Western Morning News (Saturday)
Bin men working overtime during driver shortage
RATS, maggots, dog poo and the stench of rotting food – they’re all part of a day’s work for Torbay’s bin men, who on top of all that are now also working long overtime shifts in the battle to beat a shortage of drivers.
Up to half the Bay’s dustcarts have not been able to go out on their rounds and the only reason the English Riviera is not up to its eyes in uncollected rubbish is thanks to men like Mark Pearson and Andy Gee.
Bin men in Torbay are contracted to work a 40-hour week with their shifts starting at 6am – in the dark for much of the year – and they are supposed to finish at 2.45pm.
But this summer, they are lucky to clock off by 5pm, working up to 55 hours, with paid overtime to get the job done.
Managers and supervisors have been jumping behind the dust carts too, to keep the show on the road.
Torbay is not alone – bin collections have been delayed in at least 18 council areas in England due to self-isolation rules and an HGV driver shortage and the problem has hit neighbouring Devon council areas.
In the South Hams the council has said ‘enough is enough’ and is about to pull the plug on the private firm contracted to provide waste collection services after claims of ‘appalling’ recycling failures.
In East Devon, non-recyclable waste is now only collected every three weeks.
Mid Devon District Council is currently five drivers short as the national crisis deepens and supervisors are stepping in to drive the lorries.
In West Devon, residents are being left with full recycling bins due to some collections being cancelled and they have been told to hang on to food waste for a second week.
Eight of Torbay Council’s 40 drivers have quit the service in recent months, tempted by the high salaries of the private sector.
And Mark, who has worked as a bin man in Torquay for around 13 years, said they’ve just heard of one more driver handing in his notice.
He said: “We’ve had another one this week – he’s from Torquay and he’s leaving because he’s been offered £15 an hour by another local council.”
In an attempt to retain drivers, Torbay Council recently put up their salary by 61p to £11.49 an hour, plus £60 for every full week worked.
This has cost the council £200,000, but it is seemingly not enough.
“If you look at the average cost of an HGV driver around here, it’s currently £15 an hour,” says Ian Hartley, Torbay Council’s head of waste and recycling.
“If we put all of our drivers on £15 an hour, it would add half a million pounds to our budget. We just don’t have the money.”
Mark said: “There’s seven dustcarts and there’s meant to be 21 rounds, but half don’t go out because there’s not enough drivers.” To help out, he now finishes one round and then carries straight on to another.
He recalled earlier years when there were five of them on each dustcart crew – but now it’s just three, including the driver.
The service is so short-staffed, managers are having to go out on rounds, but can still run only 18 of their 22 weekly collections around the Bay.
Without the 50 plus men running the Torbay waste collection service, the holiday resort would be in even more dire straits.
In Torquay, Andy is one of the driver-loaders who gets paid £24,000 a year
The older generation care more. They’re the ones who sort their boxes meticulously for us ANDY GEE
– and watches other drivers quit for better jobs, seeing their pay double overnight.
He told The Guardian this week that he doesn’t mind being called a bin man, but said the public often don’t care. “We’re heroes to zeros in seconds,” he said. “During the pandemic we were heroes, because we were out working, but as soon as they went back to work we were zeros again.”
He added that the older generation show greater respect, and save them time on the rounds, saying: “They care more. They’re the ones who sort their boxes meticulously for us.”
Council leader Steve Darling revealed that managers with HGV licences were having to jump into the bin lorries to help out. Along with his counterparts in Teignbridge and North Devon, he called on the Home Secretary to help. In a joint letter to the Home Secretary, Cllr Darling said: “We are asking why the government isn’t giving temporary visas for European drivers. We are training our own drivers, but it is only a partial answer to the shortfall. It isn’t going to sort things out immediately.”