Environmental services, including collections of household waste at the kerbside, will resume next week as staff from Wirral Council’s contractor, Biffa, return to work after a week of industrial action.
Street cleansing will restart on Sunday 11 December, focusing on those areas of the highest priority. During the industrial action, environmental officers working for the council have been monitoring litter bins, so Biffa can be directed to those areas most in need when the service resumes.
Household waste collections will restart on Monday 12 December, but residents should note a significant schedule change for this week as the council seeks to ensure that collecting the most potentially hazardous waste is given priority.
Between Monday 12 and Friday 16, all households across Wirral should put their green (general) waste bin out for collection on their usual collection day. General rubbish collections are a priority due to food or other waste that could be a hazard to health if left uncollected for a prolonged period.
The normal collection cycle of bin collections will then resume from Monday 19 December. For some households, this will mean their green bin is collected on consecutive weeks.
Biffa has confirmed that their crews will be unable to collect any additional waste or recycling left out in bags that does not fit in their wheelie bin. Residents are asked to keep hold of this until their bin has been emptied to be collected on the next scheduled collection day – or take it to one of the three Household Waste Recycling Centres in Wirral.
Garden waste bin collections (brown bin) are about to be paused for winter. This subscription service has an annual shutdown from 12 December to 9 January 2023. However, residents who were due a garden waste collection during the week of industrial action will not miss out and this collection will be made the week of Tuesday 3 to Friday 6 January 2023. These residents should put their bins out for collection by 7am on their usual collection day that week.
Wirral Council and Biffa have also confirmed arrangements for bin collections over the Christmas period. This will only affect residents whose normal scheduled collection day would have been Boxing Day – Monday 26 December 2022.
Their waste will instead be collected earlier – on Saturday 24 December. Affected households are asked to ensure whichever bin that was due to be collected on Monday 26 should be put out for collection by 7am on Christmas Eve (24 December).
At a glance – summary
• My GREEN bin was not collected during the week of 5–9 December:-
Your next GREEN bin collections will be week commencing 12 December AND week commencing 19 December. Your next GREY bin collection will be either Saturday 24 December (if Monday is your regular scheduled day) or between Tuesday 27 and Friday 30 December on whichever is your regular scheduled collection day.
• My GREY bin was not collected during the week of 5–9 December:-
Your schedule will return to normal. Your next GREY bin collection will be week commencing 19 December. Your next GREEN bin collection will be week commencing 12 December. At Christmas, if Monday is your normal collection day, your GREEN bin will instead by collected on Saturday 24 December from 7am.
• My BROWN bin was not collected during the week of 5-9 December:-
Your missed collection will instead take place between 3-6 January, on whatever is your regular collection day for garden waste. Otherwise, garden waste (BROWN) bin collections will pause for winter from 12 December and the service will resume from 9 January 2023.
Image: Graham Richardson CC BY 2.0
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