Recycling delays just ‘teething trouble’

AWESTCOUNTRY council and the waste collection business it has employed to manage collections defended the system yesterday, after two weeks of problems which has left up to 1,000 households with missed or severely delayed collections.

South Hams Council has admitted its new recycling system ran into “teething problems” because of difficulties getting large recycling collection vehicles into “hard to reach” areas.

The district has hundreds of miles of narrow lanes and dozens of villages created in the days of horses and carts.

Recycling contractor FCC Environment said it is now “working hard” to collect bins that have been missed, after its lorries were unable to fit down some narrow lanes.

Cllr Keith Baldry, South Hams District Council’s lead member for waste and recycling explained that the new routes were driven to test that each vehicle was allocated correctly, but “as with any new service there are some exceptions that are not identified in advance”.

As a result, FCC is now re-allocating these routes to the appropriate sized vehicle “as soon as possible”.

The contractor is prioritising properties which have had repeated missed collections and asked residents “bear with” crews while missed bins are collected.

The new system, which sees recycling and food waste picked up every week, has been operating in West Devon “successfully” for the last 10 years.

Some residents have praised the new system which means more items can be recycled, including glass that used to have to be taken to bottle banks. Others have pointed out problems with it – with some locals collections running a week behind.

One villager whose recycling was collected more than a week late criticised the system. “It looks like the binmen are having to walk to the hard-to-get places in narrow lanes where the lorry won’t fit,” he said

“It’s not easy to lug two big green boxes, a bag of plastic waste and a waste food caddy more than 50 yards, then take the empty containers all the way back to the house”.

Cllr Baldry said that all missed grey and brown bin collections aim to be collected within three working days.