Garden Waste Collection Service Resumed

East Staffordshire Borough has announced that it will resume its garden waste collection service on Monday 20th April.

The difficult decision to suspend brown bin collections was made on Saturday 21st March due to a reduction in staff availability as a result of the coronavirus. In line with Government recommendations, the Council prioritised its waste collection services to focus on collecting both household waste and dry recycling whilst monitoring staff availability on a daily basis.

With some staff returning after isolation, the use of additional agency staff and other employees transferring their skills to help with waste collection, the decision has been made to reinstate our garden waste collection service.

This service will continue to be monitored on a daily basis and the Council cannot rule out further suspensions in the future. For this reason, please continue to check our website for the latest information.

Residents should present their brown bins for collection by 6.30am on the same day as their usual blue bin collection. All collection days and frequencies of collection will remain the same.

Councillor Ray Faulkner, Deputy Leader for Environment and Housing, said: “I would like to thank our collection crews for all of their hard work over recent weeks and thank residents for your patience and understanding.

“It was important that the Council followed Government recommendations and prioritised household waste and recycling collections, but I’m delighted that we can now resume garden waste collections.

“Please help keep yourself safe, and our waste team safe, by washing your bin handles with warm soapy water before presenting your bin and after it has been collected.”

As a result of more people being at home, households are generating more waste and collection tonnages have increased. This additional waste places considerable pressure on the collection crews who have worked extremely hard in recent weeks to provide a service.

Because of these circumstances, we are asking residents to only present their standard brown bins for collection. This will allow the Council to reintroduce the garden waste service in a controlled manner and to ensure that all households are able to receive the service.