Bristol Waste still 'fragile' as progress made on missed bin collections

Bristol Waste is still “fragile” as progress has been made on reducing the number of missed bin collections. Now only around 10 roads are skipped each day, according to the latest figures from Bristol City Council.

In September a “damning report” revealed how the council-owned waste collection firm struggled to cope after budget cuts last year. Routes were changed which led to a high number of residents not having their bins collected, then eventually the budget cuts were reversed.

While fewer residents now suffer from missed collections, Bristol Waste is still struggling with “hiccups”. An update on bin collections was given to councillors on the environment policy committee on Thursday, November 7.

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Liberal Democrat Councillor Tim Kent said: “We’ve been told a solution has been enacted, but I know the problem is still pretty bad at the moment. Streets are still being dropped in my ward [ Hengrove and Whitchurch Park].”

Green Cllr Martin Fodor, chair of the committee, added: “We’ve inherited the situation, we’re trying to put things right and resources have been put back into the service. But it’s not perfect yet. I believe it has considerably improved.”

One of the biggest issues is if some streets are missed, and bin men then return the next day, that can impact other rounds throughout the week. While Bristol Waste is obliged to return the following day to missed streets, council bosses say going back on the weekend might sometimes be better.

Ken Lawson, head of waste and recycling at the council, said: “Bristol Waste should return to a dropped road the following day. When we were at the peak of the problems, they would have gone back maybe at the weekend or after two days, because of the scale of the challenge they were facing. Some roads were repeatedly missed and they weren’t gone back to.

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“Now that we’re at a place where the service is moving in the right direction, we would envisage that the streets would be picked up the next day. That said, if we experience a bad Monday, historically we’ve always allowed that to ripple through the week, then it always means that the Thursday and Friday services are a bit more impacted.

“So actually, do we decide to collect this on the following Saturday? That would be under extreme circumstances, just to stop that ripple through the whole week, because then you’re impacting every day.

“Bristol Waste has put more resources in. They were trying to put out fires all the time at the peak of it. Now they’re at a point where the service is still fragile, to be honest. We will have hiccups and until we’ve had a long period of stability, it’s going to be fragile.”