Recycling centre sees record numbers drop in
THERE appeared to be a post- Christmas rush at Gorey Recyling Centre after staff reported being busier than ever before during the first day opening after the holidays.
Peter Byrne of the Wexford County Council service said that his staff usually prepare to be busy the few days after Christmas and particularly in the run up to December 30 and 31, but this year they were surprised to see that rush come early.
‘Normally we put on extra staff, but December 29 has always been the quieter day and it gets busier later on. But with the Level 5, our visitors were up by between 80 to 100 people compared to last year and that was across all sites.
‘With Covid-19 this year, it seemed there was nothing else open so they all went to do their recycling on that Tuesday.
‘It was so busy, it wouldn’t be the norm but we were prepared’.
The team have now moved on to Christmas tree shredding, but they’ll never forget that day in late December.
‘ There was a queue was from the site to the road and it was particularly busy between 11 a.m. at 1 p.m., when about half or more of the daily total came. We had a traffic management plan in place, as well as standby staff but thankfully things quietened down after that and have since’.
Crunching the numbers, Mr Byrne reported an incidence of heavy loads at bottle banks as well as a larger collection of glass during the lockdown periods throughout 2020.
‘We have been busier during the pandemic but just to put it into perspective, on Tuesday, December 29, 2019 we had 130 people and this year we had 225, so that’s 95 more people and in 2018, we had 140 people. On the day, we noticed too there were people coming who weren’t regulars’.
Across the sites, New Ross saw 229 visits, Wexford 271 and Enniscorthy saw 192.