Thurrock Council announces improvements to garden waste collections

From Monday 27 July, brown bins will continue to follow a two-weekly schedule but will be collected on the same day of residents’ normal blue and green/grey bin collection.

Cllr Aaron Watkins, Thurrock Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, said: 

“I know residents have experienced missed bin collections where the service has had difficulties and there has been confusion over the previous weeks, especially regarding brown bin collections.

“Our waste crews have been working flat out over this period and are dealing with unprecedented demand due to a significant rise in the amount of household waste being produced. This means more work for our crews and more trips in our lorries back to the depot or the tip site in east London to empty heavy loads being carried.

“Where missed collections have occurred, our teams have attempted to go back the same day, the next day and worked weekends to collect as much as possible. I personally want to thank each staff member for their work over the previous months. Your dedication and efforts have not gone unnoticed.”

Residents will need to check the street names A-Z pages on the council website at www.thurrock.gov.uk/household-waste-and-recycling/bin-collection-days for the week – ‘Week One’ or ‘Week Two’ – that their garden waste will be collected on. Depending on which week their road falls under, residents are asked to put all three bins out – garden waste, recycling and general waste – on their normal scheduled collection day. Garden waste will then be picked up on a fortnightly basis and recycling and general waste will be collected weekly.

Cllr Watkins added:

“COVID-19 has not gone away and, like many other professions, staff have been unable to attend work for a variety of reasons. We have been following Government guidelines and liaising with the Unions to enable safe ways of working for additional and existing staff to support and increase the capacity of the workforce. This should also assist with the unprecedented demand the service is experiencing and alleviate the collection issues experienced over recent weeks.

“We have been listening to residents’ concerns and, moving forward, from Monday 27 July, brown bin collections will remain every two weeks, but will be picked up on the same day as your normal blue and grey/green bin collection. During this time, we still remind residents they can put their food waste into their green/grey bins or self-compost food waste where possible.

“I want to apologise to residents for the difficulties experienced over the previous weeks. Missed bin collections can be reported online at thurrock.gov.uk/report. Thank you to our residents for their patience during this time.”