Waste Collection Service Update – Friday 1st July 2022

Friday's update from WDC

• Some collection crews are currently working between 1 and 4 days behind schedule while they clear the backlog of waste that accumulated during the strike.  If you are due a collection of rubbish, recycling or garden waste please place your bin out for collection as normal.  Be assured that if your road is not collected on the scheduled day, they will be returning within the next few working days to catch up.  For this reason, if your road is not emptied please leave the bin out ready for collection.

• There is no need to notify us if your road has not been emptied on the scheduled collection day.  Our contractor, Biffa, are monitoring the progress of collection crews carefully to ensure that all roads will be collected within a few days of their scheduled day.  Please only contact us to report your bin has been missed if your road has had the bins emptied but your individual bin has not.

• To ensure your bins are emptied, please make sure they are placed out for collection by 6.30am on your scheduled collection day, or preferably the evening before.  Where bins are not placed out in time for them to be emptied we regret we will be unable to arrange a return collection. Over the next few weeks the crews will be catching up the backlog of bin collections and return to the normal collection schedule.

• If you are unsure which bin you are due to have collected or on what dates your collections are, please use the bin day search on our website at www.wealden.gov.uk  Enter your postcode and select your address to see your bin collection days or download a collection calendar.

• Please note that the amount of rubbish, recycling or garden waste that can be removed by the crews is limited so they may not be able to remove some or all the extra waste if bags are placed next to the bin.  At this time Biffa are working to ensure as many households as possible receive at least a collection of the contents of the bins however, as the catch up work progresses reasonable amounts of excess waste will be collected.

• For extra recycling that cannot fit lose into the recycling bin, please place it in non-black bags beside the bin.  We are unable to collect recycling when it is placed in black bags because it is cannot be recycled and is treated as contamination and may result in a rejection of the whole lorry load at the recycling centre.

While Biffa have restarted all collections following the end of the strike there will be some residual disruption to services while the crews remove the extra waste that accumulated during the strike. Please bear with us and continue to check our updates for the latest information on collection services.  Our customer service team are busy helping people across a range of services. The most up to date information is available on our website. 

Wealden District Council has frozen the price for its garden waste collection service until 2024.  Wealden Councillors made this decision in recognition of the recent disruption to the collection service during the bin strike and, to help residents manage at a time when there are increasing cost of living pressures on households.  This means that Wealden’s garden waste collection service will stay at £55 per bin per year until at least July 2024. 

If you contact us or use your local County Council amenity tip, we kindly ask that you are kind and patient with each other and the staff.  This comes following recent reports of verbal abuse.  These staff are not employed by Biffa and are not involved in the strike in any way.  They are simply working as hard as possible to help manage your enquiries and ensure you have a facility where you can dispose of your waste while collection services return to normal.

You may have a few questions so please see our list of questions and answers to explain why this happened, what the impact may be over the next few weeks and, what you can do.

Once again, we apologise for any inconvenience that may be caused by this situation and thank you for your cooperation and understanding during this time.