Green bin waste collections are due to partially restart in South Lakeland on Monday.
From next week, South Lakeland District Council is introducing a monthly collection and said it aimed to make one collection per household each month until further notice.
Collections of green waste were suspended as usual in December and January, to allow crews to concentrate on the grey bin and recycling collections, which are always very busy over Christmas and into the new year, and reduce the council’s carbon footprint by around 15 tonnes when green waste is at a very low level.
They were due to restart on February 15, but because of ongoing staffing pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the authority extended its suspension.
From Monday, March 1, residents are asked to check their collection calendar and leave their green bin out on the next scheduled collection day.
Collection crews will begin emptying green bins on the round on the scheduled collection day.
If a bin has not been emptied by the end of the scheduled collection day, residents are asked to take their bin back in and then only put it out on the next scheduled green bin collection day according to the calendar.
Crews will return to continue the rest of the round.
Councillor Phillip Dixon, portfolio holder for customer and commercial services, said: “Quite a few staff are still suffering from COVID, some are shielding and others have had to self isolate so we made the decision to postpone the restart of green bin collections.
“They will start again next week but the collection rate will be once a month as opposed to once a fortnight.
“We are very sorry but we are where we are and these are the constraints we are working under at the moment. We will seek to resume normal service as soon as we can.
“Our normal collection rate for recyclables was around 26 tonnes per day but over the past year that has been in excess of 30 tonnes, a rise of more than 15 per cent.
“The impact of COVID is quite remarkable on the amount of recyclable green waste there was last year and right throughout the year our teams have been working far harder to shift the increased amount of recyclables.
“Our recycling rates for January this year, for example, are up 33 per cent on the same period last year.”
The situation will be reviewed on a weekly basis.
Any bagged waste will be left and the householder should put it in the emptied bin for the next collection.
