andy.williams@edinburgh.gov.uk