RECAP News
23/12/2009 - Snow and ice disrupts bin collections further
Cambridge City Council’s refuse and recycling services are still being disrupted due to compacted snow and ice on roads and footpaths
Waste collection
The Council’s waste collection crews have been out today collecting blue, black and green bins. Services were suspended on Friday 18, December 2009, due to ice and compacted snow on untreated roads and footpaths, making movement in narrow streets, by heavy vehicles, dangerous. There has been little snow melt over the last few days meaning some Friday collections have still not taken place and as more collections are due more streets are found to be inaccessible.
Chloe Hipwood, Waste Operations Manager, said: “Without a significant improvement in temperatures today it is becoming less and less likely that the few remaining streets will be collected before Christmas. We are revisiting streets daily but the icy streets with little traffic, those which are narrow with parking either side, or those on hills are in many cases just too dangerous for us to attempt collections.”
“The un-gritted streets have proven to be more of a problem this year than ever before as very little is melting at the moment. We will continue to attempt collections before Christmas as a priority, however we have to consider the danger our large 26-tonne vehicles pose on un-gritted streets, our professional drivers are assessing each street and will continue to return including on Christmas Eve to try to make collections, our message to residents who missed black and blue bin collections due to the snow is to please put blue and black bins and boxes out as normal until Christmas Eve. If your blue and black bins are not collected on the normal collection day then please bring them in overnight and put them out again the following day. No collections will take place on Christmas Day, Saturday or Sunday.”
“Today we are sending out a smaller vehicle to collect brown sacks to prevent them becoming a problem on the streets however these sacks will be manually lifted onto the vehicle so we will be unable to take any bins.”
Collections of garden and food waste from green bins are also being affected because the low temperatures are freezing the contents inside the bins.When the crew lifts the bin, much of the contents get stuck and stay inside instead of dropping into the lorry.
Vicky Kelso from the council's recycling team advises: "Putting a large piece of cardboard in the bottom of your bin can help to prevent the wetter organic matter from sticking to it when it freezes.
"Wrapping food waste in paper before putting in your bin and trying not to squash everything down too much can also help."
Due to current collection problems we won’t be able to return for frozen bins until the next scheduled collection day.
The Council would like to remind residents that collections due on Christmas day will be collected on Monday 28th December 2009 and those due on new years day will be collected on Saturday 2nd January 2010, other collection days remain the same.
Any other changes to collections affected by the snow and ice will be updated on our website www.cambridge.gov.uk
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